I see nothing wrong with this comment, what it's implying, predators want to be the only ones inflicting the damage and have its prey not defend itself.
He's basically correct though. This statement has also sat terribly with me. Especially given how much we glorify documents like the constitution or declaration of independence.
Like many absolute statements, this claim is just plain wrong. America (and many other countries) were started by revolutions. The revolutionaries had guns.
Countries like India are unique for gaining freedom without violence.
I mean just look at Syria. I don't have any feelings good or bad towards the rebels. But people have been trying to get rid of Assad for ages and it just took the right people with guns.
One man's violence is another's righteous revolution. All political power is at the end of the barrel of a gun.
> Countries like India are unique for gaining freedom without violence.
There was a lot of violence leading up to and, sadly, after the independence of India. Gandhi was nonviolent, but many of the freedom fighters for India's independence were not.
What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
I don't think this is true. How many popular movies are war movies where the heroes are most certainly not pacifists? Even the movie starring a real-life pacifist (Hacksaw Ridge) is about how he, too, fit into the war machine.
First, I meant pacifism is promoted as the only recourse for the general citizen, not for the government. Of course, war movies promote the acceptability of violence by the state. Two totally separate phenomena.
The state promotes violence by the state, and being docile for the citizen.
Ok, but the word pacifism means something specific. I agree with your statement about docility, I think many would call it "civility." Same thing that black people were accused of, being "uncivil," when they were rioting for civil rights.
> I meant pacifism is promoted as the only recourse for the general citizen
What media are you consuming? Take a look at any list of top-grossing films of the past few decades and it's riddled with non-state lone wolf actors using violence to solve their problems.
You're saying that John Wick, Creed, Spider-Man, The Fall Guy, Furiosa, Venom, etc. are teaching Americans to be pacifists?
Of course. Movies are an outlet to let off steam. We experience the violence in the theatre that is increasingly precisely because the pacified masses need a strong outlet to escape the lack of recourse for injustice in the real world.
This is a good explanation without supporting the idea that there is no propaganda of violence. There is. And btw, the US are one of the most violent advanced countries.
You're moving the goal posts. First you said that "pacifism is heavily promoted in mainstream media". When I pointed out that American mainstream media is absolutely riddled with "non-state invidualist hero uses personal violence to solve their problems", now you claim that the media is for "letting off steam".
> why pacifism is heavily promoted in mainstream media and society
Yes, America's problem is it's just too peaceful, at home and abroad.
Like, it's a neat hypothesis. The data just don't fit, certainly not for America. We have high rates of gun ownership and gun violence (as well as other violence, e.g. at bars and schoolyards) precisely because we like taking justice into our own hands.
I think Putin and his lackeys have exemplified this countless times in recent years. They perpetrate horrors but will cry foul when someone dares punch back.
