On Violence
Here's another pome also from the manuscript for Dante's Internal Combustion Engine, circa 2005. One reason for reconsideration is our current national debate on guns, and also, considering Hannah Arendt's essay "On Violence," the question of origins of violence: is it bureaucracy and the faceless "rule by Nobody" (as she would have it)? Or is is more personal, in which powerful actors exercise tyranny? Arendt said that the latter, the more identifiable they are, should tend against violence (and towards power), because one could appeal directly, attempt to redress wrongs, and if necessary, rebel.
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