this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
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[–] GraniteM@lemmy.world 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not saying violence doesn't solve many issues and is sometimes called for. But literally most? I'd have to disagree.

Heinlein addresses this, too:

War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him... but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing... but controlled and purposeful violence. But it’s not your business or mine to decide the purpose or the control. It’s never a soldier’s business to decide when or where or how — or why — he fights; that belongs to the statesmen and the generals. The statesmen decide why and how much; the generals take it from there and tell us where and when and how. We supply the violence; other people — ‘older and wiser heads,’ as they say — supply the control.

It's really quite a good book.

the statesmen

That reminds me of an exchange in an old Bloom County cartoon. Opus is asked the difference between a politician and a statesman, and replies with "a statesman is a dead politician. Lord knows we need more statesmen."