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> The anger that motivated the writing of the Cookbook blinded me to the illogical notion that violence can be used to prevent violence. I don't see why he ass

> The anger that motivated the writing of the Cookbook blinded me to the illogical notion that violence can be used to prevent violence. I don't see why he asserts this as if it is indisputable fact. This is one of the most debated topics in all of human history. The leaders of almost every major revolution eventually reached precisely the opposite conclusion. The book may in fact do harm in the hands of those who are rash and quick to anger. But I don't think that has anything to do with something that is inherently illogical.

Crito 13y ago
Quite. Bloodlust is a dangerous thing, but total pacifism is still a fairly radical idea that I don't think many people actually buy into when the rubber meets the road. Pacifism has claimed few victories, suggesting that historic incidents could have been better solved with pacifism is a good way to make yourself look very silly very quickly. Pacifism is a tool, not a silver bullet. For revolutionaries and reformationists, there is no silver bullet.
- dionidium 13y ago
  Just to pile on here, you'll usually find that people who claim to be pacifists will say, "oh, well, yeah, of course we had to fight Hitler" when confronted. They don't actually even think of themselves that way, in other words.
  - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
    That's not necessarily hypocritical. You can be a pacifist in most situations and acknowledge that sometimes violence is called for.
    - evanspa 13y ago
      But then you're not a pacifist. By definition (at least my understanding / interpretation), a pacifist considers violence unjustifiable in any and all situations.
      - Symmetry 13y ago
        I think you can reasonably claim to be a pacifist if you think that violence is unacceptable in broad categories that most people find it acceptable in, even if you still support it in some situations. For example, wanting to abolish the military but not the police.
        Crito 13y ago
        I think it would depend on exactly what you mean by "abolish the military". Are we talking "abolish standing militaries, but leave ourselves open to the possibility of raising one in the future if Ganghis Khan rises from his forgotten grave"? In my personal opinion, abolishing standing militaries while leaving ourselves open to raising an army if the (perhaps unlikely) need arises is, while probably not a common attitude, still just a standard non-pacifist position. I am more than open to abolishing standing armies, but I do not consider myself to be a pacifist.
      - Jtsummers 13y ago
        Like most things, it's a spectrum. There are pacifists who won't partake in violence. Either by their action or the action of someone on their behalf (i.e., they'd argue against their nation going to war). There are also pacifists who won't partake in violence in their own defense, but might to defend others. And others will resist throwing the first punch, but are willing to defend themselves and others with violence if forced to. And there are plenty of other variations on this theme. And if you really want to go to the definition, wiktionary [1] has it as: 1.One who loves, supports, or favours peace; one who is pro-peace. 2.One who avoids violence. 3.One who opposes violence and is anti-war. Opposition to and avoidance of violence. Not necessarily an absolute rejection of it (though that is likely the ideal of all pacifists). [1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pacifist http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pacifist
        oinksoft 13y ago
        No! Pacifism has no spectrum, like anarchism. You can't have a little bit of government with anarchism any more than you can have a bit of violence with pacifism.
    - Crito 13y ago
      Most people don't think that violence is always the solution, most people recognize that most problems have non-violent resolutions and that non-violent resolutions are preferable. That's not so much "pacifism" as it is "being a bog-standard sensible person". Of course standard sensible people like to give themselves all sort of nice sounding labels that they can wear like badges (egalitarian, pacifist, etc); there isn't anything wrong with that.
    - dionidium 13y ago
      The word really serves no purpose if all it means is, "we should only fight wars when they're justified."
    - scarecrowbob 13y ago
      I agree. For instance, (and it's been a while, so perhaps my reading is bad), Arendt makes a distinction between the justified use of violence, in which we suppose that violence is wrong but can see no other course of action, and legitimate violence, where we understand violence simply as our right as people with power. A justified violent action is future oriented, hoping that the future will vindicate what will be a past action but knowing that at the moment, the action is "wrong" until it becomes redeemed through historical context. By contrast, a legitimate violent action is past oriented, and understood as simply "right", because the power carrying it out has been granted legitimate state power. Here, we can see how people in the US who favor military action often see military action as the "right" of the US to protect its interests, coupled with the legitimacy of US power as a force for the promotion of human rights (not a view I agree with, by the way). This might sound like a strange and useless distinction, but consider the difference between a police officer shooting someone because there is no other action, and doing even though it may be wrong, and on the other hand, a police officer tasing a "non-compliant" suspect because he believes he legitimately has that power and won't be harmed even if, in the future, people decide it was a wrong action. At that point, it seems useful, at least to me, to understand that we live in an imperfect world and may have to do violent things, but can be strong pacifists by asserting that there is never a "legitimate" violence.
      - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
        This lines up pretty well with what I was trying to say, I think. Violence is always bad. Sometimes, it may be less bad than the alternative, but it's difficult and dangerous to judge exactly when; and even if you guess right, violence is still bad. It doesn't retroactively become glorious. I liked the approach in Iain Banks' Culture series. The Culture believes that war is sometimes necessary but resolutely refuses to glorify it, so all their combat ships are named things like "Thug" and "Gangster" and "Torturer".
    - joshuapants 13y ago
      Can you be a virgin in most situations but sometimes have sex?
      - Crito 13y ago
        People can do a lot of mental gymnastics to justify exactly that sort of nonsense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born-again_virgin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born-again_virgin ;) I guess the take-away here is that people can certainly claim these sorts of things about themselves, evidence to the contrary, but we shouldn't necessarily take them seriously.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Agreed, a true pacifist is rare. During the war (to his credit, before the full extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis were publicly known), Gandhi called on Britons to fight the Nazis without arms, suggesting that the only way to defeat the Nazis with violence was to become more horrible than the Nazis. Today we have the benefit of hindsight so we can see that was a silly thing to assert, but that hindsight realization should drive us to realize that caution must be exercised when advocating non-violent resistance. It cannot be successfully applied to every situation. (To Every Briton: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1945851/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1945851/posts)
    - smacktoward 13y ago
      George Orwell called him out on it contemporaneously. From his essay "Reflections on Gandhi", published January 1949 (http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-and-other-works/reflections-on-gandhi/ http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-a...): [T]here is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his own struggle against the British government. The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to command publicity... he believed in ’arousing the world’, which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing. It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing?
      - Crito 13y ago
        Gandhi also made statements after the war (and therefore without the possibility of being ignorant as to what happened) that people have raised very similar objections to: --- “Hitler,” Gandhi solemnly affirmed, “killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. I believe in hara-kiri. I do not believe in its militaristic connotations, but it is a heroic method.” “You think,” I said, “that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?” “Yes,” Gandhi agreed,” that would have been heroism. It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to the evils of Hitler’s violence, especially in 1938, before the war. As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.” [snip] Mahatma Gandhi has never lived under a thoroughly totalitarian regime; his generosity and humanity make it difficult for him to realize how very cruel a dictatorship can be. In India, and in Palestine, and other plces, violence or organized nonviolence is a form of “public relations.” … Thus gandhian nonviolence as well as its ugly opposite — Zionist terror — implies the existence of a free democratic society in England (and in America). It is to this court of public opinion that the resisters in India and kidnappers in Palestine have appealed. But suppose there were no democracy in Western nations? A British prime minister could not order a million people dragged out of their houses and off the streets to be melted down to soap in fiery furnaces. Hitler could — and did. --- That last section in particular strikes me as quite similar to George Orwell's objection. (quotation from "Gandhi and Stalin: Two Signs At The World's Crossroads", by way of: http://stevereads.com/weblog/2007/12/10/gandhi-the-jewish-victims-of-the-holocaust-should-have-committed-mass-suicide/#comment-5298 http://stevereads.com/weblog/2007/12/10/gandhi-the-jewish-vi...)
  - SloopJon 13y ago
    I don't remember how it came up, but I was asked something similar to this during my Eagle Scout interview, back when I believed in God and stuff. I said that I would be a conscientious objector, even during World War 2. It wasn't a popular answer, as the interviewers were veterans, but I just didn't think that Jesus wanted me to drop bombs on other people.
- wikwocket 13y ago
  Regarding pacifism, an interesting take on it that might surprise people is C.S. Lewis's essay "Why I'm Not a Pacifist." In my opinion, he provides some clarity on the issue, especially on when it is appropriate to not be pacifist, and why. Here is a decent summary, although I recommend reading the entire (brief) essay: http://booksbycslewis.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-im-not-pacifist.html http://booksbycslewis.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-im-not-pacifi...
robbyking 13y ago
> I don't see why he asserts this as if it is indisputable fact. This is one of the most debated topics in all of human history. You make an excellent point, one which Noam Chomsky addressed by saying[1] > "If we're interested in let's say diminishing the amount of violence in the world, it's at least arguable and perhaps even sometimes true that a terroristic act does diminish the amount of violence in the world. Hence a person who is opposed to violence will not be opposed to that terroristic act." Edit: The context was the use of violence to stop a hypothetical "train" from transporting munitions to help the criminal US war in Vietnam. [1] http://www.eduqna.com/Quotations/495-quotations-5.html http://www.eduqna.com/Quotations/495-quotations-5.html
- proksoup 13y ago
  Another Chomsky example has used frequently is pulling a child by the arm out of the street. It's violence, and it's moral certainty is debatable depending on the specific context.
  - maaku 13y ago
    How is yanking a child's arm not less violent than getting run over by a bus? Being against violence means wanting to minimize the amount of violence in the world, no? It's a strange strawman to say that being against violence means never taking any forceful action whatsoever - that just leads to violent outcomes through inaction.
    - corin_ 13y ago
      Sure , but that's the entire debate. In that example it's easy, of course you'd rather cause a child a little discomfort rather than let them get run over. But what about more serious examples? Would you support the people behind 9/11 if it lead to less deaths overall over an X year period? If yes, would everyone? It's easy to make your decision when the potential downside (a child cries for 5 minutes) is so minor and the potential upside (a child gets saved from dying) is so much bigger in comparison - it only becomes an interesting debate when you up the stakes considerably. For example, the debate about whether what Mandela did, back in his "terrorrist" days, was justified.
mistercow 13y ago
Moreover, our culture has a tendency to touch up history to downplay successful uses of violence, and emphasize the success of nonviolence. One salient point I found mentioned about this was in HPMoR, where Harry mentions that Gandhi endorsed the use of nonviolent resistance if the Nazis invaded India. Of course, we know exactly what would have happened if they had done that, and we also have a pretty good idea of what would have happened if the Allies hadn't used violence during WWII. It's ugly, but the fact is that real life isn't a movie, and the good guys don't always win just because that's what's just.
Guvante 13y ago
> I don't see why he asserts this as if it is indisputable fact. I didn't take it as indisputable. Instead it is taken in the context of where he is. Specifically being a minor part of a major machine, acting out to damage the machine won't do anything other than cause more violence.
enriquepablo 13y ago
>> The anger that motivated the writing of the Cookbook blinded me to the illogical notion that violence can be used to prevent violence. > The leaders of almost every major revolution eventually reached precisely the opposite conclusion. > I don't think that has anything to do with something that is inherently illogical. (I think my editing has preserved the spirit of the letter.) I would say it is deeply illogical. You would have a hard time convincing me that any of those leaders have managed to prevent any amount of violence through the use of violence. I don't see any progress in the erradication of illegal violence, and legal violence is more violent than ever. The notion is definitelly illogical. What your reasoning shows is that the leaders of almost every major revolution had pride. Pride is inherently illogical.
- Crito 13y ago
  The execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu stabilized Romania. Despite calls for more executions, after they were killed execution was abolished in Romania, and there have been no executions in the country since. If you are not interested in being convinced, I am certain this example will not convince you, but I believe that the subsequent abolition of capital punishment in Romania makes it an excellent example of moderated violence ending a cycle of violence. Much like careful amputation can save lives, the appropriate application of violence can end conflicts.

Crito 13y ago

Quite. Bloodlust is a dangerous thing, but total pacifism is still a fairly radical idea that I don't think many people actually buy into when the rubber meets the road. Pacifism has claimed few victories, suggesting that historic incidents could have been better solved with pacifism is a good way to make yourself look very silly very quickly. Pacifism is a tool, not a silver bullet. For revolutionaries and reformationists, there is no silver bullet.

dionidium 13y ago
Just to pile on here, you'll usually find that people who claim to be pacifists will say, "oh, well, yeah, of course we had to fight Hitler" when confronted. They don't actually even think of themselves that way, in other words.
- PhasmaFelis 13y ago
  That's not necessarily hypocritical. You can be a pacifist in most situations and acknowledge that sometimes violence is called for.
  - evanspa 13y ago
    But then you're not a pacifist. By definition (at least my understanding / interpretation), a pacifist considers violence unjustifiable in any and all situations.
    - Symmetry 13y ago
      I think you can reasonably claim to be a pacifist if you think that violence is unacceptable in broad categories that most people find it acceptable in, even if you still support it in some situations. For example, wanting to abolish the military but not the police.
      - Crito 13y ago
        I think it would depend on exactly what you mean by "abolish the military". Are we talking "abolish standing militaries, but leave ourselves open to the possibility of raising one in the future if Ganghis Khan rises from his forgotten grave"? In my personal opinion, abolishing standing militaries while leaving ourselves open to raising an army if the (perhaps unlikely) need arises is, while probably not a common attitude, still just a standard non-pacifist position. I am more than open to abolishing standing armies, but I do not consider myself to be a pacifist.
    - Jtsummers 13y ago
      Like most things, it's a spectrum. There are pacifists who won't partake in violence. Either by their action or the action of someone on their behalf (i.e., they'd argue against their nation going to war). There are also pacifists who won't partake in violence in their own defense, but might to defend others. And others will resist throwing the first punch, but are willing to defend themselves and others with violence if forced to. And there are plenty of other variations on this theme. And if you really want to go to the definition, wiktionary [1] has it as: 1.One who loves, supports, or favours peace; one who is pro-peace. 2.One who avoids violence. 3.One who opposes violence and is anti-war. Opposition to and avoidance of violence. Not necessarily an absolute rejection of it (though that is likely the ideal of all pacifists). [1] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pacifist http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pacifist
      - oinksoft 13y ago
        No! Pacifism has no spectrum, like anarchism. You can't have a little bit of government with anarchism any more than you can have a bit of violence with pacifism.
  - Crito 13y ago
    Most people don't think that violence is always the solution, most people recognize that most problems have non-violent resolutions and that non-violent resolutions are preferable. That's not so much "pacifism" as it is "being a bog-standard sensible person". Of course standard sensible people like to give themselves all sort of nice sounding labels that they can wear like badges (egalitarian, pacifist, etc); there isn't anything wrong with that.
  - dionidium 13y ago
    The word really serves no purpose if all it means is, "we should only fight wars when they're justified."
  - scarecrowbob 13y ago
    I agree. For instance, (and it's been a while, so perhaps my reading is bad), Arendt makes a distinction between the justified use of violence, in which we suppose that violence is wrong but can see no other course of action, and legitimate violence, where we understand violence simply as our right as people with power. A justified violent action is future oriented, hoping that the future will vindicate what will be a past action but knowing that at the moment, the action is "wrong" until it becomes redeemed through historical context. By contrast, a legitimate violent action is past oriented, and understood as simply "right", because the power carrying it out has been granted legitimate state power. Here, we can see how people in the US who favor military action often see military action as the "right" of the US to protect its interests, coupled with the legitimacy of US power as a force for the promotion of human rights (not a view I agree with, by the way). This might sound like a strange and useless distinction, but consider the difference between a police officer shooting someone because there is no other action, and doing even though it may be wrong, and on the other hand, a police officer tasing a "non-compliant" suspect because he believes he legitimately has that power and won't be harmed even if, in the future, people decide it was a wrong action. At that point, it seems useful, at least to me, to understand that we live in an imperfect world and may have to do violent things, but can be strong pacifists by asserting that there is never a "legitimate" violence.
    - PhasmaFelis 13y ago
      This lines up pretty well with what I was trying to say, I think. Violence is always bad. Sometimes, it may be less bad than the alternative, but it's difficult and dangerous to judge exactly when; and even if you guess right, violence is still bad. It doesn't retroactively become glorious. I liked the approach in Iain Banks' Culture series. The Culture believes that war is sometimes necessary but resolutely refuses to glorify it, so all their combat ships are named things like "Thug" and "Gangster" and "Torturer".
  - joshuapants 13y ago
    Can you be a virgin in most situations but sometimes have sex?
    - Crito 13y ago
      People can do a lot of mental gymnastics to justify exactly that sort of nonsense: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born-again_virgin http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Born-again_virgin ;) I guess the take-away here is that people can certainly claim these sorts of things about themselves, evidence to the contrary, but we shouldn't necessarily take them seriously.
- Crito 13y ago
  Agreed, a true pacifist is rare. During the war (to his credit, before the full extent of the atrocities committed by the Nazis were publicly known), Gandhi called on Britons to fight the Nazis without arms, suggesting that the only way to defeat the Nazis with violence was to become more horrible than the Nazis. Today we have the benefit of hindsight so we can see that was a silly thing to assert, but that hindsight realization should drive us to realize that caution must be exercised when advocating non-violent resistance. It cannot be successfully applied to every situation. (To Every Briton: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1945851/posts http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1945851/posts)
  - smacktoward 13y ago
    George Orwell called him out on it contemporaneously. From his essay "Reflections on Gandhi", published January 1949 (http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-and-other-works/reflections-on-gandhi/ http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/by-orwell/essays-a...): [T]here is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his own struggle against the British government. The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to command publicity... he believed in ’arousing the world’, which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing. It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing?
    - Crito 13y ago
      Gandhi also made statements after the war (and therefore without the possibility of being ignorant as to what happened) that people have raised very similar objections to: --- “Hitler,” Gandhi solemnly affirmed, “killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. I believe in hara-kiri. I do not believe in its militaristic connotations, but it is a heroic method.” “You think,” I said, “that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?” “Yes,” Gandhi agreed,” that would have been heroism. It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to the evils of Hitler’s violence, especially in 1938, before the war. As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.” [snip] Mahatma Gandhi has never lived under a thoroughly totalitarian regime; his generosity and humanity make it difficult for him to realize how very cruel a dictatorship can be. In India, and in Palestine, and other plces, violence or organized nonviolence is a form of “public relations.” … Thus gandhian nonviolence as well as its ugly opposite — Zionist terror — implies the existence of a free democratic society in England (and in America). It is to this court of public opinion that the resisters in India and kidnappers in Palestine have appealed. But suppose there were no democracy in Western nations? A British prime minister could not order a million people dragged out of their houses and off the streets to be melted down to soap in fiery furnaces. Hitler could — and did. --- That last section in particular strikes me as quite similar to George Orwell's objection. (quotation from "Gandhi and Stalin: Two Signs At The World's Crossroads", by way of: http://stevereads.com/weblog/2007/12/10/gandhi-the-jewish-victims-of-the-holocaust-should-have-committed-mass-suicide/#comment-5298 http://stevereads.com/weblog/2007/12/10/gandhi-the-jewish-vi...)
- SloopJon 13y ago
  I don't remember how it came up, but I was asked something similar to this during my Eagle Scout interview, back when I believed in God and stuff. I said that I would be a conscientious objector, even during World War 2. It wasn't a popular answer, as the interviewers were veterans, but I just didn't think that Jesus wanted me to drop bombs on other people.
wikwocket 13y ago
Regarding pacifism, an interesting take on it that might surprise people is C.S. Lewis's essay "Why I'm Not a Pacifist." In my opinion, he provides some clarity on the issue, especially on when it is appropriate to not be pacifist, and why. Here is a decent summary, although I recommend reading the entire (brief) essay: http://booksbycslewis.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-im-not-pacifist.html http://booksbycslewis.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-im-not-pacifi...

robbyking 13y ago

> I don't see why he asserts this as if it is indisputable fact. This is one of the most debated topics in all of human history. You make an excellent point, one which Noam Chomsky addressed by saying[1] > "If we're interested in let's say diminishing the amount of violence in the world, it's at least arguable and perhaps even sometimes true that a terroristic act does diminish the amount of violence in the world. Hence a person who is opposed to violence will not be opposed to that terroristic act." Edit: The context was the use of violence to stop a hypothetical "train" from transporting munitions to help the criminal US war in Vietnam. [1] http://www.eduqna.com/Quotations/495-quotations-5.html http://www.eduqna.com/Quotations/495-quotations-5.html

proksoup 13y ago
Another Chomsky example has used frequently is pulling a child by the arm out of the street. It's violence, and it's moral certainty is debatable depending on the specific context.
- maaku 13y ago
  How is yanking a child's arm not less violent than getting run over by a bus? Being against violence means wanting to minimize the amount of violence in the world, no? It's a strange strawman to say that being against violence means never taking any forceful action whatsoever - that just leads to violent outcomes through inaction.
  - corin_ 13y ago
    Sure , but that's the entire debate. In that example it's easy, of course you'd rather cause a child a little discomfort rather than let them get run over. But what about more serious examples? Would you support the people behind 9/11 if it lead to less deaths overall over an X year period? If yes, would everyone? It's easy to make your decision when the potential downside (a child cries for 5 minutes) is so minor and the potential upside (a child gets saved from dying) is so much bigger in comparison - it only becomes an interesting debate when you up the stakes considerably. For example, the debate about whether what Mandela did, back in his "terrorrist" days, was justified.

mistercow 13y ago

Moreover, our culture has a tendency to touch up history to downplay successful uses of violence, and emphasize the success of nonviolence. One salient point I found mentioned about this was in HPMoR, where Harry mentions that Gandhi endorsed the use of nonviolent resistance if the Nazis invaded India. Of course, we know exactly what would have happened if they had done that, and we also have a pretty good idea of what would have happened if the Allies hadn't used violence during WWII. It's ugly, but the fact is that real life isn't a movie, and the good guys don't always win just because that's what's just.

Guvante 13y ago

> I don't see why he asserts this as if it is indisputable fact. I didn't take it as indisputable. Instead it is taken in the context of where he is. Specifically being a minor part of a major machine, acting out to damage the machine won't do anything other than cause more violence.

enriquepablo 13y ago

>> The anger that motivated the writing of the Cookbook blinded me to the illogical notion that violence can be used to prevent violence. > The leaders of almost every major revolution eventually reached precisely the opposite conclusion. > I don't think that has anything to do with something that is inherently illogical. (I think my editing has preserved the spirit of the letter.) I would say it is deeply illogical. You would have a hard time convincing me that any of those leaders have managed to prevent any amount of violence through the use of violence. I don't see any progress in the erradication of illegal violence, and legal violence is more violent than ever. The notion is definitelly illogical. What your reasoning shows is that the leaders of almost every major revolution had pride. Pride is inherently illogical.

Crito 13y ago
The execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu stabilized Romania. Despite calls for more executions, after they were killed execution was abolished in Romania, and there have been no executions in the country since. If you are not interested in being convinced, I am certain this example will not convince you, but I believe that the subsequent abolition of capital punishment in Romania makes it an excellent example of moderated violence ending a cycle of violence. Much like careful amputation can save lives, the appropriate application of violence can end conflicts.