“If they won’t charge him with treason, they ought to charge him with murder,” said Congressman Mike Rogers in a recent interview concerning Bradley Manning, the infamous discloser to Wikileaks of the Iraqi war video Collateral Murder and, allegedly, about 90,000 Afghan War documents.
In that simple declaration, Rogers showed that he faced no moral dilemma in condemning a man to death for releasing information to the war-funding public — information on the death of innocent children, journalists, and bystanders. He continued, saying, “We know for a fact that people will likely be killed because of this information being disclosed.” Such efforts to exaggerate or fabricate threats to national security are typically just an attempt to hide any possible embarrassment to the state. It’s a common tactic used to cover up the guilty tracks of the state and bolster the perceived legitimacy of violent state actions. In esssence, what is being said is: “Sure, we have killed a lot of people, but now more are going to die; that’s the real problem.”
The general public does not seem to be outraged by the Rogers quote, war statistics, SWAT raids, police brutality and other acts of violence from the state. More importantly, the mass media avoids showing the public the gruesome truth about these acts as if it is old news or unimportant. When the media does highlight statist violence, there is no uproar or call for peace by the masses. These acts are not only tolerated, but widely considered acceptable.
There are many possible reasons for why this may be the case, some even going back to our childhood psychological development. Growing up, one watches sanitized death in the media, in games, and in general fictitious situations — death completely disconnected from reality. We seldom see it face-to-face. When encountering real death, many fail to grasp its reality or significance; with resulting emotional impact comparable to a Chuck Norris film.
Training overcomes this disconnect between violent infotainment and real-life acts of violence, using methods such as brutalization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and role modeling. By the time soldiers make it to a war zone, they are not only craving to act upon all the training they have completed but feel completely “one” with violence. When returning home, about 30% of troops end up with serious psychological problems and many experience withdrawal from the immersion in violence.
Government monopolizes murder but gives its social impact very little serious consideration. Whether it be an individual or genocide, the murder of any innocents is a condemnable act. Political leaders appear to incorrectly believe violence can be used to achieve peace and stability. That’s a very flawed approach that, historically, has not worked at all. Certainly without a government to go about systematically mass-producing death and destruction there would still always be occasional issues of violence. We can say with confidence that practical solutions would arise in an anarchistic society, though, because there would be no tax funding to shift the costs of warfare onto people who don’t make the decision to go to war.
Thanks, Stacy. I may use this for material myself. It's funny that Manning deserves death because his leak allegedly lead to death. But Bush and Obama don't deserve capital punishment for sending people to fight in a war in which thousands have died. Once again, the state is held to a different standard.
Pat,
In a stateless society you would be free to intervene in a conflict or not as you choose. This could be personally by choosing to fight or through financial support. You could even hire someone to go and fight if you wanted and had the means. Distance has nothing to do with it. It would not matter if the people being attacked were next door or half way around the world. The idea that the people in an arbitrary geographic region are tied to each other more than any other people is a statist one.
In today’s society you are forced to support whatever military actions your government endorses and forbidden from supporting the ones that they don't. It is all about freedom or the lack of it.
Hope this helps.
Great post! Being relatively new to anarchism, one question I have been pondering is the response to military violence in an anarchistic society. While the roots (and thus the incidence) of violence would certainly be diminished, how would independent communities deal with organized aggression from those who didn’t share a non-hierarchical ethic? Obviously, if one’s own community were attacked, its own militia/defense group would respond accordingly. But what if your neighboring community was attacked? Or a community 100 miles away, or one across the country? What if violence were being committed against individuals within a community. Would there be any time that mass intervention would be called for? Any non-local, unaccoutable “security” apparatus is, by its nature, prone to tyranny. But how could a peaceful anarchistic society defend itself in a timely and sufficiently powerful manner to avoid being picked off piecemeal by an organized aggressive force?
@Aaron – thanks. I guess a concern is that, despite their many and myriad failings, statists (and other hierarchists) are great at organizing masses of human tools into focused, destructive might. Anarchists will need to think through some larger scale mutual interest issues.
Pat – You say "statists (and other hierarchists) are great at organizing masses of human tools into focused, destructive might." like it is a good thing. I don't want anyone to have focused destructive might. It is not necessary for defense either. The worst case scenario is that an Anarchist society coexists alongside a State and the State decides to invade the Anarchist society. The State may have the might to win the initial engagements, but they would never be able to maintain control over an area where most of the population does not recognize their right to exist.
The current formula for conquest is to invade an area then set up a puppet government made up of local people that are controlled by the invader. Most of the population will follow this new government because following government is all they know.
Even in today's world this type of conquest is not working well. Look at the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A very small minority of the population is opposing the puppet governments and their masters and this is causing huge problems for the invaders. Now think of what it would be like if most of the population did not believe in any government. Add to this the fact that a large portion of the population would most likely be armed in a stateless society. You can see that they would be nearly impossible to conquer a stateless society of any considerable size.
These dynamics were played out historically in the case of the English conquest of Ireland. The Irish people did not live in the same type of feudal society that English and most of the rest of Europe did. They had leaders that were elected from certain families that were their combat and spiritual leaders, but individuals were free to change leaders without moving and often did. When the English invaded with vastly superior numbers and technology they won the battles, but found that they could not rule the people. The English would defeat a local leader and have them sign a treaty. They would then install one of their own noblemen as the new Lord, but as soon as enough soldiers marched off to fight in a new area the locals would rise up and over through the new government and cause the English to have to start all over again. This went on for close to 400 years. With modern weapons, technology and media coverage, that type of long drawn out conquest could not be sustained.
As far as "Anarchists will need to think through some larger scale mutual interest issues", I assure you that just about every large and small scale issue has been thought through. Anarchism has been around for a long time and countless books, articles and web postings and debates have been written. I am not saying all anarchists agree, but there has been a lot of thought put into it. I am sure if you do little research you will find plenty to read about.
Aaron – when I said “statists (and other hierarchists) are great at organizing masses of human tools into focused, destructive might,” – believe me, it was not a statement of admiration! I've been reading a great deal on anarchism and have not seen the issue of mutual defense deeply addressed. Do you have any sources you could suggest? To me, it's part of the conundrum we currently live in — how do you oppose massive, organized power without "becoming the enemy?"
“Political leaders appear to incorrectly believe violence can be used to achieve peace and stability. That’s a very flawed approach that, historically, has not worked at all.”
Historically, it has sometimes worked very well indeed, e.g. for the Ottomans for centuries.
“We can say with confidence that practical solutions would arise in an anarchistic society, though, because there would be no tax funding to shift the costs of warfare onto people who don’t make the decision to go to war”.
No, for the simple reason that the old “raid and trade” approach would work, under which people do whichever turns out more convenient. It doesn’t take taxes to shift costs that way.
Thanks Aaron, I appreciate the links. Hoppe's and Friedman's articles were both thought provoking but (IMO), neither offered a plausible vision of defense in the absence of a state. Ultimately, though, I guess it's futile to try and imagine a concentrated, standing defense force of any sort (state or private) that would not be subject to corruption and abuse.
Pat – Here are a couple of links.
http://mises.org/journals/scholar/Hoppe.pdf National Defense starts on page 14.
http://daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf Click on National Defense in Part III of the Contents.
Here is a good list of links that cover a lot of Anarchis subjects. I like the stuff from Lysander Spooner stuff.
http://praxeology.net/anarcres.htm