Violence, was Re: Allies and opponents of US fall silent

[Carrol Cox]

As Ian points out, the "violence" (the scare quotes indicate a
nominalist skepticism as to the validity of the category) is
institutional. In other words, the vast proportion of human violence is
committed by men (and a growing scattering of women -- e.g. Albright &
whatsername from the current admin.) who do not commit violence
themselves. And even the agents of that violence for the most part
commit the violence at a distance -- bomber pilots, artillery men, etc.
In other words, there is very little violence in the world today in the
sense of one person directly harming another. So where's the problem? I
don't see how biology or psychology enter into it, except in a broadly
'permissive' way.

Killing for religion's sake goes back only a couple thousand years or
less, with the growth of the theistic religions. "Patriotism" is only a
few centuries old (the word meant "subversion" in the 18th century).
Vulgar marxism by itself does not explain modern violence so well, but
it covers most of pre-modern violence pretty well.

I really don't think violence, by itself, is any kind of problem.

Carrol