/lit/ - Literature

>>13003425
this is basically why i wound up reading Girard in the first place, to figure out the meaning and relation of violence in religion, politics, and history. the legitimacy seems to appear at the moment of violence and yet vanishes afterwards, or at least changes the nature of authority. for this reason myths tend to come in handy...in the twentieth century, all of the major totalitarian movements depend on some scapegoat in there somewhere, but even long before this. but even before this also: consider Napoleon and the famous 'whiff of grapeshot.' it comes up time and again that turning the guns on your own people is always a bad scene for rulers if they are interested in maintaining their power. even when they become unruly and get out of hand. but of course *knowing* that your rulers are hesitant to use power against you can also become a horrible bargaining chip also.

one of the ironies about the Spartans was that they had the most feared army in Greece but it couldn't afford to leave home for long because the helot population despised them so much (and they would, if things like the Krypteia, in which the Spartans groomed their warriors-to-be by hunting the helot population, and why there hasn't been some kind of film about this i have no idea) that they really couldn't afford to stay away from home for long. the helots did all of the work on the farms, but unless they were held in check they would revolt. pretty ironic. and so these kind of Hobbesian paradoxes are interesting to me. if you read Wendt's paper you can also observe an interesting shift happening in political philosophy over time, from Hobbes to Locke to Kant that slowly transitions people *out* of the need for politics of this kind. which turned out to be, of course, just in time for the Revolution, and for Bonaparte also. history is not without a sense of humor like this.

but yeah, it is as you said. ideologies and the aesthetics of violence and war. and obviously this is a serious question! it also becomes necessary to take the deep-dive into the politics of Heidegger's era too, because that was the real crucible for a lot of other stuff: Hegel, Kojeve, Schmitt, Junger, and everything that was going on with those guys. the Schmitt friend-enemy distinction is important even now (especially if you are into NRx-related stuff) but it also occludes the relevance of a friend-rival distinction (Locke) or friend-friend (Kant, but not explained particularly well). one of the things i found most interesting about NRx was the need to seriously engage with conservative political thought - De Maistre, for instance, and others. and r/acc was really born out of this kind of stuff and Land's work on XS. but then Trump blew up everything and now here we are. fascinating times...

Wendt:
https://is.muni.cz/el/1423/podzim2015/ESS419/um/Wendt_1999_246-259.pdf

Krypteia:
https://www.thoughtco.com/ancient-spartans-murderous-secret-police-4031226