mostly edge, mostly no point

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Want to hear a joke? The internet. Haha, very funny, I know. The bird app (twitter) was a mistake from the beginning, and internet leftists arguing on twitter is probably the most pointless, unnecessary thing to exist on this god-forsaken planet. Vaush this, Destiny that. Who even cares? I do, for some reason.

Riley Grace Roshong comes from the Destinyverse, Liberal twitch streamers who value (or fetishize, depending on who you ask) intellectualism, being smart, and having Evidence™. They quote studies, they argue about sources, they debunk things. This is not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, as your ideas should at least have some basis in reality. The problem, however, is the people themselves.

Destiny is a combative Liberal who became popular for debating Nazis, and I use “debate” sparingly. If nobody develops their ideas, or learns to approach the world from a new perspective, then you weren't debating, you were having a shouting match. And believe me, Destiny has a lot of shouting matches.

Riley Grace Roshong, who is known to most for embarrassing herself in an internet argument with Demon Mama (another internet person), recently went on twitter to rant about how socialists are “inherently violent”. Her reasoning? Eat the rich. Apparently, “eat the rich” is a dogwhistle for mass violence. I would link the tweet in question but as of writing (21st April 2021), her twitter account is locked down. Either way, she blocked me (LOL), so I can't anyway. Not even my best friend and comrade Jimmy O'Reilly from the Boozer Creek Proletarian can help me out. Sad!

Anyway, a pointless twitter argument inspired me to write a long winded pretentious article about political violence. Enjoy.

If you can't be bothered reading, skip to the bottom for the tl;dr and a list of books I think you should give a read.

Introduction

Violence is something of a dirty word, and for good reason. It conjures images of men fighting each other, pummelling one another with their bare fists, or people smashing store windows and shooting men dead in the street. Violence, pacifists say, is immoral and unnecessary, and it is, even though most people have misplaced opinions about what violence is and when it occurs.

Violence doesn't necessarily need to be physical (i.e me punching you), but can take many forms. If, for a long period of time, I degrade you verbally, ruin you emotionally, all without laying a finger on you, that is still violence. Violence, then, is someone using force on another person, almost always to harm them. However, violence transcends interactions between individuals.

When people are forced into poverty, they are the victim of systemic violence. Every homeless person, be they sleeping rough on the street, or couch surfing, or stuck in precarious crowded housing is also a victim of systemic violence. Systems, especially the nation-state, are violent to an immense scale beyond that of two people having a punch-up.

But most people, when talking about violence, don't mention systemic violence. They talk about individuals. Individual cops killing civilians. Individual soldiers committing war-crimes. Individual landlords mistreating tenants. Individual men murdering their spouses (often women). Individual conservatives harassing LGBTQ+ people. But all of these individuals are simply perpetuating the system of violence that already existed before them and will exist long after they're dead.

Like a wise man once said, “Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help, I'm being repressed!”

The Spectre of Political Violence

“Political violence” is a phrase often thrown out to condemn one's political opponents. “Unlike them,” you would say, “we use peaceful means to achieve our political ends”. But what is politics if not a power struggle? Contrary to popular misconception, a power struggle between two antagonistic forces (working class v. owning class, one state v. another state, party a v. party b) is not “peaceful”.

People often view “political violence” as when activists stage a protest that turns violent, but what about when the State enforces borders and laws? Is that not also “political violence”? It is, after all, the State using violence (borders and the police) to achieve its political will (total domination). Yet most don't see it that way.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend that political violence is in any way “good”, but I don't take the moralistic position that all violence is inherently evil and is therefore unnecessary and must be avoided. I'm not a supporter of “political violence”, I'm simply acknowledging that all politics requires force, which is violent. That is the reality of the world in which we inhabit.

Socialists and Communists, especially Anarchists, are particularly maligned for “political violence”. Anarchists, after all, are stereotyped as being bomb chucking rioters, which hasn't been the case in most places for seventy years. The old Anarchist bombers of the 19th and 20th centuries are long gone. Most Anarchists these days are too busy to be chucking bombs, I should add.

But are socialists, communists and anarchists more prone to political violence than their liberal counterparts? I would say no, for a few reasons. Firstly, this is because Liberals, being proponents of the status quo, don't need to personally engage in “political violence” themselves, because that's what the State exists for. Individual Liberals and Conservatives don't need to, say, stage a protest in order to get something done, because they control the State apparatus which does so on their behalf.

Socialists are forced to use “political violence” to achieve their ends because the State exists as an antagonistic force that must be struggled with. Liberals and Conservatives also don't engage in “political violence” because they have no political aims to achieve: their politics is that of maintaining the status quo, which is violent, but they do so by delegating someone else to do the violence on their behalf, that “someone else” being the State.

States are inherently violent. Lenin described the State as being an organ of class rule, used by the owning class to suppress the working class. Liberal Democracy is an example of this. Under a Liberal Democracy, working people get one chance every three to five years to vote for a politician to rule them, and in between that time are dominated cruelly by their employer. Democracy in the Liberal sense then is a sham. “What is the use of political liberty, so called, to a man who works twelve hours a day for three pounds a week? Once in five years he may get the chance to vote for his favourite party, but for the rest of the time practically every detail of his life is dictated by his employer” (Orwell, 1941).

Liberals would prefer if we all lived in their electoral fantasy, where all we need to do to change the world is vote for the right candidate. And because of this, they malign anyone who goes beyond their myopia, and denounce it with the worst words in their vocabulary: violent, terroristic, etc. Because these words stir up images of balaclava-clad men waving around machine guns, they get an immediate response from the public.

Socialists are not inherently violent, but many acknowledge that politics is power and power is violent, therefore “political violence”, whatever that may be, is inevitable. “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”, after all.

Can't we all just get along?

No, we can't. Capitalist society is full of contradictions, and the antagonism between the two primary classes (workers and owners) cannot be reconciled simply through dialogue. The owning class understands this, which is why they are defended by world-class militaries, by paramilitaries, police departments, militias etc. The only people who seem to not understand the basic truism that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” are defeatists, electoral reformists and Liberals.

The working class cannot simply “get along” with the owning class, that would be class collaboration, which does not uplift or empower the working class. Such class collaboration is the staple of a fascistic regime, having the workers and owners band together for the Good of The Nation™ only to abandon the workers almost immediately thereafter.

And the owning class cannot “get along” with the working class either, after all, the owning class must suppress the working class in order to maintain its position at the top of the hierarchy. Workers and owners are antagonistic forces: when one rises, the other falls. When workers gain power, the owners lose power, and vice versa.

This antagonism between workers and owners cannot be resolved through dialogue or conversation. The owning class understands this, so why don't you?

Violence as a means

Violence is neither inherently “good” or inherently “bad”, morally it is neutral, and the “goodness” or “badness” of it depends on how it's used. A person physically assaulting another person is “bad” because Person A is using violence to harm Person B with no tangible benefit, but if I intervene and use violence against Person A, or Person B was to fight back, that would be “good violence”.

When marginalized communities defend themselves, be it violent or otherwise, that is “good violence”. When the State uses force to suppress marginalized communities, that is “bad violence”.

Violence is an important tool for advancing your political will. After all, the State has been doing it for as long as the State has existed as a concept, and will continue to.

Violence against People v. Violence against Property

The BLM protests of the last year sparked conversations about violence and property damage. Is it okay to damage public and private property in protest? The answer is: of course it is, because you're only damaging property. Property, such as windows, street bins, bus shelters etc can be repaired. Expensively, sure, but can still be repaired, replaced.

Human life is not like a window: it can be replaced. When a person dies, they're gone for good, they can't be brought back. The BLM protests were sparked primarily by the cruel murder of George Floyd, and racist police violence in general. When statues and shop windows matter more than human lives, at what point do we stop and think about the society we find ourselves in?

Violence against property, as with violence in general, is not preferable. We should not have to smash starbucks windows with soup cans in order to force the State into changing, but unfortunately that is the situation we find ourselves in. If standing on the street corner waving placards for three hours was all we needed, that would be all we're doing. And yet we aren't, because “riots” can be more effective than peaceful protests, which is a sad reminder of the state of the world right now.

Violence entails the use of force against another person, which fundamentally strips them of power and autonomy. In a very Libertarian manner (the “classical” Libertarianism of Joseph Dejacque and not the abomination that is modern “Libertarianism”), I take the position that force should never be used against another person unless absolutely necessary, i.e for self defence.

The Too Long, Didn't Read

Politics is power, power requires force, force is violence. Literally as simple as that. I don't know why I have to explain that to people, but apparently I do.

Liberal “democracies” are violent states, because all states are violent. They turn their violence outwards, toward the colonised world.

Fascist states are also violent, of course, but their violence is more brutal than that of the Liberal “democracy”, although that depends on whether or not you're asking a colonised person or a citizen.

Socialist states, then, are violent, because all states are propped up by force, which is violent. Socialist states have been known to be more outwardly violent and authoritarian than others, however, this is a result of a siege mentality that comes from being encircled by hostile forces as opposed to a core tenet of Socialism.

I disagree with the siege socialist mentality of strict centralism, mind you. I'm just giving a reasonable explanation that many like to glaze over as part of their anti-communist hysteria. “Anti-Communism” is nothing but a reactionary religious dogma at this point. Anti-Communists will invent their own new reality just to justify their repression of workers.

How many people have socialist states killed? 100 million? 100 billion? 100 trillion? It doesn't matter, because you can say any number (for example, 7916597465827935629386 gorjillion) and the conservative reactionary horde will gobble it up like it's a packet of milk arrowroot biscuits. Human life doesn't matter to them: winning does.

I am willing to discuss this topic further. I can be contacted through the links on my about page.

Interesting Reads

I've been reading recently and have a few recommendations, if you're interested:

“Fascism and Democracy” by George Orwell, 1941. Orwell puts forward some interesting things to consider regarding fascism and liberal democracies.

“Dark Emu” by Bruce Pascoe, 2014. This radically changed the way I viewed pre-colonial Indigenous Australians, and I would recommend that anyone interested in learning more about Indigenous Australians read Bruce Pascoe's other works.

“The State and Revolution” by V. I. Lenin, 1917-18. Although I disagree with some of Lenin's views on the role of the State, I do think that State and Revolution is an interesting look at how Lenin viewed the State should function in the transition to Socialism.