Truth and Violence
April 11th 2008 02:25
The difference between Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Prevost is clear. The latter was noble and brave, his soul “a fire that suffers if it doesn’t burn"1, the former was an ignoble coward. It seems that Prevost was also smarter – less fooled by old wives’ wisdoms, such as “the pen is mightier than the sword.” While Sartre ignored his “infinite responsibilities”2 and instead penned subtly subersive plays,3 keeping a relative peace with the Nazi/Vichy government, Prevost seized a gun, joined the resistance, and died fighting those who had occupied his beloved Paris. The pen, you see, is only mighty when backed by the sword. Nazi pens sent innocent people screaming to the camps, men’s pens, in the 19th Century, sent ‘hysterical’ women unwillingly to the madhouse, but the pens of the powerless achieve little in the Real World. It should come as no surprise that it was the tools of Jean Prevost, not those of Sartre, that stopped the Nazis – guns, bombs, knives, tanks, planes and the lost lives of American, British, Russian and Australian men and women won the war, and prevented the loss of the free west – the greatest and most fruitful civilisation the world has ever known. When it comes to fundamental a priori disagreements between cultures, violence is the true arbiter of values: in certain cases, might does make right.
A good example in the current day is the potentially endless War on Terror,* in which we find ourselves hopelessly entangled. Of course, ‘war’ can only be used euphemistically here, in rather the same way that dancing can remind us of sex, although it is not technically copulation. This is not a real war because there is no opposing army, no clear way to win, no clear objectives. The loose and hideous collective of ignorant Islamist pigsticks that downed the Twin Towers and part of the Pentagon, killed my countrymen in Bali, and splintered iconic red buses throughout London keep themselves ghostly and well-hidden, in the manner of true cowards everywhere. Perhaps it is for this reason that the Coalition of the Willing have dragged our armies and taxes away to the desert lands to fight pointless wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq. In order to pretend that they are less terrified than we are of our invisible and ruthless enemies. To pretend that this is just another war, and to quench the powerful lusts – born from vivid midnight visions of gold, oil, ancient crusades, and the tight, trimmed quims of exotic beauties – that torment their souls.
But I digress. If this War on Terror ever became bona-fide; if the bearded, effeminate Bin Laden ever raised a true army – disciplined, determined, and brave enough to fight with valour, as did their Islamic ancestors, in open combat. If this happened, some interesting questions and possibilities would arise. The first question, of course, is to do with me, and those like me. I am a writer, a peace lover, a liberal – I support tolerance over hatred, debate over violence, understanding over ignorance and a thousand other chic intellectual positions. And yet, if this strange and, at times, hideous society in which I dwell came under serious attack I like to think that I would follow the path of Prevost, and fight with all my strength to destroy those who would crush me and mine. Throw away words like ‘dialogue’, ‘multi-culturalism’, ‘non-violence’ and adopt the Philosophy of Horror, so eloquently espoused by a madman in Apocalypse Now. “The will…perfect, genuine, complete, crystalline, pure…to utilise (the) primordial instincts to kill without feeling, without passion, without judgement.“
But why? Why adopt such an unfashionable tone? Why advocate aggression and destruction of one’s enemies over diplomacy and non-violent protest. Well, that brings us back to my point about Truth and Violence.
How will September 11th, 2001, New York City, 8:48 am be remembered by history? As a tragic and abhorrent act, or as the greatest in a series of Paradise Invoking Attacks by the Heroic Islamic Conquerors and Liberators, led by the Glorious Horseman of Illustrious Name: Osama Bin Laden? It is possible, for the Global Islamists goal is worldwide subjugation, that in the future, our wretched ancestors – sober, bedecked in loose robes and burkhas – will pore over histories like these, in which sanity is flipped on its head and almost every other word is capitalised for no good reason. Because, as I see it, there are different kinds of ‘truth’; different ways of getting at facts. An elaboration:
Say I stumble across some terrible individual mounting a midget pony in a dumpster – should he jump up and deny his actions, I will beat him brutally for the dirty lying scum that he is. “The cold, hard, queasy fact is right in front of me”, I will yell, as I grind his balls beneath my boot. In a case like this, the fact in question is right there under my nose and so, unless I have simply gone mad, I can say with certainty that it is true that it occurred, that I know that it occurred (though, in this case, I might wish I didn’t). However, if I only read about the midgetponyincident in the newspaper, or see it on the news, then I am removed from it to a certain degree, though I can still be fairly sure about it if the source is reliable, if pictures are given and so on and so forth. If, again, I read about it in a history book 500 years after the fact I will have to be even more careful – checking primary documents, checking my history book against others and etceteraetceteraetcetera.
It’s not that history is useless or a fiction, only that it is always partially constructed – it is clichéd but true to say that history is written by the victors. It is also true that history, whoever it is written by, always contains some kind of bias. There can never be a totally objective history, because such a text would have to include every tiny detail of the universe to qualify. So, even in establishing the when/where/who of a fact from the past, there are difficulties, but when we come to the import of events - the "why" and "to what end" – that we run into the real danger, the real crux of my will to kill and die, if necessary, defending our democratic society. A society in which it is possible to find everything, to be anyone, to grow souls like no other on earth.
If this society came under a fundamental and real threat, as would be posed by an Islamist army – espousing the crusade philosophy of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb4 – as was posed by fascism and communism, as could someday be posed by extreme left/green factions in our own society. If we came under such a threat, I would not write another word nor sing another song until the forces that armed such a threat lay in bloodied ruin, and those who directed those forces hung dead in some public square. I would do this because I do not want my ancestors to read the histories that the Islamist would write - that fascists, communists or the OPT† would write. It is one thing to see dissident histories in our own society, a society in which they can be debated, scrutinised, ridiculed or ostracized. It would be quite another in a theocracy where books could be burnt, heretics killed, fatwahs issued, history controlled – in such a society Truth and Violence would become one and the same.
But I get ahead of ourselves. There is no such Muslims threat, no real Islamic army to challenge us militarily. The Muslim threat we face is scattered and fairly ineffective, morons with bombs. Of course, we must be wary of these morons, for their hearts are black, but there is another danger, internal and insidious, that we must confront. It has two faces: one on the Right and one on the Left. The right seeks to use the Fear of Terrorism to justify restricting liberties, bypassing democracy and undermining the justice of our courts. The left, in a strange fit of self-loathing, would have the liberal tradition Devour itself – becoming so concerned with tolerance and multiculturalism that it self-censors to avoid causing offence, which many confuse with Mill-ian Harm. They believe that perhaps cartoons of Muhammad, overt Christmas celebrations, criticism of cultural values, and other harmless things might just be too offensive and, in the name of tolerance, should simply be avoided. This kind of self-censorship, if it caught on, could endanger the very basis of democracy: open debate.
We must fight against these forces while our pens are still armed. With words, music and art we should vigorously counter any attacks on our civil liberties, our freedom of expression (even for morons) and our freedom of religion (and from religion). Whether the attacks come from the Left or Right, from Christians, Muslims, Atheists or any other –isms or –ists. Wherever the attacks come from they should be fought openly with words and, if words no longer suffice, with arms and might, in all things, let us choose Prevost over Sartre. The Open and Assertive over the Covert and Cowardly.
Signing out, TTFN – drink up, drink up! The days are short, and the nights grow colder...
* The Good Doctor Walsh once remarked that a more sensible War on Terror would be to drop nightlights from UN planes upon the darkened cities of foreign lands.
† Optimum Population Trust
1 Jean Prevost, quoted in Clive James’ Cultural Amnesia
2 From A More Precise Characterization of Existentialism, by Jean-Paul Sartre
3 Both No Exit and The Flies contained anti-Nazi sentiments, which is all well and good – or would have been if the sentiments were written on bullets, or at least accompanied by them. No Exit was such a mild attack on the Nazis that they allowed it to be performed publicly, and many even attended and enjoyed it.
4 The House of Islam and The House of War, ie. outside of Islamic countries there is only war, therefore world peace comes through total subjugation to Islam.
But why? Why adopt such an unfashionable tone? Why advocate aggression and destruction of one’s enemies over diplomacy and non-violent protest. Well, that brings us back to my point about Truth and Violence.
How will September 11th, 2001, New York City, 8:48 am be remembered by history? As a tragic and abhorrent act, or as the greatest in a series of Paradise Invoking Attacks by the Heroic Islamic Conquerors and Liberators, led by the Glorious Horseman of Illustrious Name: Osama Bin Laden? It is possible, for the Global Islamists goal is worldwide subjugation, that in the future, our wretched ancestors – sober, bedecked in loose robes and burkhas – will pore over histories like these, in which sanity is flipped on its head and almost every other word is capitalised for no good reason. Because, as I see it, there are different kinds of ‘truth’; different ways of getting at facts. An elaboration:
Say I stumble across some terrible individual mounting a midget pony in a dumpster – should he jump up and deny his actions, I will beat him brutally for the dirty lying scum that he is. “The cold, hard, queasy fact is right in front of me”, I will yell, as I grind his balls beneath my boot. In a case like this, the fact in question is right there under my nose and so, unless I have simply gone mad, I can say with certainty that it is true that it occurred, that I know that it occurred (though, in this case, I might wish I didn’t). However, if I only read about the midgetponyincident in the newspaper, or see it on the news, then I am removed from it to a certain degree, though I can still be fairly sure about it if the source is reliable, if pictures are given and so on and so forth. If, again, I read about it in a history book 500 years after the fact I will have to be even more careful – checking primary documents, checking my history book against others and etceteraetceteraetcetera.
It’s not that history is useless or a fiction, only that it is always partially constructed – it is clichéd but true to say that history is written by the victors. It is also true that history, whoever it is written by, always contains some kind of bias. There can never be a totally objective history, because such a text would have to include every tiny detail of the universe to qualify. So, even in establishing the when/where/who of a fact from the past, there are difficulties, but when we come to the import of events - the "why" and "to what end" – that we run into the real danger, the real crux of my will to kill and die, if necessary, defending our democratic society. A society in which it is possible to find everything, to be anyone, to grow souls like no other on earth.
If this society came under a fundamental and real threat, as would be posed by an Islamist army – espousing the crusade philosophy of Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb4 – as was posed by fascism and communism, as could someday be posed by extreme left/green factions in our own society. If we came under such a threat, I would not write another word nor sing another song until the forces that armed such a threat lay in bloodied ruin, and those who directed those forces hung dead in some public square. I would do this because I do not want my ancestors to read the histories that the Islamist would write - that fascists, communists or the OPT† would write. It is one thing to see dissident histories in our own society, a society in which they can be debated, scrutinised, ridiculed or ostracized. It would be quite another in a theocracy where books could be burnt, heretics killed, fatwahs issued, history controlled – in such a society Truth and Violence would become one and the same.
But I get ahead of ourselves. There is no such Muslims threat, no real Islamic army to challenge us militarily. The Muslim threat we face is scattered and fairly ineffective, morons with bombs. Of course, we must be wary of these morons, for their hearts are black, but there is another danger, internal and insidious, that we must confront. It has two faces: one on the Right and one on the Left. The right seeks to use the Fear of Terrorism to justify restricting liberties, bypassing democracy and undermining the justice of our courts. The left, in a strange fit of self-loathing, would have the liberal tradition Devour itself – becoming so concerned with tolerance and multiculturalism that it self-censors to avoid causing offence, which many confuse with Mill-ian Harm. They believe that perhaps cartoons of Muhammad, overt Christmas celebrations, criticism of cultural values, and other harmless things might just be too offensive and, in the name of tolerance, should simply be avoided. This kind of self-censorship, if it caught on, could endanger the very basis of democracy: open debate.
We must fight against these forces while our pens are still armed. With words, music and art we should vigorously counter any attacks on our civil liberties, our freedom of expression (even for morons) and our freedom of religion (and from religion). Whether the attacks come from the Left or Right, from Christians, Muslims, Atheists or any other –isms or –ists. Wherever the attacks come from they should be fought openly with words and, if words no longer suffice, with arms and might, in all things, let us choose Prevost over Sartre. The Open and Assertive over the Covert and Cowardly.
Signing out, TTFN – drink up, drink up! The days are short, and the nights grow colder...
* The Good Doctor Walsh once remarked that a more sensible War on Terror would be to drop nightlights from UN planes upon the darkened cities of foreign lands.
† Optimum Population Trust
1 Jean Prevost, quoted in Clive James’ Cultural Amnesia
2 From A More Precise Characterization of Existentialism, by Jean-Paul Sartre
3 Both No Exit and The Flies contained anti-Nazi sentiments, which is all well and good – or would have been if the sentiments were written on bullets, or at least accompanied by them. No Exit was such a mild attack on the Nazis that they allowed it to be performed publicly, and many even attended and enjoyed it.
4 The House of Islam and The House of War, ie. outside of Islamic countries there is only war, therefore world peace comes through total subjugation to Islam.
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