on violence
I sometimes think the view that people in history were stupid and overemotional people just beating each other’s heads in for no reason really aids in complacency in oppression.
We believe that we are smarter now, superior and morally righteous, while the people in the past were barbarous, didn’t wash themselves and were uneducated.
Meanwhile, it’s those very same people that you owe a lot of rights and information to. They’re the people that killed kings, that threatened landlords, that burned down inhumane factories and refused to work. They’re the ones that killed French royalty for a better life. We still profit off of historical people’s willingness for violence today, especially in union rights and human rights, or even having a democracy to begin with.
But we hide behind the fact that they must have been brutish, and a real enlightened individual such as ours would simply solve it all with words, and standing in a queue to vote, or silently congregating in front of a building for 3 hours with a few signs. Surely, things will change then, as we are talking to other reasonable enlightened individuals ready to listen and admit fault. And if nothing changes, we just respectfully agree to disagree, and stay in our misery.
I just don’t think people back then and us are so different in that regard and pretending otherwise may harm us. It’s good that we have options at our disposal that allow us non-violent means of negotiating, but what happens when they are taken away, ignored, ineffective? What if your opponent is armed up to the teeth? What if your opponent is deporting and disappearing people and you want to put a stop to that? What if you lose the right to vote? Consider that people back then were not too dumb to realize that pacifism is good, but instead were pushed into violence as the only option.
I find it weird to live in a culture that idolizes killing the bad people in fiction but will clutch their pearls about real life bad people getting killed. Of course not everything in fiction can or should just be applied to reality, but I don’t understand how you can sympathize with the rebels and heroes so much in a movie and recognize why it had to be done, and not see parallels to that in your real life. The reason Andor was so popular is that it showed the intricacies of a fascist system, and how mundane the inner workings are, and that there are “good” people in it that just do their job. People called out how extremely analogous it feels to real life politics in their countries. So when is the connect happening in the brain that some people will likely be pushed to react in a similar way that the heroes and rebels did?
You know why there isn’t a disclaimer like “No violence! No one deserves to be killed for their job or political opinions!” when Darth Vader, or some Marvel asshole or Syril Karn gets killed. It would be silly and undermine the entire message. I think by enjoying it all and empathizing with the heroes in the story, you do understand well why some figures in a story need to be killed, and that it might be good and just, or no big loss; a desperate attempt to stop a killing machine, even if it is just a single cog in it. Now you just have to make the jump and see these situations in real life without thinking that that makes you some kind of atrocious animal. It’s not like the powerful have no ways of avoiding it getting that far, or no protections against it.
No violence is generally something I can support. However, I also have to recognize that when you make someone powerless, all they have left is violence.
The side the murdered was on, for example, was the side of wealth, of military, of political power. The powerless can not vote their protection into power (or not at all times), they have been starved of financial resources, and they have increasingly been starved of their networks and mutual aid. They increasingly do not have weapons as they are barred to do so, it is expensive, or they don’t wish to own or use one. They would be a drop in the bucket against military anyway.
But the side of money and power keeps coming at them, and coming at them, and coming at them. When those feel insecure or threatened, they move away, they build a wall, they create gated communities, they arm up, and they know they have the power to vote in more protections for themselves, even if it’s just financial. They have the power of military and police on their side.
The powerless have graciously turned the other cheek so much, their face is black and blue. If you take and take and take… all the powerless still have left is violence. When it happens, it is because people were pushed too far and not listened to.
It’s people like you and me that are frequently asked to mourn and be respectful towards people who gleefully would murder us in return either directly or in legislation. We remain polite, as they fire off heated tweets celebrating the removal of ‘trash’ when our own die.
Of course we cannot stoop down to their level, but I don’t think we have to stay complacent either. If the contract isn’t held up, and you push people into a corner, they will bite.