Violence has occupied me for some time.
Not merely as an action, but as a phenomenon.
The internet often treats violence as thought it emerges from nowhere; an inexplicable eruption detached from anything leading up to it. i find that deeply unsatisfying.
Violence rarely exists in isolation.
It is often followed up by the collapse of dialogue, the abandonment of persuasion, or the conviction that another person's humanity no longer deserves recognition.
This is not an attempt to excuse violence
Understanding a phenomenon and justifying it have never been synonymous.
What interests me is something else.
The moment an individual no longer believes another mind can be reached, force begins to appear as a substitute for language.
That is where violence becomes most revealing.
Not because it demonstrates strength, but because it reveals the point at which persuasion has been abandoned altogether.
The same pattern appears everywhere.
Within politics, within relationships, within online communities, within ourselves.
Whenever another person ceases to be someone to understand and instead becomes something to overcome, violence (whether physical or rhetorical) moves one step closer.
Perhaps the greatest contradiction is this:
The individuals who speak most confidently about violence often speak least convincingly about people.
They describe categories, symbols, enemies, rarely individuals.
Perhaps that is why violence so often follows dehumanization.
Not because violence requires hatred, but because it requires the disappearance of the person standing before us.
Whether violence is committed with fists, weapons, or words, it begins the same way.
It is no coincidence that so many acts of targeted violence are preceded by manifestos rather than conversations.
To me, the writings of Eliot Rodgers reveal a mind that has ceased to regard persuasion as meaningful. To me, they're less a testament to violence than they are to the complete abandonment of dialogue. They read as a record of someone who no longer believed another human being could be reached through understanding, only through destruction.
With the belief that understanding is no longer worth attempting.
-pilaf
Not merely as an action, but as a phenomenon.
The internet often treats violence as thought it emerges from nowhere; an inexplicable eruption detached from anything leading up to it. i find that deeply unsatisfying.
Violence rarely exists in isolation.
It is often followed up by the collapse of dialogue, the abandonment of persuasion, or the conviction that another person's humanity no longer deserves recognition.
This is not an attempt to excuse violence
Understanding a phenomenon and justifying it have never been synonymous.
What interests me is something else.
The moment an individual no longer believes another mind can be reached, force begins to appear as a substitute for language.
That is where violence becomes most revealing.
Not because it demonstrates strength, but because it reveals the point at which persuasion has been abandoned altogether.
The same pattern appears everywhere.
Within politics, within relationships, within online communities, within ourselves.
Whenever another person ceases to be someone to understand and instead becomes something to overcome, violence (whether physical or rhetorical) moves one step closer.
Perhaps the greatest contradiction is this:
The individuals who speak most confidently about violence often speak least convincingly about people.
They describe categories, symbols, enemies, rarely individuals.
Perhaps that is why violence so often follows dehumanization.
Not because violence requires hatred, but because it requires the disappearance of the person standing before us.
Whether violence is committed with fists, weapons, or words, it begins the same way.
It is no coincidence that so many acts of targeted violence are preceded by manifestos rather than conversations.
To me, the writings of Eliot Rodgers reveal a mind that has ceased to regard persuasion as meaningful. To me, they're less a testament to violence than they are to the complete abandonment of dialogue. They read as a record of someone who no longer believed another human being could be reached through understanding, only through destruction.
With the belief that understanding is no longer worth attempting.
-pilaf
