Shortly after publishing my meditation on violence a few weeks ago, I came across this video on YouTube explaining why violence remains inseparable from civilization:
It’s a short video, so I’ll hope you’ll take the time to watch. In five minutes, the creator explains why civilization hasn’t de-programmed violence out of humans. At the risk of spoiling, he explains how violence, for much of human history, was at the center of life. He explains, astutely, how the human brain doesn’t perceive things in terms of good and evil. Instead, it perceives in terms of threat, power, dominance and survival.
He also goes into how just witnessing violence, even through a barrier such as an electronic screen, triggers a physiological response, meaning that nobody really chooses whether or not they’re drawn to violence. If anything, violence, when presented as entertainment, is uniquely capable of holding our attention like no other, because people can bear witness safely and because violence for the purposes of entertainment provides clarity, order, and structure to something chaotic, messy, and often supremely dissatisfying, not to mention unsafe, in real life.
If you don’t follow what I’m saying, watch videos of a scripted fight in a movie or even a UFC event, then watch videos of real fights. You’ll see obvious differences. In a movie, fights are choreographed, and the performers know exactly what’s coming next. Same with professional wrestling. In martial arts, moves can be anticipated to degree, but more importantly, are governed by clear rules of the road. Not so in real-world violence. Yes, there exist laws and unwritten rules, but they can be violated at any time. Criminals always do.
In the end, the video’s creator drops a heavy truth-bomb:
Civilization did not erase humanity’s darker instincts. It only taught us where they are allowed to appear.
In other words, civilization doesn’t exist to provide free college and healthcare, as liberals like to believe. Civilization exists to restrain humans from each other and themselves, and in doing so, provide order. If it struggles with this one task, it’s a failing, if not failed, civilization.
It’s for this reason saying things like “violence isn’t an answer” or “we don’t solve our problems through violence” isn’t helpful at all. Ultimately, solutions to society’s problems involve some form of violence. More important, violence, both for good and bad ends, is all around us. It’s just that civilization keeps a lid on it, allowing us to ignore it at will, or not partake in it at all.
None of it makes it go away.
Dear Ladies: War Isn’t Better Than Babies
A feminist tries to argue that women, not men, are built for war:
I have some thoughts. First, the fact that women have never shouldered the burden of violence in society means that this sort of research is practically meaningless. Violence isn’t just about physical resilience. Most people, man or woman, seek to avoid danger. Most men don’t make great soldiers, either. Every war has revealed a sort of 80-20 dynamic when it comes to combat. This doesn’t rule women out of combat, not on its own.
But it does reveal that physical resilience is only one aspect of being an effective soldier. You can give them all the best equipment and training in the world, but without the mentality necessary to face and confront danger, they’ll be useless in war. Biologically, most women don’t possess that mentality. They simply didn’t evolve that way. In this house, we believe in science, right?
Second, feminists will boast of their ability to endure the pain of childbirth, all while regarding reproduction as burdensome. In the same breath, they’ll demand the “right” to go to war or participate in violent activity. Since women, at least in the West, have never been conscripted to fight wars or never had to prove themselves worthy through violence as a matter of custom, the modern woman, specifically, has no concept of mind concerning violence. Having the right to do violent jobs means you also have the right to get punched, kicked, shot, and killed. People who ignore this aspect of it or are flippant about it like feminists are wholly unsuitable for the job.
Third, feminists cannot have it both ways - they cannot, on one hand, emphasize the fact men are the more violent of the two genders (which is a biological fact) while also claiming women are just as capable of violence or are better at it. Nature is two-faced; what makes men brave and courageous in the face of danger is also what can turn them into brutal savages. It’s socialization which channels male violence towards constructive ends. What makes women the better of the two genders is also what makes them weak and incapable of violence at scale. It makes no sense to screech about how violent men are but then also argue that women should be sent to war or out on the streets where they tackle such monsters.
Fourth, I’ve made this point many times before, and will continue making this point for probably the rest of my life: the fixation feminists have with violent occupations like law enforcement and the military isn’t out of a sense of duty or even an interest in such work. It’s with the status benefits these occupations provide. The push for greater female representation in policing doesn’t carry over to corrections work, for example, because being a prison guard simply doesn’t have the same level of prestige as being a street cop or detective does. There’s little to no push for women to be further represented in dangerous work that doesn’t offer much in the way of salary or status upgrades.
The debate surrounding women in violent occupations is a loaded one and this isn’t the essay to lay it all out. I’ll end it by saying that if you have to ask for the “right” to go to war, it’s probably not in your nature to do so. If you strip any society down to its barest essentials, men, by virtue of evolution, will band together to protect the women and children, who’ll in turn band together to seek refuge. It just happens without anyone thinking too hard about it.
Look at what happened last month in Guajes de Ayala, Mexico - women, children, and elderly banded together in refuge while the men, forming a community self-defense group (some call them “vigilante” militias), went off to battle cartels:
This is how it happens in the real world. This is how it is when the illusions civilization affords us are stripped away. It’s easy to demand the right to fight when violence isn’t something you have to face every day, when death is the last thing on your mind daily.
The protection civilization offers women isn’t an entitlement, either. Women aren’t protected simply for being women, not really. Women still have to offer something, just as men do. They need to offer labor, reproduction, something. Resources are finite and if you want access to civilization’s protection and resources, you have to contribute. Nothing in life comes free, even in an anarchy. In fact, it’s in anarchy that the cost of survival becomes more apparent. Even feminists get that, right?
This is basically another variant of the silly “Bear vs. Man” debate. If women think childbearing is tough but going to war isn’t, that’s because they haven’t been to war enough, they haven’t been in enough fights. All I can say is this: there are plenty of wars going on around the world. You’re free, empowered women: you need nobody’s permission to go off and find out what it’s really like to kill and have someone try to kill you.
I wish you well. Girl power!
No State Monopoly On Violence Means Dead Influencers
Speaking of Mexico, it isn’t a Third World country. Not by a long shot. It’s still also a good example of a country whose state monopoly on violence is in jeopardy. The cartels are the most prominent example of this. But so is crime in general.
A Mexican influencer named César Gastélum was murdered in a drive-by shooting in Culiacan [WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT]:
There have been multiple murders of influencers in Mexico over the last few years. It seems to be a fairly common occurrence south of the border. I’ve been to Mexico and I love the country. There are even things I like more about Mexico than I do about the U.S. This doesn’t mean I deny the reality of what’s happening down there. This is the problem people seem to have - the inability to accept that perfectly wonderful places filled with perfectly wonderful people can still be terribly imperfect and have problems we don’t need to deal with.
America is a violent place, too. It still pales in comparison to the level of violence in Mexico. Influencers do periodically get assaulted or even killed in the U.S. It still doesn’t compare to the frequency with which it happens in Mexico. The difference is the extent to which the state possesses a monopoly on violence. Mexico isn’t as close to being a failed state as some on the Right describe it as. But it’s definitely a place where the state doesn’t have full control over what’s happening within its own borders, either.
Anyone who thinks state monopoly on violence is a bad thing should look at Mexico and consider what the alternative looks like. It looks like influencers being shot and killed with alarmingly regularity, for one.
They Understand Violence
If the West doesn’t understand violence, they better and fast, because the Muslims certainly do:
I think this about sums up the problem with Muslims, why there’s ultimately no co-existing with them in the West:
This isn’t any exaggeration nor mischaracterization. Muslims are loyal to themselves. As I’ve also explained before, they might find extremism and terrorism inconvenient, but it serves a purpose. It’s through violence that Muslims have gained prominence and political power in the West. Since 9/11, since the mid-to-late-2010s Islamist terror wave, it’s only been up, up, up in the West for Muslims.
As Islamo-leftism - what the French call Islamogauchisme - rises now in the U.S. also, the West needs to come to terms with how it happened. It didn’t happen peacefully. It didn’t happen because the West indulged its better angels. It happened because a society was taught to hate itself and a force capable of exploiting that self-hatred was able to effectively employ violence to force submission. That’s what Islam is, after all.
Liberals Can’t Be Scared Straight
The account has since been suspended, but someone posted recently on X that White liberals should be subjected to the “scared straight” treatment in hopes that they come to their senses on crime and quit infantilizing criminals, especially those who are black. For those of you who may not know, this refers to a famous 1978 documentary titled Scared Straight! where several juveniles are forced to spend a few hours with felons doing serious time for serious crimes at a state penitentiary.
During those few hours, the felons use a mix of intimidation and tough love to talk some sense into these young people on the wrong path in life. The documentary, which you can view here, was ground-breaking, released at a time when crime was genuinely skyrocketing in the U.S. and so was juvenile delinquency. It spawned spin-offs even decades later.
Personally, I’m not a big believer in the “scared straight” approach. I think it’s hit-or-miss, evolving into spectacle more than anything else. I think the real value in Scared Straight! and its spin-offs is that it gives you a look into the criminal mind, at least among the criminals who’ve engaged in self-reflection and don’t want anyone else to follow in their footsteps. I think it’s important to know these people exist and when they have something useful to say to us, it’s worth it to listen. As a way to fix the broken? I’m skeptical.
The other reason I’m not a believer in the scared straight approach, at least for liberals, is that they’re likely to learn the wrong lessons from the experience. No, I don’t mean that liberals are suddenly going to decide to lead lives of crime.1 What I mean is that such an experience is likely to humanize criminals even more than they need to be. They’re even more likely to view them not as agents of their own fates, but victims of a society which has failed them. Liberals view criminals as authority figures, meaning direct exposure to them in a controlled setting such as a scared-straight program is likely to increase the respect they already hold for them. Remember: even being victimized doesn’t change the way they feel about crime.
Some of this is ideologically-driven, no doubt. The other reason is the criminal will kill without a second thought. The inmates featured in Scared Straight! will openly confess to that. Therefore, the credible threat of violence cows liberals. The ideology is what gets them to accept what would otherwise be unacceptable.
Liberalism is, therefore, no ideology of peace. Whether it comes to crime, Islam, whatever, it’s built off a foundation of compliance and submission through fear of death.
Only the West Doesn’t Embrace Violence. That’s Not Necessarily A Good Thing.
After the migrant masses were booted from the Spanish city of Cueta on the North African coast, they were given a warm welcome back home by Moroccan security forces [WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT]:
The West is more moral than the rest of the world and it always has been. So tired of the gaslighting.
The thing is, I’m not sure this is a good thing. Not anymore. Societies must be willing to use violence on some level. Permissiveness, lowering of the guard, this opens societies up to violence from the outside. Nobody should be allowed to pretend otherwise. All countries have their problems. But one thing guaranteed to both exacerbate existing problems and create new ones is an unwillingness to use violence for perfectly valid means.
If cruelty is what concerns you, why would you expect outsiders to treat you any better? It’s time to re-consider your priors.
What are your thoughts on anything discussed today? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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That’d be nice, since we’d have a reason to remove them from society.
When I teach Machiavelli, I don't use The Prince much but instead his Discourses on Livy. Here's one of my favorites:
"There are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts. ... Achilles and other princes of old were given to the Centaur Chiron to discipline; as they had for a teacher one who was half beast and half man, so it is necessary for a prince to know how to make use of both natures, and that one without the other is not durable."
A leader must be able to make use of "both the beast and the man". We slink away from Machiavelli. We want to pretend he's part of a bygone era that we've outgrown. As Christians, I and my students certainly want his atheistic view of the world to be wrong. But he was a very astute observer of practical human nature, and if you're honest, you find him VERY hard to argue with.
Civilization is held together by the collective ability and willingness to use violence against the barbarians, whether internal or external. The wanton use of violence is the enemy of civilization. But a civilization that refuses to use violence will (fairly quickly) cease to be civilized as well. hence, the "man and the beast" on balance with each other.
One of the other things Machiavelli says (this one is from The Prince): "A man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.” This is where modern liberals' virtue signaling will end up.
BTW: Max, I absolutely love that Radical vs moderate Islam cartoon. I haven't seen it before, and yes, the performance of the Muslim student body President at the Oxford Union debate demonstrated it perfectly.
Good essay. Think it was Heinlein (among many others I am sure) who said something along the lines of "people say violence never solves anything - throughout history, violence has solved many things." Not promoting violence over conversation - just acknowledging that violence took care of the Nazis and so forth. I am a Boomer and have all my life despaired of the willful blindness of the liberal half of my cohort that insists in the face of evidence to the contrary "we're all alike - talk it out - lay down your guns" - no, thank you. Leave your own children and grandchildren defenseless if you will - I refuse to be so unloving and irresponsible.