Notes on the Problem of Violence
The oppressor/oppressed binary is, even as a matter of ordinary observation, the easiest to deconstruct. The latter apes the brutality of the former out of the ‘tragic necessity of struggle’ and out of the same ‘tragic necessity’ comes simply to replace him. Habituated to the ‘tragic necessity’ of violence he can do no other. The man who kills crosses a Rubicon and there may be no way back. Violence is his friend; his trusted tool and he will always be true to it. We need a deeper moral language than is covered by this distinction which blurs so readily even a child can see it. In fact, it may just be a distinction for sentiment, necessary sentiment perhaps but not grounded in the intrinsic reason of things. Give yourself once to butchery and I can’t see, barring miracle, how you can can go back. Once you taste power in the form of power over a life you have crossed a line you can’t simply uncross. You have eaten forbidden fruit and the taste can only get sweeter if it does not dull