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this post was submitted on 05 Jun 2023
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Right. I understand the point. But it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone to think State’s exercise violence in a much greater capacity, because State’s are much more powerful than individuals.
To me it’s a criticism that ranks right up there with the complaint that State’s are inherently dishonest, and they are, to be sure. But if State’s are inherently violent/dishonest, it’s only because people are inherently violent and dishonest. That’s something that sits at the root of what humans are, and by extension, wraps itself up in qualms of everything humans do and create for themselves.
Cooperation is definitely a part of who we are, to be sure. My whole point though is that if you look at civilization, their existence isn’t a spontaneous occurrence, despite the fact that civilizations require an ‘enormous’ level of cooperation to sustain themselves. It isn’t ‘natural’, in that sense. Cooperation follows coercion, which is needed to keep the peace, just as it’s more easily and eagerly used to conduct violence.
It always frustrates me a little when people look at a problem and say "that's just how things are." Here it's the thing about humans being violent. In a trivial sense, that is true, but I think that obfuscates that in most situations violence has a set of politically-meaningful sources, even if it's personal violence. Being beaten as a child, being forced into crime, being taught that violence is appropriate to protect your "pride", the Other being dehumanized, the list goes on.
Except that's not my argument. I'm not simply hand-waving it away, washing my hands of it and saying, "well that's just how people are." I'm saying that when you contend with the weight of history, you have a massive burden of proof to overcome to sustain that proposition.
Of course humans have the capacity to be both malevolent and benevolent, cooperative and competitive, good 'and' bad. You're not going to see me disagree that our violent characteristics get stimulated much more vigorously than our cooperative side. But the question I put to you, is why does that have a much stronger purchase on guiding our behavior than the alternative? It's because it's more expedient, as far as our nature is concerned. All State's do as a matter of conduct is amplify those same traits humans have; in much stronger form and with much greater reach. I'm all for blunting the darker side of humanity, but it takes political mechanisms, coercion, and yes, the implied threat of violence to drive that mode of conduct. The same things that State's need to exercise military violence against others.
People entertain a lot of contradictions in their lives. They believe 'far' too much of the moral marketing bullshit they run on themselves, and will endlessly salivate over their high minded moral ideals, and accomplishments, whatever have you. But in practice, 'nobody actually believes this'. Because anybody that thinks most people are good, will never voluntarily leave their social security card on the ground, expecting to pick it up right where they found it an hour later. For the same reason, I'm not going to tell you who I am. Where I work. Or post my credit card details in this comment. And guess what, 'neither are you'. Nobody 'actually' believes that. Even if I don't think you're a bad guy, just as the model of science is skepticism because the alternative is unintelligible, socially, I have to work with the model of distrust because it fits the general situation far 'easier' than the alternative. If you walked into 100% of situations with the model of full cooperation and trust, you'd be taken advantage of by everyone in your workplace; you'd believe all sorts of garbage and nonsense, and you'd be hollowed out and hung out to dry. And that generalizes. From the individual, to the State.
If you believe that State's are inherently violent (I do) but people are inherently cooperative (I don't), then it should be the easiest thing in the world to get all the right people into power. But it isn't.