Violence Is Declining

This is another reason violent revolution is a thing of the past. It also puts the lie to idyllic images of hunter-gatherer societies, which allegedly lived in a state of harmony with nature and each other.

How does this square w/ the doctrine that capitalism is violent from birth and destructive?

Violence is declining?

Fucking mint, I'll go tell that too:

Ian Tomlinson

The 1,000,000 dead in Iraq and Afghanistan

The Bangladeshi Strikers who are being persecuted by the state

The Indian workers being persecuted by the state

The people killed or attacked recently in events in Northern Ireland

Anti-fascists and ethnic minorities in Russia

The population of Darfur, Sudan.

When I'm done with them I'll go sit at home content everything is fine and us horrible working class people shouldn't get nasty! Becuase of course the bourgeoisie are the pinnacle of civility and pacifism.

We see the decline over millenia, not decades.

wierdo!

In relative terms violence may be declining, but there is a dangerous potential for mass death from an inter-imperialist war when competing powers are drawn into conflict. It would only take one big exchange of nuclear weapons to destroy human civilization. If the chance of a conflict escalating to nuclear war is 5% every year, then after 10 years there is a 60% chance of no war; after 25 years just 28%. Like a game of Russian roulette, played for enough years it will be the end of humanity. This is why it is very important to struggle against militarism and for global socialist fraternity.

Our goal isn't violence.

We aim for a revolutionary transformation, but we recognize the extremely high likelihood if not inevitability that violence will be used against us.

Therefore our violence is self-defense and defense of the revolution.

Also, to see violence declining when you look at millenia is insane. :blink: Are you to argue that the two World Wars and several genocides of the 20th century are evident in that?

it actually make sense, i mean, year there is violence worldwide but its nothbing compared to what the napoleonic war, the crusades or the roman conquests.

but still, ww2 and 1 kinda messed up the score, but it would be curious to know the number of casuality the 100 year war caused.

Really? You can reliably measure the amount of violence going on a few thousand years ago?

Besides, I completely agree that violence is on a general historical downward trend. There will be less violence in socialism than in capitalism, and after we reach communism there will be very little violence at all.

I can generally agree here with the OP. If anything violence is getting more and more "institutionalized" with governments doing the buld of the work. There's no political violence in the USA--on the other hand the American government seems to be doing a good job of creating it abroad.

[QUOTE=Bud Struggle;1492787There's no political violence in the USA[/QUOTE]

Erm, an 80 year old neo-nazi shooting a Holocaust mueseam guard doesn't strike you as political violence?

I think their point is that violence has increased in absolute terms, but due to the greatly increased population violence has gone down in relative terms. Its character has also changed as well - if you think Abu Ghraib was bad, in previous times it was more common for the rape and murder of prisoners to be actively encouraged.

Oh look, another thread where trivas or some other OI'er makes a thread attempting to denounce revolutionary ideologies for some totally inane and largely irrelevant reason.

Violence in society may be "declining" in the long run, but it is a huge leap in logic to suggest that because violence is declining, revolution as a theory and practice is obsolete and totally useless.

What doctrine? Sorry, but I think you've just assigned a certain stigma to Marxist theories regarding capitalism, that frankly isn't there. Many Marxists, including Marx of course, understood that capitalism is a step forward from the previous dominate form or production that was feudalism. No marxist worth their salt will make a vague claim like "capitalism is simply violent and destructive from birth". In many cases, capitalist society has certainly experienced violence and destruction, however its not such a black and white world. Capitalism played the signifigant historical role of developing modern industrial society, it was as progressive as socialsm would be now in it's hay day. I digress however, because if you want to judge history by violence you might as well rip all the pages out of your history books.

It strikes me more as a nut case gone over the edge. I am old enough to remember the protests of the late sixties--there was real protest going on in those days.

Welcome to OI, Brother! :)

Your right; revolutionary theory and practice has proved itself obsolete and useless for a long time now.

"My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism"- Karl "The Beard" Marx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpno_svWsMc

I have to agree with this. Bush basically stole the elections and no one cared. America is too caught up in a fantasy world of capitalist products and fads. I believe there is hope for a movement, America's economic situation isn't getting any better.

The OP is right you know. The number of people murdered every year is far lower than it has been historically. For example, in the Middle Ages Scandinavia had a murder rate of over 60 people per 100,000. And that was low compared to southern Europe. Nowadays there's only a handful of countries with that high of a murder rate.

Take a look at the Yanomami in the Amazon. Historically, over a third of the males from that tribe would die due to violence. The murder rate globally was roughly the same when we were all living in stone age conditions.

Saying violence is on the decline doesn't mean that things are good by any stretch. But things have gotten far, far better (at least for humans).

Pathetic. Why not try and prove this wonderful construct of yours with some actual reasoning, please even a slightly logical argument would prove much better than a sweeping, trollish claim.

No. It needs to be updated and revised. But what doesn't?

The 20th century was the most violent century in the history of the world, just to clarify anybody who thinks another period of history holds this claim.

These wars were primarily based on racialism and nationalism. These are outdated/suppressed forms of thought. While the lingering corpse of these atrocities still manifest; there still a supremacist power structure in place which necessitates war. Warfare is only necessary in limitation of resources; however, humanity has surpassed limitation of resources eons ago. This proves that warfare will always co-exist with a supremacist power structure.