Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. –Isaac Asimov
There was a time when I bought into that quote by Isaac Asimov wholeheartedly. At first brush it really makes complete sense. Even today when I get frustrated or impatient I can feel the anger rising in me. I can see how that anger, if left unchecked, could easily lead to violence. And trust me, I have no delusions about my own competence in some areas. 🙄
But as I get older I find myself wondering if all violence is a result of incompetence. I mean unfortunately the truth is that some folks just don’t understand anything short of violence. Bullies must be faced down or they won’t stop bullying.
Passive resistance only works in systems that have some sort of built in restraint. Can you imagine if someone like Gandhi tried to passively resist the Roman Empire to throw off their oppression? Rome didn’t have the same aversion to mass slaughter that the 20th century British did and would have nailed resisters up on crosses by the thousands faster than a spilled Starbucks in a January Chicago parking lot would freeze.
Nope. As I get older I’m learning that life has a lot more shades of gray than I thought. Violence usually takes more than one party to ensue. Even with the most perfectly competent person, I think there may come a time when others give them no alternative.
Chris Cree is a regular contributor here at Successful-Blog and he helps businesses fuel growth through blogging with his consulting business, SuccessCREEations.
Wow, no comments? I’m surprised.
Anyway, Asimov wrote that (it comes from the first book of his Foundation trilogy) when he was pretty young. And Salvor Hardin (I think it was that character) was up against a pretty tough opponent. Violence in that situtation would have been suicidal.
In fact, the first book is all about using brains to overcome brawn. But of course, that’s in a book. Real life is never so neat, so black-and-white. Especially when dealing with people one-on-one.
Yes, I agree, there are times when, unfortunately, only violence is the answer. But it should be the last one, when nothing else will work. The problem is, too many people aren’t willing to wait that long.
Hi Scorpia,
I think that comment box still has time to fill up. Yesterday was Saturday during the holiday season . . . 🙂
It was hard to choose a first post. This one is up Chris’ alley — he loves science and science fiction and all things related. But this morning he’s boarding a plane back to his warmer climate — he might like that even better. 🙂
I agree with you and CC that black and white hardly ever enters in, especially when there are people involved. I’ve also begun to keep track of the fact that there seems to be a dirth of three things:
love, forgiveness, and compassion in most situations where conflict comes up.
For a tiny word ego sure has a huge meaning.
Hey Scorpia! I read those books back when I was in high school and had things all “figured out.” My vision must not have been as good then because I had trouble seeing all those shades of gray. I’m with you in that violence tends to be an all too easy option for folks. I’m just not sure if it is a result of incompetence or laziness.
Liz, I’ve made it as far as Charlotte so far. Looking forward to deplaning in Savannah! It’s interesting that you choose those three (and I think they are good ones). Really the other two are both often a part of love when you get right down to it.
I often wonder if Jesus as a little boy ever got picked on by bullies. I think he MUST have, because he suffered everything any other human has experienced, that’s what the theologians say.
So what would he do? Could not have pulled any miraculous stunts, for the Bible says turning water into wine (not kool aid, wine, good intoxicating wine) was his first miracle.
So how would Jesus respond to someone who hit him, shoved him in the mud, threw a hummus sandwich at him during lunch period at school?
Can’t imagine him retaliating violently, that would contradict the Sermon on the Mount. I think he probably deconstructed the attacker: “you did that because you hate yourself, but I have only good will toward you.”
Then he probably helped the person with their homework, hit a baseball with a bat, or some other assistance that would turn the foe into a friend.
Someone said that the best way to defeat an enemy is to transform them into an ally.
Peaceful resistance works better than war. I cannot think of a single war in history that accomplished any permanent good, with the possible exception of our own USA revolutionary war.
WWII was a total disaster, since Hitler was defeated, only to permit Stalin and Mousey Tongue to stomp all over people and commit their pet genocides.
Very interesting topic, worthy of deep pondering.
Teach your children well.
Popularity can be based on altruism.
Vaspers, I think Jesus gave us a good understanding of how he’d have responded to bullies during his trial and execution at the end of his life. Of course his followers believe the Bible that says he’s not going to be as submissive when he comes back the next time. The images of his return talk about destruction and killing on an unimaginable scale.
The decision to limit resistance to non-violent methods ultimately can be a decision to allow the bullying to go on indefinitely. It may or may not go on forever, but there is no way to be sure. That choice can be harder to make when you have the means to resist violently and someone you are responsible for is bearing the brunt of the suffering.
I’ve got another take on why folks do such nasty things to each other and to themselves. I don’t think it is because they hate themselves but rather because they love themselves too much.
Even the most selfish act of suicide happens not because a person hates themselves. It is more because they love themselves and are disappointed that their lives are not arranged in a way they feel they ought to be somehow.
When Jesus was passive from the garden of Gethsemane onward, it was as the appointed Lamb of God to be slaughtered for the sins of the world.
But I don’t see him being passive the rest of his life. He overturned the tables in the temple, and that great scene when the crowd took him to the edge of a cliff to kill him by throwing him over the cliff, he simply “passed through the midst of them”, thus not allowing them to kill him.
So it’s more complex than Jesus just letting people do whatever they felt like doing to him. I think that occured only at the very end when all our sins were dumped on him.
I also know there was nothing sadistic or masochistic about Jesus, or Buddha, or Socrates, even though all three of these wonderful beings died due to human stupidity and etc.
Suicide is definitely not necessarily a “selfish” act. If you’ve never been suicidal, you may not understand the motivations.
The few times I myself have sought to end my life, it was due to total despair, a sense that there was no way out of my misery, no one to turn to, and any step I might take would make things even worse.
I broke my back, severe pain, no family support, the freaking selfish government would not help, the psychiatrist appointed by the social security admin was a corrupt crook who lied repeatedly about what I said and did in our interview, etc.
I got to the point where I indeed lost all self-esteem and all hope had vanished. The one thing that held me back the most from suicide was the fear that I’d screw it up and end up with all my problems, plus a much more damaged body.
I heard a stupid pastor on the radio complain bitterly, one might say hatefully, about how his daughter killed herself.
The jerkbag kept saying how selfish she was to do that to him. It was obvious that he cared more about his own feelings and reputation than he did about his daughter. He just condemned her for angering him and hurting his precious feelings by killing herself.
A selfish act? No. I believe suicide is the opposite of selfish. It’s the people around them that are selfish or clueless about what to do. But a suicide is rarely selfish. They have sickened of self, they wish to escape the self somehow, the transient illusory non-stable self, with the harsh super-ego, the craven id, and the depleted ego.
A suicidal person hates the self that has caused most of their problems, cannot escape the nightmare of self-loathing and the sense of their life adding up to nothing or to a mess.
At least that’s how I”ve experienced it.
There is also, in my case, an anger at how indifferent, stupid, selfish, and horrible this world is, full of war, greed, rape, exploitation, racism, “peaceful” religions killing each other over silly doctrinal issues (Shia vs. Sunni, Irish Catholic vs. British Protestantism).
A suicide is not “selfish”, for what does the self benefit? A silencing of guilt? Perhaps. An escape from despair, misery, pain, hopelessness.
Should a suicide worry about how his family and friends will suffer if he kills himself? Well, if family and friends were worth worrying about, I doubt the person would commit suicide. He’d turn to them for help.
Vaspers, I sure didn’t mean to insult you with my suicide example. And I apologize for hurting you with my insensitive treatment of the subject.
What I was trying to say (and not doing a very good job of) was that if someone truly hated themselves they would be glad that their life was a mess and they were suffering rather than hating that messed up life and wishing to end it.
We want bad things to happen to those we hate and if we really hate ourselves we’d be happy when bad things were happening to us.
But because we all almost universally love ourselves we are miserable when our lives are a mess, sometimes to the point of wanting to end it all. We want the best for the ones we love most.
And please don’t think that I’m dismissing the pain and suffering that happens in life. I’m just looking at it from a different perspective.
(Not that I think my views are the only valid ones, mind you.)
Thanks Chris, but I did not feel insulted, nor did I mean to imply that you were totally wrong about anything.
I just have heard that “suicide is selfish” or “suicide is sadistic to the living people who mourn the loss” argument too many times to let your remark pass unchallenged.
I deeply question the idea that people “love” themselves. I think they love pleasure and avoid suffering. They love praise, riches, and fame (until they get it, then they complain about “papparazzi” and media attention).
If people really loved themselves, they would take better care of themselves. They would not smoke, get fat, avoid exercise, and do other self-destructive things.
Again, I’m not trying to make you look bad, or anything, I’m just responding to certain statements. Some of this may be “what do you mean by love?” So we are probably on the same wavelength, just from different angles and using terms a bit differently.
Please don’t think I was offended, I was not. It’s very difficult to offend me. And you were not being insensitive toward suicidal or depressed people, I don’t think you had that intention at all.
:^)
Chris,
Very interesting post, although I’m not so sure that Jesus and Paul didn’t design the Catholic Church as a machine of passive resistance. Dan Abbott wrote an interesting series that postulates that early Christianity was the model of 4th generation warfare. Check it out; he makes a compelling case.
Mike
This thread is getting interesting. 🙂
Vaspers, You made me laugh with the papparazzi remark. 🙂
I guess I don’t see the fact that so many of us make poor health choices (and that includes me) because we don’t love ourselves. I think that self-love comes into conflict with another core human trait: laziness. Ultimately we are unwilling to pay the price to get the things we crave.
We want to be healthy but we are too lazy to exercise. Just like we want to be rich but are are unwilling to work hard and save.
Mike, Whoa. Interesting read. I’m not sure I buy into his theory but I don’t think the military analogies are that far off base. Thanks for sharing the link.
Chris,
Most of Dan’s work has a big ‘whoa’ factor, and requires a good bit of reflection. He and I have kicked that topic and the conflict between Christianity and Islam around repeatedly. There are many who say that Jesus’ instruction to turn the other cheek and walk the extra mile represented a strong passive resistance message.
As for your fascinating dialogue with Vaspers, I’m with him on the notion of self-love. I think most conflict and escalation is not a product of love, but of fear. Our eons-old reptile brains focus on the four F’s, and we’re slaves to them much more than most of us would like to admit.
Mike
I think we have to separate Christ from Christianity, or, if you prefer, Christianity from Churchianity.
The gospels, Paul’s epistles, and Book of Acts contain no pattern for any type of materialism, injustice, or warfare.
Crusaders killed Jews, Arabs, Muslims, and other Christians who did not adhere to their “dogma”, or who just happened to be in their path, if I remember my history correctly.
For Islam to say, “Agree that we’re a religion of peace, or we’ll kill you” is beyond laughable.
It’s also funny how the Islamo-fascist terrorists, who kill more Muslims than Americans, have pretty much abandoned the decapitation strategy. Only MSM chumps and sissies called head choppings “macabre” or “gruesome”.
Tell a Junior HIgh student that chopping off a head is gruesome, and he’ll say it does stuff like that every day…on Grand Theft Auto or Halo 2 violent video games.
If the terrorists saw the disgusting gore fest films, like The Passion and Smell Gibson’s Apocalypto, they’d realize that beheadings, torture, and amputation are merely amusement for the majority of decadent America.
Due to our bullying and arrogance, and our worship of violence, I guess we deserve to have terrorists attack us. Karma.
Mike, you bring up a good point. Fear and love are effectively opposites and love can in fact drive out fear.
Vaspers, I think it was Gandhi who said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Churchianity is a great term. I was telling a friend at dinner tonight that the only folk Jesus really said bad things about were the religious leaders of his day. I suspect he’d have some nasty things to say about today’s Churchianity too.
I point to Ted Haggard, Jim Jones, and Smell Gibson as cases in extremity.
I felt that The Passion was biblically inaccurate and full of bizarre unhistorical morbid fantasies. Our former pastor tried to bully my wife and I into going to the film. The evangelical world, like lemmings, followed Mel into his mess of a movie. I can handle extreme violence and gore. I cannot watch Saving Private Ryan, etc.
Now Gibson the alcholic anti-semite comes out with yet another gore fest, with testical eating and spears going through the back of a head and coming out the mouth, etc.
He is obsessed with naked men and torture.
Will the evangelicals follow Mel and encourage or bully their congregations to now attend Gibson’s new film? I wonder.
Yes, Jesus never condemned abortion or gay marriage. But most churches preach like these are the only two “sins” that exist.
No preaching against gluttony, gambling, materialism, pride, etc.
One historian said when Christians, who according to Acts met in homes, started building churches, they lost their healing and miracle power.
Churchianity is the false superstition that the flock are under the “protection” of their CEO pastor. I must stop. I could go on and on about the Laodiceans and their BS.
Correction: I can’t [not “can”] handle gore and violence.
Did you hear about how the guy who revealed the photos of Abu Graiyeb USA military torture, how his hometown turned against him, and he gets death threats from “good patriotic” asses? Democracy? Ethics? Spirituality? Where? Hard to find in this country, sad to say.
The Abu Grayb torture participants should have been beheaded and the beheading televised to the world.
Well. I’ve got to disagree with you on the Abu Ghraib thing. To call pictures of naked men in pyramids torture on the same scale as beheading doesn’t make sense to me. It was despicable, reprehensible, wrong. And the perpetrators were appropriately punished by courts martial. But it was not anywhere near the same as torture.
As anecdotal evidence to how the prisoners really felt about the US at the prison, I’d point to a friend of mine who was actually there as the US was getting ready to turn it back over to Iraqi control. He described how heartbreaking it was to listen to the prisoners begging and pleading with the Americans not to leave them in Iraqi hands because everyone knew they would not be treated as well by the Iraqis as they had been by our troops.
Think of this though Chris. The USA outsources torture. Some State Department chump stated this a while back, words to the effect that we send POWs over to Turkey or wherever, and we “cannot control how they treat the prisoners”.
Here’s why outsourcing torture and the Abu Ghraib scandal are horrible beyond words: they give credence to the terrorists and repressive regimes when they call us The Great Satan.
What happened at Abu Ghraib and in Guatanomo Bay camp Xray was torture, humiliation, violations of the Geneva Treaty on War Crimes and POW abuse.
When we deny basic human dignity and practice torture or abuse, we endanger our troops, because the enemies then will treat our troops more sadistically.
My son is in the Army and has been in Iraq twice. He will substantiate all that I’ve said here.
I guess my issue here is that I feel words are important because of the meanings they convey. Please don’t interpret what I’m saying as any kind of defense of what went on there. Our soldiers who were responsible were properly punished (as a result of an investigation that was underway long before the press got wind of the story).
But as wrong as it was, what our soldiers were doing was more on the level of fraternity hazing than the medieval slicing and dicing that has become the accepted routine of some of the other players over there.
To paint both of those situations with the same broad brush of “torture” grossly misrepresents the realities of what happened.
And you bring up an interesting point that we live in a strange culture where our slasher movies seem to come out with multiple sequels but that same audience has zero tolerance for the realities of the costs of war in lives lost.
We’ve created a zero sum arrangement in which the most powerful military in the world is de facto defeated even before they ever step onto the field of battle. I don’t think it bodes well for our culture.
Chris makes a strong point there —
We’ve created a zero sum arrangement in which the most powerful military in the world is de facto defeated even before they ever step onto the field of battle.
The arguments were at best flat to fail horribly. I can’t that I believe, watching from the outside of them, that those arguments were unbiased or based entirely on relevant facts.
I don’t know if the current messes in Iraq and Afghanistan were ever winnable. But I’m beginning to wonder if it is still possible for there to be a war in the future that is winnable by the US. Or are we culturally doomed?
Aw, Chris,
There may be no plausible future.
But that is not mutually exclusive with a cultural future.
There are no absolutes except for this one.
I once heard that only four words are always true:
This too shall change.
Ah, but will it be a change for the better? 🙂
Actually, there is no good or bad.
There is only how we look at it.
Oh, Geeze! There’s a whole post in a response to that statement, Liz. 😆
Most wars, to me, are Vietnam. There is a problem in the country that the USA tries to “fix” with bombs.
Bombs have never fixed anything.
I feel it is the arms manufacturers who somehow influence the nations to fight, for they are the only “winners”.
We must also recall how the Middle East was split into unnatural, a-historic, culturally ignorant subdivisions by I believe the French and British. It’s obvious that “Iraq” is not, and can never be, one unified nation.
The Republic of Kurdistan, and other areas are doing fairly well. The major conflict seems to be in Baghdad.
The Sunnis and Shia, of that “peaceful religion”, hate each other, and kill each other more than they kill Americans. And we step into that and think we can preach “democracy” and “unity” to them.
I recall how the Dalai Lama once said that in some situations, it’s better to just let the haters kill each other and get it over with.
It’s a weird pattern, the USA trying to be umpire in civil wars. The civil wars are all over, in Iran with the student revolt, for example. Another weird pattern is to have an ally, supply them with, ahem, weapons of mass destruction, and then they turn against us, and we decide to destroy them and re-orient their entire savage culture.
It’s doomed from the get go.
But I also hate how the evil MSM focuses on how many US troops are killed in one area, showing their bias. It’s the MSM that refuses to support anything but junk products and celebrity antics.
I sure don’t know the answer. It’s probably why I’m not in politics. (Or wait. Maybe that means I’m especially qualified. I get confused.)
But as that great philosopher Spiderman once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.”
If we made the evil that was Saddam, do we have a responsibility to try to correct it?
I don’t like the Dali Lama’s answer. But then I haven’t yet come up with a better one either.
Hey Chris,
Sorry I didn’t answer you sooner. When you see today’s post, you’ll know why.
I think responsibility is an interesting word here. I don’t like the Dali Lama’s answer or anyone’s for that matter.
The problem that bothers me most is when folks, not anyone here or now, try to apply a black or white one time answer to what should be individual gray matter situations.
Most of the universe doesn’t need people to make it work . . . we — any of us anywhere — need to be careful when we think we need to sort the rest out.
Wow! This thread has gone some interesting places since I last checked in. Where to begin?
“Actually, there is no good and bad. There is only how we look at it.” This is, in fact, the crux of many of the problems discussed here. What do we choose to pay attention to, and how do we interpret it? I gave up watching TV news and listening to talk radio a few months ago because it consists almost entirely of fear-mongering of one sort or another. Very few people can make a cogent argument in 30 seconds, but the airways are clogged with these little snippets of angst. So I choose to ignore them and feel much better for it. I am but a few baby steps on the journey to orienting my world out of only love and not fear, but it’s one worth taking.
Large institutions generally operate using fear motivation (e.g., follow this procedure OR ELSE). People focus on attaining and retaining power, to the point where they lose sight of what they wanted it for in the first place. Churches, news organizations, governments, corporations, NGOs; none are immune. Thus the need to carefully guard what we pay attention to.
Nice first post, Chris!
Maybe we could invite the whole world to Open Comment Night tonight, strictly enforce Liz’s one rule (Be Nice) and see if the whole mess doesn’t sort itself out!
Sounds silly, I know. But one thing I’ve learned in my short time breathing this planet’s air is that most of us have a whole lot more in common than we realize.
When people spend a little time actually conversing beyond the superficial level they often come to realize that about one another.
I with you, Chris. A little more “nice” and lot less judgment would go a long way to change how the world functions.
We all love our children.
I don’t know if I like the quote from the Dalai Lama, but I can’t disagree with it. One of the problems is that every little group that engages in violence, whether it be Catholic or Protestant, Sunni or Shia, Moslem or Christian, Us or Them, Me or You, says “My way is right, and I’m going to prove it to you if it kills me or kills you.” As long as any party feels they have the right to force their views or their will on another party, violence will occur, and it will occur because it has been amazingly effective. But once you reach the point of violence, it’s only effective if you eliminate or break the party you are trying to convince. Look at the Roman Empire. Look at the European conquest of the Americas. Look at the Chinese conquest of Asia. Look at the Christian conquest of Europe. Look at the Muslim conquest of the Middle East and North Africa.
Maybe one day we’ll grow up.
Gosh, Rick, for our kids’ sake, I hope so.
I like to think we’re getting there. Imagine todays weapons of war in the hands of a ruler of a thousand years ago. What would they have done?
Liz,
Did I leave you speechless in a good way, or do I need to recite the magical incantation of rational discourse: “Hawaii. Fonzie. Waterskis.”?
Mike,
I was leaving your comment for Chris to field. But now that you bring up, I think you might have misinterpretted what I meant.
I didn’t mean don’t look. I meant don’t place a judgment on what we see. How we choose to look at things — perception — makes our reality. We have to be careful with that. I don’t think we EVER have all or enough information . . . so treading with head and heart together is what I recommend.
I say that anytime I feel righteous I am wrong.
Liz,
I understood that your remark was all about the orientation, not observation. I’m with you on the fact that we have to live in a world where we don’t have all of the information about a situation. That’s what gives rise to irrational decision making, and its ugly consequences, which have been chronicled in previous comments.
Mike
Hi Mike,
Cool. I never can be too sure that I’m being clear — even when I’m in person with all of my tones and gestures. 🙂
Yeah, I figured that we were close on the ideas here. We usually are about these things.
This is when a few more folks like you, the rest of the readers around here, and leaders like Steve Farber — who say words like LOVE out loud — would make the world a better place.
Ah, but I am quite annoyed at many marketing blogs that degenerate into mutual admiration societies, NOT this one of course, but become what I am going to soon post on as: “Happy Bubbley Blogging”…
Hugs, kisses, wine glass clinkings, conference notes on the sexy guys or gals, frivolous drivel like that, with everyone agreeing agreeing agreeing, no critical thinking skills, blindly (almost typed “blondely”, yikes!) embracing every “social media” gimmick and con job out there…etc.
Rick: I see nearly no “moral evolution” in humanity, but you posted brilliant comment here about the strife between groups.
Krishnamurti always said “division is the source of all evil”.
OK, the IT department took our our internet access for most of the day, but I’m back now. So it must be time to stir the pot a little. 😉
I don’t think I’m on the same page as y’all on the whole good/bad issue. I get what you are saying about not having all the information. But I’m of the opinion that there comes a time when we each have to ante up and kick in, even without all the information. And sometimes without enough information.
If we always reserve judgment on all things because we know that we don’t have all the information then we will end up letting the bullies take over the school yard.
What was it that that Edmund Burke said?
Look around. Moral relativism isn’t working. There has to be some standard or this whole exercise of life is pointless, isn’t it? Burying our head in the sand and saying we don’t have enough information won’t fix anything.
Or am I off my nut?
Hi Chris!
Reserving judgment doesn’t mean I let bullies beat me up. Nor does it mean I let them in my backyard or that I let them beat up my friends. It also doesn’t mean that I let bullies pick people who ask me to help them.
I does mean that I don’t go out every night hunting bullies, because I could start seeing them where they don’t exist.
I know that you don’t either.
That’s what makes this darn situation so hard.
Gosh, this is not the day I should be talking about this. 🙂
Ah, the old bully hunt. Yet another great point in a string of them here on this thread.
The trick is to walk that line between standing up to the bullies without crossing over into gunning for ’em.
Did you ever see Friendly Persuasion or Sergeant York? Both of these classic Gary Cooper flicks deal with the subject of non-violence ideals and war. Interestingly they come to different conclusions on the subject.
Obviously this topic has no real easy answers.
Is violence the last refuge of the incompetent? I don’t think so, but lots of folks do. It’s OK for us to disagree.
The old bully hunt. Chris, thank you 🙂
I won’t be walking between two bullies either. Those two bullies don’t hunting. They advertise.
You don’t need to be incompetent to be a bully — that’s my stand on the subject. 🙂
ROTFL! 😆
Nice closer if you do ask me! 🙂