Violence

Many years ago, I wrote a video game essay "On Violence". Looking over it, I think there's some interesting stuff in there. While I no longer put a lot of thought into a video game theory--in part because what seems pertinent and permanent is quickly outmoded and outdated as the industry grinds along--it was fun to see some of my older thoughts on how violence and video games works on a theoretical level.

I can say that I'm older now, but though the wisdom is lacking, I see there are other areas about violence that need discussing. This, of course, pertains to the annual trudging through the trenches that I do with my sophomores, looking at how the World Wars came to pass. We've only started this unit, but there's already a bit of...dread, if not in them, then in me. So the so-called "necessity of the wars" comes into my mind.

When my middle child was born, I used to read to him for a few minutes as he fell asleep. I picked Violence by Slavoj Zizek, since, as a newborn, he didn't care about words as much as he did hearing a voice drone on as he slipped into unconsciousness. Because it's been so long since I've read it, I can't really remember a lot of what Zizek wanted to say, but I did pull up this quote that I think is somewhat germane:

According to a well-known anecdote, a German officer visited Picasso in his Paris studio during the Second World War. There he saw Guernica and, shocked at the modernist “chaos” of the painting, asked Picasso: “Did you do this?” Picasso calmly replied: “No, you did this!” (Zizek, Slavoj. Violence (BIG IDEAS//small books) (p. 11). Picador. Kindle Edition.) 

But, as Zizek also mentions in his book, below the visible violence are other layers: Symbolic violence, that of violence of speech, and systemic violence, that which is inherent in the institutions created. Using his formula, I want to briefly look at these three levels here.

Visible Violence

When it comes to violence, we are often shocked at the upper-most, visible layer. This is the statistical: How many women will be raped in the United States (any number over zero is a crime against the human race; sadly, the number is higher)? How many fatalities come from gun-related violence (a broad term, but one that speaks of greater problems deeper down)? The casualty and fatality numbers of the war become what stands out most pointedly--but we constantly bump against the reality that the numbers cause numbness. While it's uncited, Stalin is reported to have said, "A single death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." Though it's hard to agree with Stalin on anything, this seems to be where we land on visible violence.

There is, of course, desensitization, but that isn't the primary problem with visible violence. The fact that it is so ubiquitous is the real problem, here. Being immune to the brutality of violence only matters if there is still much violence to be immune to, and yet, for all of our different ways of communicating and expressing our distaste and outrage to the violence, it continues on. Enlightenment does not permeate the world, nor, indeed, even those areas who most benefit from it.

Vocal Violence

It's really too bad that the most common word to describe despotism, cruelty, and perverse pleasure in the harming of others is what's bandied about on a playground: Bully. The phrase cyberbullying only marginally improves the linguistic effect of what sounds like a diminutive of a male cow, but it's all corresponding to the same issue. Indeed, that's the point of the cyberbully: To use language to render violence. This is a broader, more insidious, more treacherous type of communication, in large part because language is so ubiquitous it's too often presumed to be innocuous. 

I once worked for a company in which I wrote copy for other people's websites. One client was upset that I had written copy describing her work the way she had talked about it, insisting that I was doing something wrong with my words. Eventually, she said that she wasn't going to pay our company for my work, since "All you're doing is writing words. They're just words, I don't have to pay for them. My lawyer said so." In one of the only times in my life where I regret not being a jerk, I refrained from asking her if she had his analysis in print, since that was what lawyers work almost exclusively in. I tried to defuse the situation, but it never got better and she ended up canceling her account. 

The point here is, aside from the strain of subtle violence in an altercation like this, we too often take words for granted, meaning that casual phrases--particularly in the contextless-void of the Internet--become something different than intended. The violence of our language expresses the violence in our hearts, and unless we confront that and stamp it out (both verbs being within that system of linguistic violence, please note), we're never likely to excise that evil from within us.

Systemic Violence

The third layer of systemic violence is what's embedded in our culture, our psyches, even our religions. Culturally, we consider existence as, at best, a zero-sum game in which our victory comes at the expense and loss of our opponents. This is made manifest in the way in which competition, rather than cooperation, is valued. Concepts of mutual ownership, sharing, and empathizing are generally derided in various levels. Our dialogue of politics is so violence-saturated that it's now considered anathema to many representatives to compromise--sacrifice (violence) country before party. 

But the violence is deeper than our politics, for our society is built upon the violence of the past. Assimilation, extermination, extirpation, exploitation. Electronics being built on blood coltan. Ease of modern living because the cost of living in the modern world is paid by the least capable of defending themselves.  

The world, it seems, is in perpetual, chaotic, pervasive violence. And I don't know if it'll ever get better.