The phrase “violence never solved anything” is utter gibbirish…
Violence is an exceptionaly powerful method of negotiation…
Here’s an illustration with a guy and a mobster:
“do this and i wont kill ya kids! but just to show ya i’m serious… I’m gonna plug ya wife!” the guy does whatever it was… and then the mobster kills his kids his dog and the guy… Job done… and no witnesses. problem solved…
Now imagine the equilivent of the above happening between countries… Let’s anthropomorphize a countries and listen to what it’s sayin…
USA: “Gimme ya oil at cheap prices and stop badmouthin me… or i’ll plug ya kids! and just to show ya i’m serious i’m gonna kill this here one kid… Iraq is it?”
Mad Man P":The phrase “violence never solved anything” is utter gibbirish…
Violence is an exceptionaly powerful method of negotiation…
Here’s an illustration with a guy and a mobster:
“do this and i wont kill ya kids! but just to show ya i’m serious… I’m gonna plug ya wife!” the guy does whatever it was… and then the mobster kills his kids his dog and the guy… Job done… and no witnesses. problem solved…
Now imagine the equilivent of the above happening between countries… Let’s anthropomorphize a countries and listen to what it’s sayin…
USA: “Gimme ya oil at cheap prices and stop badmouthin me… or i’ll plug ya kids! and just to show ya i’m serious i’m gonna kill this here one kid… Iraq is it?”
K: Violence succeeds on only the weak, feeble and those who are
afraid, and that is only short term. In the long run, violence doesn’t
work. Now show me a instance of where violence has
succeeded. You might say war or some other thing.
But if you think about it, say WW 2, I say, it was not
the violence per se, but the fact the axis power got beaten
down, they lost the desire to fight a and b they ran out of
resources. Now after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, the
stage was set for the next war, WW 1. and WW 1 lead to
WW 2. For violence also begets violence. What is the old saying,
Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.
Besides… labeling all those who are dulled through violence as weak or otherwise “negative” terms… will not alter the fact that ALLOT of those people exist/have existed… and therfor that violence WILL/HAS succeed/ed…
If i remember correctly… the U.S.A. Kicked the british out and won their freedom through use of violence… and it’s been holding up pretty nicely thus far…
it was not the violence… but the fact that they got beaten down??
How on earth did they get beat down… without the use of violence??
Not always… Napoleon died on some island… he “lived by the sword” so to speak… countless soldiers of war have made it back and lived to a ripe old age… and countless children have “died by the sword” without ever having “lived by it”… that old saying is gibbirish as well…
Violence only begets violence if you allow your enemies to survive…
Besides… the amarican and british seem to be doing fine these days… even though their history is one of violence… not to mention europe… it has had its share of wars… and now they are all dancing gleefully under the EU banner… well… maybe not gleefully… but there is no violence anymore…
When one guy has $10 and a gun, he is not as ritch and as prosperious as another guy who has $100, a wife, kids, and no gun. The guy with the guy can shot man#2, rape his wife, shot her, then the kids, take the $100, leave, do what ever he likes after that. The guy with the gun is now more ritch then the other.
The question of “ritch” and “who is better” was based on an individual, or could have been based on a group of people, vs another person or persons. If both of the parties did not kill, and instead spent their time working, they would collectively have more to show for it then they would have if they were alone.
It is a classic case of cooperation vs competition.
Civilization exists because a group of people can get along and have [relative] justice instead of chaos.
Saying that ‘violance’ ‘works’ is directed towards compedative views of ‘works’. Saying ‘Those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword’ [quoting Jesus here] is based on the cooperative view of ‘works’.
Wither between groups or between individuals, it is best for both to work with each other instead of working against each other.
The guy with the gun would never actually have to use it… well… maybe just to wound the other guy…
He’d go over to the rich guys house every week… get his cash… sleep with his wife… and leave again… effectivly making the gun-less person his slave… and although it is true that he would be able to make more if he worked along side his slave… he might be content siting on his fat ass and doing nothing… and getting paid for having a gun…
“My mother always told me that violence never solves anything”
“I wonder what the forefathers of Hiroshima would say about that… you”
“They probably wouldn’t say anything, Hiroshima was destroyed.”
(Starship Troopers)
Seriously though, I’d like for it to be different but the fact is that you can even change someone’s entire belief system (allegedly the most ‘inherent’ and ‘internal’ thing about a person) if you torture them in the right way(s).
Well people like Max Weber in Politics as Vocation and Charles Tilly in The Politics of Collective Violence argue that the existance of the state is dependent on violence. They claim that the state holds the ‘monopoly of the legitimate use of physical violence’. When the state acts violently, say through police breaking up a riot, the violence used by them is referred to as ‘force’, necessary force. On the other hand when a citizen acts out disruptively we call it ‘violence’, and depend on the legal system to use their legitimate force in punishing the criminal. Some might argue that the legal system does not work, but as far as ordinary citizens go it seems like it does…so I’ll use this as an example of a time when violence has succeeded.
Sure violence can trump anything else in a specific negotiation (as long as you win)
However the phrase ‘violence doesn’t work’ refers to the long term and to a wider scope from our selfish genes to humanity as a whole.
It is referring to violence as a vicious cycle, and it holds.
There are two ways in which the cycle can end:
The only way out of the cycle is to kill everyone who has any kinship for to whom you are killing (genocide) in which case you have already lost because of the human tragedy. Your own people will not stand idly by. Other neutral peoples will become your enemy because you are the enemy of humanity they will have no qualms about using the same tactics you used against others. Most humans feel very strongly about what is fair and just (consider the ‘Ultimatum Game’ from experimental economical game theory)
Destruction of those who continue the cycle
Transcend violence and collaborate as allies.
Not quite peace and harmony but settling differences through negotiations diplomatically.
