Walter Benjamin 's Critique Of Violence

“The practice of violence, like all action, changes the world, but the most probable change is to a more violent world” (Arendt pg 80). Violence is contagious, like a disease, which will destroy nations and our morals as human beings. Each individual has his or her own definition of violence and when it is acceptable or ethical to use it. Martin Luther King Jr., Walter Benjamin, and Hannah Arendt are among the many that wrote about the different facets of violence, in what cases it is ethical, the role we as individuals play in this violent society and the political aspects behind our violence.

History has a tendency to repeat itself.  One of humanity’s most popular ways of getting its point across is through violence.  When words are no longer enough to argue a point, human casualties not only directly solve the problem, but symbolically send a message to all those affected as well.  Just as the American colonies fought against the British for Freedom when their voice was no longer heard, and just as the Islamic extremists used terrorism to send an evil message to America, both V and Chancellor Sutler used violence to gain a voice in a world of chaos.

If violence can never be legitimized, then why does it exist with such prominence? Thomas Hobbs believed that humans live in a perpetual state of war, ?a Bellum ominium contra omnes, a ?war of all against all? (Candelaria 907).? Humans are naturally violent. Freud agreed with Hobbes, believing that aggression is a natural human instinct. Fear and desire motivate mankind to violence. Freud also believed that violence would naturally beget violence. Because all humans fear death, when threatened they will turn to aggression to protect themselves. These dim views of the human condition show violence to be intrinsic in our

What has America come to? Although the articles, “We’re No.1(1)!” written by Thomas Friedman, and the article “Violence is Who We Are,” by Steven Crichley, have different overall subjects, they have a similar arguments. The world isn’t as great as it used to be, we are lacking good leadership, and we happily invite wrong doings into our lives.

David Nirenberg talks about two types of violence, “cataclysmic violence” and “systematic violence”. The first part of the book discusses “cataclysmic” violence, while the second part of the book focuses on “systematic violence.”

It is said that up to thirty thousand men may have died at the battle of Hastings, a conflict that occurred almost one thousand years ago. World War II, which lasted less than seven years, has been estimated to be responsible for up to forty million deaths. Thus, many people often ask the question why? Why does such conflict occur? Who or what is responsible? The culprit does not hide nor has it escaped scrutiny and blame. It comes in many shapes and sizes, faces and places. It is called violence and the potential for it resides in every single person on this earth. Whose violence conquers all? It is hard to measure the significance of violence, especially when it can cause so much destruction and death as well as stimulation. However,

The main objective of this chapter is to describe violence and its purpose in a literary work.

Violence is defined as a behavior involving physical or mental force intending to hurt, damage, or kill someone. In the words of Zak Ibrahim, peace is defined as the proliferation or the increase in the existence of Justice. But where does love fit in to these conversations? Violence cannot necessarily transform into love, but the presence of it is surely important. Violence involving our most loved ones, helps us find love and compassion in the toughest of situations, and leads us toward paths of peace. In this essay, examples will be drawn from Zak Ibrahim 's keynote presentation, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Beautiful Boy; a film directed by Shawn Ku, and Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.

In order to discuss the modes of violence inherent in any symbolic order, a discussion of violence must precede its effects. It is easy to observe what I will call ‘subjective’ violence; however, doing so taints an ‘objective’ assessment. By subjective violence, I mean acts that we can describe as breaking the status quo or utterly unacceptable; spewing a spit ball, punching a friend, engaging in armed conflict, and so on. Objective violence is the status quo, or systemic acts maintaining the existing order; profit schemes enabling the last recession, government institutions that motivate resistance, etc. For the sake of brevity, I only wish to note that I am conceptualizing the notion of violence in an operative sense, as, I believe, it is the only way to provide an effective critique of

Hart, a legal positivist, believes that “law is law,” and argued against Radbrunch’s theory in servings as a solution to fix Germany’s judicial system. He argued against his theory and wanted a separation of law and morality because he thought that it would only “cloak the true nature of the problems,” and encourage a “romantic optimism,” rather than addressing the dilemma that the courts had in deciding on convicting Nazi criminals. Though Hart acknowledges that this case poses a difficult situation for the law, he does propose his own solution to the problem. With his positivist approach to the law, saying that the laws are the rules expected of us, and enforced at a particular time, he proposes that the “grudge informer” should be punished through a different and ‘new’ set of laws. These laws he deems “retrospective laws,” would entail punishing acts such as revenge and duplicity. However, this dilemma between choosing if the “grudge informer” was innocent

With time violence may become such a commonplace that even seemingly sane people will see no problem murdering a store clerk, opening fire on someone that cut them off on the highway, or killing a disobedient child. "A society that chooses violent death as a solution to a social problem gives official sanction to a climate of violence." (Prejean, 57)

The books Child of the Dark by Carolina Maria de Jesus and Testimony by Victor Montejo describes the lives of two individuals from different societies. In both of these societies there was much hardship and violence. The two main characters who wrote these books describe life through their point of view and explains the hardship and challenges they had living in a society filled with violence.

Pinker’s argument is logical and consistent. Pinker, an experimental psychologist, is one of the world’s leading experts on language and the mind. So, he is qualified to write about violence within the human race. But, because of his level of expertise within this field, he uses words and phrases that the average reader might not understand. For example, Pinker uses the word carnage instead of massacre, the word ubiquitous instead of everywhere, and the word tenuous instead of weak. Readers from a general audience may not understand what these words mean. In contrast, the author defines key terms for the audience. For instance, he explains reason as the “intensifying application of knowledge and rationally to human affairs”. By providing definitions for key concepts, Pinker eliminates confusion on important topics in his article. Additionally, the article is well organized. Pinker uses subtitles and transition words to make his writing flow smoothly. Also, the author addresses opposing sides to his arguments and counters them. For example, in response to the destructiveness of wars, Pinker counters that all of the developments have been systematically reversed. Finally, Pinker’s argument is consistent. From the beginning to the end of his article, he claims that

The history of human nature has been bloody, painful, and even destructive. Nonetheless, before understanding their environments humans used to kill each other based on their own mindset on the ideal of violence, and what it actually meant. Pinker describes narratives of violent acts from the past, that today are foreign to us. He gives us a tour of the historical human violence and how the violence in human nature has changed throughout time. The main idea from Pinker’s book,“The Better Angels of Our Nature ', is “for all the dangers we face today, the dangers of yesterday were even worse.” He provides its readers with explicit violent stories beginning from 8000 BCE to now, and describes how violence has evolved from a blood lost to more of a peaceful existence.

In Frantz Fanon’s text “Concerning Violence” he establishes his response to colonization and decolonization to be the simple act of violence against the oppressor. I find that Fanon’s reasoning’s for using the sole practice of violence to directly reflect his past experiences. Fanon was affected directly and indirectly by experiencing the Fascist and Colonial violence as an African man and also witnessing the atrocities of his peers while growing up in Martinique. He also witnessed the atrocities of WWII when he fought against Nazi Germany and during the Algerian War as Algerians tried to gain independence from France. His only answer to the dehumanizing violent atrocities was to fight back with extreme violence to regain freedom from the world’s