• fragmentcity
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    Implicit in your argument is that the outcome of political violence is always (or at least often) a net positive for the public. Not really buying that.

    As the saying goes, the three boxes are the soapbox, the ballot box, and the cartridge box. This has been understood on a basic level for as long as democracy has existed.

    It’s four boxes, you have (unironically?) omitted juries. And democracy existed long before 19th century US politics.

    If you think someone is about to begin a revolution because they saw someone post a crying guillotine on a political meme forum, then there were much deeper problems afoot than the hungriest little guillotine.

    Because you didn’t address it, my point remains. I am not saying someone is going to start a revolutions. I’m saying that things like your meme contribute to an environment that normalizes violence as a solution to political problems. None of the nuance of what you said above is connoted in the OP, and as with most memes, the majority of people upvote and keep scrolling.

    You don’t have any control over what “good political violence” means to the people for whom it is normalized. All you can control is the decision not to post the meme about how beheadings are good.

    • PugJesus@kbin.socialOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Implicit in your argument is that the outcome of political violence is always (or at least often) a net positive for the public.

      How so? The argument posits that political violence or the threat of it is necessary in all interactions with institutions of power that are not just rolling over and taking what is given, not that all exercises of political violence or threats thereof are good.

      It’s four boxes, you have (unironically?) omitted juries.

      So I did, mea culpa.

      Because you didn’t address it, my point remains. I am not saying someone is going to start a revolutions. I’m saying that things like your meme contribute to an environment that normalizes violence as a solution to political problems. None of the nuance of what you said above is connoted in the OP, and as with most memes, the majority of people upvote and keep scrolling.

      I have a question: if someone makes a movie about the French Revolution, and that movie is clearly meant to have parallels in its narrative with modern class structures and issues, would that be contributing to an environment that normalizes violence?

      • fragmentcity
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I can rephrase, maybe wasn’t clear. The word “necessary” implies a confidence in some desired outcome, and certainly that such an outcome would not make things even worse.

        Like if something like this happened in America, what happens next? The Constitution is already in tatters at that point, do we try to put it back together? And where is America on the world stage then? France had few friends after the revolution.

        I have a question: if someone makes a movie about the French Revolution, and that movie is clearly meant to have parallels in its narrative with modern class structures and issues, would that be contributing to an environment that normalizes violence?

        I would welcome such a movie because it would probably have far more of a textual/historical basis, point of view and coherent philosophy than “I’m so hungry 😞”.

        Actually seeing a depiction of the violence carried out against French nobles would provoke way more critical thinking in viewers than a cartoon guillotine.

        Would this film also contend with la Terreur? By all accounts most of the blood spilled by revolutionaries was that of “suspected” counter revolutionary spies, near 30K people. Lot of spies! Almost an unbelievable number.