Revolutionary ethics and the legitimacy of violence.

[blackwave]

Having not too long ago entered among the ranks of the far left, I have noticed a widespread complacency with the notion of violence. Now, I am no pacifist, and I understand that for most violence is by definition inherent to any revolutionary effort, but I'm interested in a more general questioning of revolutionary ethics.

No doubt there are a variety of approaches. Many will probably say, for example, that ordinary civilians should never be intentionally attacked, whilst others may have a 'by any means necessary' approach, wherein the ends are seen to justify the means - if it helps the revolution in any way, civilians may be targeted. And does the ideological leaning of a civilian change one's approach to them? But even subtler questions surely exist. What about the place of state security services? Is it always valid to intentionally attack such security services (as opposed to self-defense)? It could be argued that most members of such forces (as opposed to genuine counter-revolutionary militias) are just ordinary proles trying to feed their families, who naively assume themselves to be on the right side.

I'm interested to hear not only different perspectives, but also the reasonings behind them. Do you think that ethics has a place in the revolutionary process, and if so, do you think this issue is prominent enough in the minds of active revolutionaries?

[Blake's Baby]

I think ethics is the ultimate determinant of what we do. Yes, we are all for an 'ethical future' (ie releasing 6.5 billion people from slavery), but do the actions we take now actually contribute to that? Or, by our actions that we claim are against the system, do we actually make things worse rather than better?

I don't believe that we can, as the revolutionary class-conscious section of the working class, use terrorism to bring about revolution. I think it's a tactic that has been proven to fail, and therefore, it is violence to no purpose.

I am not opposed to violence, but I firmly believe that the violence that will occur during the revolution will be less than the violence that it seeks to stop - the violence that capitalism daily hands out. So, the working class will have to use violence, because violence is being used against it; but this should never be indiscriminate - what would be the point? Terrorism is by definition the use of terror, and why do we want to make people afraid? We want them to realise that the future is the revolution, not to be afraid to go out or use the railways.

As to executions of 'state agents' I would obviously prefer these not to happen. What I want to happen is for even die-hard supporters of capitalism and the state to say 'you know what, I understand what you're on about now, and you're right' but I'm not naive enough to think that that will happen in more than a handful of cases.

As for soldiers and police, well, if we haven't managed to subvert the armies and policeforces to an extent beforehand, we're probably all going to die anyway. It's absolutely necessary to try to neutralise the armed forces of the state - not by bombs because we'd lose but through attacking their morale, their certainty and their willingness to defend the brutal and corrupt system that we have.

[blackwave]

I guess the fact that only one person contributed to the thread answers my question.

[Joesky]

Well i've been trying to answer the very same questions for my own personal sake and i've come to a conclusion that blood always flows from a revolution but we must not let it drown us.

To put it simply.

[NGNM85]

I think it's largely circumstance-dependent. First, is violence justified under the circumstances? The offending issue must be found to be sufficiently grave to warrant such tactics, and one also has to ensure there are no viable non-violent alternatives. Second, one has to consider the consequences. Revolutionary violence should be guided by the Hippocratic principle; the cure must not be worse than the disease. I've noticed in the radical community there's a lot of focus on the severity of the greivances and the moral justification for retribution, but far too little thought as to what other means are availible, or the likely consequences.

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

Communism is our goal, violence is our tool. Where it is effective at hurting the capitalists and won't alienate us from the proleteriat and people, we should use it.

A few bourgeois/pigs dead is worth the liberation of humanity.

[NGNM85]

Communism is our goal, violence is our tool. Where it is effective at hurting the capitalists and won't alienate us from the proleteriat and people, we should use it.

A few bourgeois/pigs dead is worth the liberation of humanity.

Exhibit A.

[RedRise]

A revolution is like any war - people have to fight and blood is shed. Still, it is always in everyone's best interest to leave violence as a last resort. And random acts of terrorism do not help - I would think people would have well and truly worked that out by now. If there is any chance of actual fighting everyone has to work as a team if its going to be of any value.

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

Exhibit A.

Let me clarify, random acts of violence, violence that hurts workers, violence that is senseless and not done during the Revolution just weakens us and should not be used.

[blackwave]

Let me clarify, random acts of violence, violence that hurts workers, violence that is senseless and not done during the Revolution just weakens us and should not be used.

Does that mean the only issue you have with it is that it weakens the force of the movement? Do you have issue with death and suffering in general?

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

Does that mean the only issue you have with it is that it weakens the force of the movement? Do you have issue with death and suffering in general?

Yes, I have problems with death and suffering, that's why I'm a Communist. That being said the ends of our Revolution is the liberation of mankind. The ends justify the means, only if the means achieve the end. So violence is justified, only because it can end suffering and death.

[28350]

This is a war, and we're fighting to win.

The means are inseparable from the ends.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

There is only so much deliberation one can do while maintaining a productive existence. I'm quite interested in ethical considerations from an objective standpoint. Many leftists consider ethics relative and in many ways, they are just supporting a revolution that's in accordance with their interests. These interests include an appreciation for justice, but they believe those notions of justice essential to them culturally and/or biologically, and reason has no important role for most people with this view. I accept parts of the view, but I remain in a stronger camp.

As I mentioned, you can't think forever. Your decision to buy something at one store over another can have incredibly consequences. It might cause a company producing your chocolate to order more production, thus creating a job. Alternatively, it might automate and put workers on the street. Or work its employees harder, where every individual purchase slowly degenerates the health of that worker. Meanwhile, another employee from a competitive company becomes unemployed, loses his family, and ends up shooting himself. You never know how much your decisions can impact things with 100% certainty. To even try and consider "most" of the relevant variables is a monumentally difficult and somewhat impractical task.

The person who happens to act in accordance to the decisions made by someone with "infinite time to reflect and perfect rationality" would be significantly more ethical than most of us. However, we have to adopt practical habits of living an ethical life. Mill wanted rules, which I do not accept as they can always be broken. Regardless, we still use principles like "be kind to people" throughout our lives. Our kindness might make someone with social anxiety feel horrible. We can't know for sure, really, but it's not the end of the world for us to adopt such a habitually position, one where we alter our habits in circumstances we know different methods should be utilized.

When we consider violence, it's very complicated. I've thought about a lot of strange things throughout my life. One of these is what to do if I know I'm going to die. Why don't suicidal individuals commit murder-suicides at more frequent rates? Why aren't terminally ill patients or the elderly deciding to shoot a few dictators or corrupt CEOS? Aside from cultural pressures, biological pressure, physical limitations, etc, etc, there are rational difficulties surrounding justification.

Whenever you want to justify killing someone, you think "why am I doing this?" You need a good reason, which is essentially that the person makes society worse in a significant way. Then you must think "will the person change or can they be changed, and are those variables significant enough to justify letting them live?" That's incredibly complicated. Then you have all kinds of other variables.

A revolution has a clear goal where people are getting in the way. It's theoretically alright to kill everyone but a population necessary to sustain a communist future. These people can be innocent comrades or small children. This is probably not always justifiable or even usually justifiable, by the way.

If a communist revolution fails, people will continue to suffer under capitalist. Depending on the situation, you may have no idea "how long" this will be. In my view, you can't have the Marxist attitude of "just wait a bit longer - we'll get em next time." The one chance at a revolution could be the only one. You have no idea if a fascist regime will develop in response. With modern technology, people are theoretically capable of being oppressed with little to no chance of them rebelling - even if that's what they desire.

If humans operate efficiently under communism, we can consider the future of human life incredibly long, in my view. So the benefits from the change from capitalist to communism are additional utilities for those who continue to live. An perhaps decades more life of human civilization because it's plausible that capitalist systems could lead to global collapse and environmental extinction. This would be valuable.

Consider a hypothetical society where everyone is living a perfect existence except three people, all of whom are brutalized. This is a social pattern that continues every generation. Presuming there is a realistically long future for society, let's say conceivably infinite, you can screw everyone else over merely to improve the life of one person slightly, presuming a generation is harmed only once, though in theory it could be infinity minus one.

The problem here is I'm not sure humanity can scientifically exist infinitely - even the universe for that matter. Excessive variables involved...

***

For a less garbled answer, and perhaps secretly the more sophisticated, just consider animals. Sometimes we have to harm them to secure our own interests. It's nobodies fault. We just value ourselves more than the animals, whom threaten our safety by virtue of their genetics, the environment they prefer, are in, etc.

People seem to think changing "nature" is significant. We destroyed animal habitats so the fact they are attacks us now is our fault. Well yes, but we don't have an obligation to let a bear eat us because of that. Help them where possible, of course.

The social conditions that make everyday people oppose beneficial changes aren't the fault of many of us. And personally, I don't think "fault" is relevant here. You've got people who "could have been" or "can be" different. Because they are not, they are a threat.

Can they be changed effectively? Maybe, but what kind of resources do revolutionaries at their disposal? I mean, if they had a lot of wealth they could use temporary labor camps/psychological treatment of sorts. As things are, this person is just another individual who stands in their way. War is consequentialism to the extreme. You adopt principles of killing all opposition because that's how you win.

Really, the whole modern concept of "humane warfare" or whatever they call it - it's laughable. If I'm fighting you to the death in a sword-battle, let's say, I will be more than happy to agree that we won't kick one another below the belt. If you're going to be a sucker, I'm happy to exploit that for an easy victory. People will agree to fair terms until they see an opportunity to gain significant advantage by cheating. There is no real set of conduct people uphold.

So if we take the list of "politically" inclined people who are remain neutral to a revolution, we could say "hey state, let's not harm innocent people just because they disagree with our views." They'll recruit those "innocent" people and we will do the same. You can wait for them to kill someone on our side first, if you want to use that as moral leverage (look at their evil). But since they control the media, I doubt it would work. You're better off just striking first.

And the actual citizens that reinforce capitalism like security, police, etc. They just lost in the lottery that's life. If they don't get taken out, it's generations of innocent people dying and being exploited under capitalism.

I was a pacifist when I was younger because nobody likes violence. But I slowly changed my views to be more "self-defense" oriented. Now it's really up to the consequences. We seem to think violence we inflict is "special" when the violence we let continue is just as bad - a violence we let continue because of our "moral righteousness" or "fear of getting our hands dirty."

Lastly, I'll throw out some nihilistic, postmodern, craziness. Whatever you want to call it. We presume violence is negative, but many of us have worshiped violence since the beginning of human history. Arguably, we enjoy watching people who do evil acts suffer - even if they are victims themselves. And we enjoy innocent people dying because it makes life more of a spectacle. It compels us into a state of strong emotion and lets us root for the "hero" to take revenge or save the day - sometimes where we are a character taking an important role.

[blackwave]

I suppose it is really a matter of how much one values the life of an individual. If one considers the individual life nothing compared to the species life, then one will consider it justified to kill many for the sake of the future of the species, whereas if one has a higher valuation of individual life then one will be much less inclined.

[Tribune]

Looking at this sideways:

You cannot die another person's death. No one can die your death.

You don't have nerves in any other person's body. They don't have any in yours.

If you kill someone, you cannot know it, feel it or experience it as he does, dying. You can only do, and observe. What you feel, even in sympathy, is still wholly contained within your own biological person.

Imagine, for a moment, if you had to experience whatever you did to another person. If you killed her, you had to die with her.

If you bombed a building, and thirty people were burned severely - you had to feel it, all of it, every moment of it, from thirty separate sources.

If you beat a man, you felt the blows on your own person, as each one fell.

It doesn't take ethics to imagine this. It doesn't even take morality.

If you plan to do violence, dispense with the justifications. Drop the pretense. Give up the rationalizations, and think about the moment of suffering, as you inflict it. Think about the violence you want to do, being done to you.

If you can do this - if you can bring yourself to this instance of sympathy, however briefly, you have the capacity to do violence without becoming a monster. It offers no justification. It grants no reprieve to your conscience. It provides no moral compass. It just allows you to understand the immediacy of consequences, in actual human flesh, in actual terms of experience.

If not, if you cannot understand inflicted suffering in this way, as a violation you too could experience, there is something irredeemably wrong with you. And you should drop any pretense to revolution and join the nearest police force, snitch squad or board of directors.

[Agnapostate]

It's a matter of circumstance-dependence and cost-benefit analysis, as was mentioned. There should be consideration of whether revolutionary violence produces net benefits in each instance that it must occur. But anarchism requires the voluntary association of participants, so I'd find it difficult to conceptualize circumstances that would require a tumultuous civil war, as that sort of conflict would indicate to me that anarchism has not achieved support nearing the level of consensus. The consolidation of high-grade weaponry by a small number of people in centralized hierarchies (states) dedicated to protection of existing orders might be an issue, but very few administrators are involved in actual combat. Then again, if capitalists' control over productive resources and capital goods are protected by non-capitalists, then violent removal of their defenders will likely be a necessary evil.

[Gecko]

Having not too long ago entered among the ranks of the far left, I have noticed a widespread complacency with the notion of violence. Now, I am no pacifist, and I understand that for most violence is by definition inherent to any revolutionary effort, but I'm interested in a more general questioning of revolutionary ethics.

No doubt there are a variety of approaches. Many will probably say, for example, that ordinary civilians should never be intentionally attacked, whilst others may have a 'by any means necessary' approach, wherein the ends are seen to justify the means - if it helps the revolution in any way, civilians may be targeted. And does the ideological leaning of a civilian change one's approach to them? But even subtler questions surely exist. What about the place of state security services? Is it always valid to intentionally attack such security services (as opposed to self-defense)? It could be argued that most members of such forces (as opposed to genuine counter-revolutionary militias) are just ordinary proles trying to feed their families, who naively assume themselves to be on the right side.

I'm interested to hear not only different perspectives, but also the reasonings behind them. Do you think that ethics has a place in the revolutionary process, and if so, do you think this issue is prominent enough in the minds of active revolutionaries?

get involved in building a revolution and you will find out the answer to your question...especially if you become a real threat to the ruling class..