[lbo-talk] Foonote to RE: violence

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Nov 7 05:59:52 PST 2011


There is an old collection of Life photographs (the first 25 years or something). It has a great photograph of a scab failing to cross a UAW picket line. I am in complete solidarity with the perspective embodied in that pargraph.

There is one difficulty in this debate: "Non-violence" is a tactical principle (as a moral or absolute principle it becomes a form of scabbing.) Hence one can debate it. But "Violence" is not a principle of any kind; it is an empty generalization, naming nothing specific. We don't have a word, it seems, to express a principle 'opposite' to Non-Violence. That causes considerable confusion, and I don't know how that confusion can be clarified.

Sometimes good results are achieved by killing people. The Paris Commune would not have lasted a day without willingness to kill.

Carrol



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