16 ms·
You can walk in any tightly-packed megapolis of millions Megapolis implies society, structure and rules. Also machinery to enforce these rules. Not an example
by sorokod 3y ago
You can walk in any tightly-packed megapolis of millions
Megapolis implies society, structure and rules. Also machinery to enforce these rules.
Not an example demonstrating that violent individuals are an aberration.
- jvanderbot 3y agoThe same forces that make organized violence probably also drive out individual violence. The group monopolizes violence.
- sorokod 3y agoI would say that group violence is channeling the violence of individuals to achieve some goal a group might have. Chimp Empire is worth watching in this context.
- ptsneves 3y agoThe most basic definition of state is that it is some institution with the monopoly of violence. Think of it, who in all myriad society organisations and hierarchies has the legitimacy to use force? The state. Even murder is allowed and trained for, if you are part of the state organisation, normally called armed forces. Many anarchists in the XIX century despised the idea of state because accepting it means accepting organised violence and importantly a monopoly on it.
- jvanderbot 3y agoReaching aaaall the way back to high school, this is basic locke theory of government. You give up a freedom to gain some protection against the jerks who would use that freedom against you. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke-political/ It does seem to me that most political arguments fall into this category
- ptsneves 3y agoI would argue that the OG of state violence monopoly is Thomas Hobbes and the concept of sovereign as the deposit of the individual’s ability for violence. Will read the link though. In Portugal there is also philosophy in high school and with time I realize that it was the most practical and important class I ever had and at the time me and my colleagues completely missed its value.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y agoThere is a book about this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)
- nologic01 3y agoI agree its not a sharp example, there are lots of interacting effects and factors. But to me at least the statistics seem rather overwhelming. Social structure and rules and enforcement seem more tailored to mop up aberrations rather than constrain "normal" behavior. There is probably social studies of toddlers etc that analyze this question when conforming behaviors are less developed. I don't recall reading something that proves it is only learned cultural norms that "pacify" us.
- sorokod 3y agoIn different places and times there were different thresholds on the level of violence acceptable to society. We should be careful to not project our current norms on the entire history of humanity. A quote from A Distant Mirror The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman: In village games, players with hands tied behind them competed to kill a cat nailed to a post by battering it to death with their heads, at the risk of cheeks ripped open or eyes scratched out by the frantic animal’s claws. Trumpets enhanced the excitement. Or a pig enclosed in a wide pen was chased by men with clubs to the laughter of spectators as he ran squealing from the blows until beaten lifeless and another one: The citizens of Mons bought a condemned criminal from a neighboring town so that they should have the pleasure of seeing him quartered.
- itsacomment 3y agoBoth cases are arguably examples not of individual violence but organized group violence.
- sorokod 3y agoGo for it, argue...
- itsacomment 3y agoThe criminal was a) condemned, so organized state violence and b) brought over by the entire village, so a group of people. Not an individual outburst of violence, then. The group of people trying to head-butt the chicken to death are playing a sport. Often enough to at some time add trumpets to it.
- vivekd 3y agoThat's my interpretation as well. I was in a slum in Africa once and fell victim to that kind of random violence. I think it happens everywhere in the form of crime. Obviously no one likes crime so societies try and clamp down in that
- jwilber 3y agoWhat? Even in that needlessly pedantic interpretation, their point still stands.