"Violence" as a Useless Category, was Re: Just Wars

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Sat May 12 16:51:41 PDT 2001


Ian Murray wrote:
>
> Of course
> the standards change; they are changed by people. The problem is there has been no
> "moral" "progress", by that I mean, minimally, a significant diminution of violence
> through historical time. Non-violence is what I would regard as an historically
> "determined" metahistorical norm that should be striven for at all times and places.

Violence (and hence non-violence) does not exist; it is a classification like "fish" used to describe sharks, whales, and tadpoles. "True" enough, but not useful for political or historical analysis.

Carrol



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