/lit/ - Literature

i had one other image here i meant to put in earlier, i'll stick it in now. JBP has said similar things in his reading of what 'The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth' means, and he connected it to the whole idea of having a sword and not using it, and so on. mildly cringe, but ultimately i agree with him. in a sense it is weakness that leads to disorder more than power, he's not wrong about that.

but i prefer Gandhi's take. Nietzsche is absolutely right in the Genealogy of Morality about the nature of revenge, and the inescapably punitive dimension of all moralizing. no question. and it's in Girard as well. but the only real way off of the mimetic hamster-wheel of revenge and reciprocity is forgiveness.

now you don't want to have a purely forgiveness-based society, you also want an achievement society, and one that is also capable of self-defense. which, when you think about it, really explains a lot about martial arts in general, and why Shaolin kung-fu is such a good combination: if all you want to do is walk to the monastery and not be attacked by bandits, Crane Style is fine by me and i will absolutely put aside some money to support a visiting master to teach it. self-defense - think about Kung Fu Hustle - is a better look than the state's monopoly on violence. in a little vilage in which you don't know if the guy you are about to rob is a black belt or not, life maybe takes a different and more non-interventionist direction. and it's not always in the direction of more politics, either.

the army is an undoubted pure and applied meritocracy, it's why Napoleon has always been such an intoxicating figure. if you are brave enough, you can rise through the ranks from Unnamed Nobody #2343242309 to Prince of Rivoli. without a doubt we like this, and it works for human beings on some level. but tech changes the meaning of war, every time. and that just has to be recognized so that the aesthetics of war don't get ahead of (or drag behind?) what we are actually capable of doing to each other with the weapons we have in the world today.

i think ludic conflict is a good look, as is non-lethal sparring. i'm not a radical pacifist, and there are in fact places where i disagree with Girard. i love the Royal Rumble and i think martial arts is a legit fascinating thing. maybe part of a balanced breakfast, civilizationally speaking. it's *revenge* that is the main offender.