Violence

[Serapis Bey]

Now that I have been outed as a Hyatt devotee (of sorts), I'd like to post an essay of his that I read long ago that stuck with me over the years. It certainly shook this former Randroid up but good. I think he manages to gore every sacred cow across the political spectrum in this one, although I know for a fact he was heavily influenced by Rand/Libertarianism.

I think his hard-nosed, rough and ready mindset will resonate with my man Kolker. Both Hyatt and Robert Wilson were members of The Tribe, if that means anything (it does).

FrignSchmgn *mumble* goddamned *mumble* Chosen Ones...

The greatest cause of violence is the
refusal to label violent behavior violent.

All human behavior is violent.

By violence I mean, the act of getting more, the act of
collecting space, the act of competing and negotiating, the act of
living itself. Even digestion is violent.
Violence, the killing and transforming of energy sources is not
a moral concept but a biological and psychological one.

Making violence moral simply politicizes the making of
weak, sick slaves. It is time that some of us have the stomach to
face up to what we are really doing. In reality all living things are
doing the same thing -- living off of other living things.
What makes humans different and possibly more dangerous is that
we lie about it. Remember, lies are useful as well as dangerous. We
must ask ourselves who requires what set of lies to function. The
more complex and confusing the standards which motivate lying the more
cowardly (though possibly) creative the liar.
Civilization and the social contract have at their base the
exchange of personal violence for collective violence repackaged as
deception.
We agree to let other people be violent for us . The use of the
word violence in this context is usually reserved for physical
violence against other people. The social contract exchanges the
"right" of physical violence of the individual, for collective
violence known as "justice."
In other words, the concept of justice is "necessary" for the
practice of collective violence. It removes the guilt and shame from
the individual for not "fighting" his own battles and "justifies" his
cowardly and sneaky behavior.
It is claimed by those who benefit most from the "social
contract" that one of its purposes is to protect the weak from the
strong. This is a gross deception. The truly strong find it
inefficient to exploit weak individuals by physical violence. Direct
exploitation runs a risk of revolt and a reduction in gross profits.
The social contract allows the strong to exploit the weak without fear
of their own blood being shed. Blood is too expensive for the strong.
Insurance policies are cheaper and more profitable.
When physical violence is seen as necessary and the goal is
reached, the first act of the victor is to outlaw the use of further
physical violence. Like all governments, America was founded on
violence and has survived on violence. Yet when individuals act
violently to assure their existence they are beaten-up by the system.
Then the leaders tell the victims that violence is not a solution to
their problems.
The social contract allows the development of a class of
individuals which act as a protective buffer between the upper and
lower classes. This is the middle class. The worst of these is the
upper-middle class.
This subgroup is intellectual, cowardly and inflated, and prefers
lawyers and slight of hand to guns. They use law to steal from each
other. They make the weaker minded impotent by using metaphysical
concepts such as right and wrong, good and bad, moral and immoral.
They use law to commit murder, they use law to steal and they use law
to make impotent those who might rise against them. This they call
education. What they want is "more." Too much competition is
dangerous so they create more laws and regulations making it more
difficult to compete with them. Law is the ultimate act of
camouflage.
The upper-middle class (UMC) label these laws as necessary to
protect weaker people from being exploited. This assertion is the
bait which most everyone can agree with because everyone from time to
time feels weak and dependent. Boiled down, the whole procedure is a
"club" with various levels of initiation.
They thrive on regulatory agencies who are staffed by lesser
(middle and lower-middle class) individuals who have nothing to lose
if their regulation fails.
The intermediate class, like all groups, are allowed up to a
point, to steal, rob and murder for profit, much like the strong. The
only differences are that they do it on a small scale and they label
it differently. In the case of the doctor and lawyer it is called
"service." In the case of the shopkeeper it is called
"merchandising." Whatever it is called it is violence.
"More" is what is wanted. Nothing more or nothing less. "More"
is the answer. The nice thing about this plan is that everyone is
doing it to everyone else. There are no honest men. Everyone is a
thief. To make such harsh statements as this will not make me
popular; no one likes to be stripped of his camouflage.
It is important to note that all that I have said is true only if
we assume that the lies of the propagandists are true. That is, the
idea of an honest man, a man of virtue, etc. as described by the
Bible: the lawyer and the educationist. As the "necessity" of these
values -- their "other-worldly" quality, are simply assumptions, or
whims -- we are forced to ask the horrible question: "who do these
values serve?"
These values, like any other values, are "unessential" in their
content. Thus we are left with a relativistic picture making the
moral tone of my discussion simply misleading. There are no thieves
-- dishonest men -- a priori.
They only become so within a system of relativistic values which
change as the wind blows. But, the secret to all this is to make
these relativistic values "necessary" for life to continue -- in other
words, necessary for survival. We are then faced with the question:
whose survival?

Forced now to ask the question, "What is necessary for
survival?" I reply, "For whom?" For a man without a pancreas insulin
is necessary. For a man without lungs an artificial breathing device
is necessary. Yet the question I have asked concerning survival is
misleading. A more interesting question is "What is necessary for
life to expand" since, as we said earlier, man is interested in "more"
and not simply in staying alive like other animals. What is necessary
for "more?" For one thing, time. "More" is also self-defined. For
one man "more" can mean "more" lovers, for another, "more" can be
safety. I knew one fellow who spent his entire life figuring out ways
not to be hurt by other people. No matter what plan he came up with
he always found "more" ways to improve it until he reached a point
when he figured out that he couldn't afford the money it would require
to build his ultimate fortress.
Man survives to make "more." If we can, for a moment, assume
this to be true, the foundation of life itself is a value system which
might have its basis in the nature of man himself and not in other
worldliness. As men are different, the "mores" which they desire are
different in kind and in degree. Yet, there is conflict and the
purpose of civilization is to provide bloodless means of resolving
these conflicts and allow for the creation of "more."
What I am positing is that the means have become more important,
more essential than what they are supposed to resolve. And this is
something we would expect from the "more" hypothesis. However, what
we observe is that the "essential and more" of civilization is now
creating "less," and the only way around the "less" is to violate the
"More" factor of civilization.
In other words we have a means-ends reversal. If the end was
"More", the means to accomplishing "More" is creating "less." Thus,
the means for "More" is restriction and not freedom. What is wanted
is "More" control. "More" control can only occur by reducing
variability (individual differences). A "golden mean" is created,
allowing for "More" control. This is created by law, a three letter
word for violence. The purpose of law is first and foremost to
prevent those in power from losing it. All other explanations are
propaganda, albeit necessary propaganda for those who require massive
amounts of illusions.

But, what about those who require less illusion and more freedom?
This desire is the beginning of the underground, a world not seen, but
felt. It keeps the upper-lower class, the entire middle class, the
lower-upper class, the middle-upper class, and some of the upper-upper
class nervous. Those who really understand the problem of information
and wealth are fortified by the underground; they know that
information, used properly, creates wealth and that true wealth
creates information. The street poor understand this too, but are
unable to apply it beyond certain limited situations. They know what
it means to live off of refuse.They know what it means to kill or be
killed.
But is this all that civilization promises? Less painful and
horrifying ways of dying and having unused goods? No. Civilization
means safety for those who require it and from our analysis they seem
to far outweigh the ones who prefer freedom and "more." The majority
of the population demands "more" without payment. And what is the
payment? The possibility of having "less." The majority of the
population requires more safety without concern of price.

LIES BUILT UPON LIES BUILT UPON MORE LIES

Psychoanalysis is a prime example of lies built upon lies. A
behaviorist can remove a phobia in a few months for $1000.00 A
psychoanalyst cannot, as a rule, remove the same phobia in five years
for a cost of $50,000.00. Yet, psychoanalysis is allowed to be
labeled a treatment. Now, a treatment which fails almost consistently
should not be called a treatment. Yet, there it is. It takes years
of training to do nothing but provide an environment where change is
taking place simply because of time and a change of "scenery."
In fact many psychoanalysts understand this and justify their
"profession" by calling it "research" into how the mind works. Now is
the patient interested in paying for this. Of course not. There is
little scientific evidence available to show that the "treatment"
called psychoanalysis is any better than "maturation" or time itself.
Psychoanalysis is simply a holding intervention at best. To call it
treatment is like calling blood-letting a treatment for fever when an
antibiotic is cheaper and more effective.
Psychoanalysis is safe because it can do little harm to a person
except seperate him from his money and prevent him from getting a
treatment which might be of value. The labels make it both attractive
and workable. Of course, psychoanalysts have much to say about more
effective treatments. They say it is not a cure and new symptoms will
occur. What is the evidence for this claim? "Freud or so and so said
it." And what is their evidence? Well?
Who are these psychoanalysts, be they Freudians or Jungians or
whatever? They are the upper-middle class, those who get "more" by
acts of deception. Their hands are clean. There is no blood. As
laws create criminals, the profession of psychoanalysis creates
psychopathology and patients -- eternal patients -- some staying in
"treatment" for as long as 20 years. Yet, this form of violence is
done legally and morally, as long as the Doctor is qualified by some
qualifying agency. And what qualifies the qualifying agency? Law, of
course. Yet, where did the law come from? From those who had the
power to enforce their will upon others and then outlaw the
possibility of someone doing the same to them.
Thus physical violence is filtered through enough labels and
procedures that it no longer appears as violence. The longer an
institution exists, the further it is seperated from the blood it shed
to establish itself, the more "legitimate" it appears to its
"graduates" and to the public. Time not only heals wounds, it hides
the blood.

[FuturistNow]

It isn't useful to label human action as violence. That is redefining the term out of existence.

This reminds me of Nietzsche's opinion on justice.

[BaalChatzaf]

What is the difference between force and violence?

[KacyRay]

Force merely implies physical coercion. Violence indicates physical damage.