Quote (gnarjay @ Oct 10 2024 11:52am)
Im glad youre sensible enough to see my point. I disagree with your last sentence however, violence begets more violence and the oppressed usually persevere. Israelis dont seem to understand this despite their ancestors being victims of terrible oppression themselves and persevering despite it
My issue with this is that it depends on the boundary conditions. The bolded statement tends to hold true
if and only if the level of violence is milquetoast - that is, the magnitude of violence is such that one side's capability of waging violence is left intact. Machiavelli discussed this at length - he reasoned that an enemy must be defeated
in whole such that they no longer have the ability to oppose you, otherwise they will come back and seek vengeance. This principle is also discussed & elaborated in cinema with
The Godfather II, where Vito came back later and killed the man who killed his family. That dude wanted to kill Vito as a child because he reasoned that he would come back for vengeance (he did) but he escaped.