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Lecture: 08-2004
CIVILITY, SAVAGERY
AND RUTHLESSNESS
By:
Skip Gochenour
I.
Americans,
as freemen, carry weapons about in society.
A. “A Polite Society” is used to
describe the society where freemen are able to go about armed.
1.
A
polite society is also a civil society as distinguished from a savage society.
2.
Civil
is derived from civilization.
a.
At
the root of civilization is a system of behaviors designed to reduce the
instance of violence between men when they encounter one another.
b.
These
ritualized behaviors have evolved over time, some nearly universal, some culturally
specific.
c.
The
exhibition of these behaviors permits each of the parties to the behaviors to
interpret the intentions of the respective parties. So long as each party follows the protocols
of interaction, each knows what to expect of the other, thus establishing a
system of trust.
d.
Part
of the system of trust is predicated on the understanding that neither party
will initiate an attack without first exhibiting behaviors that indicate and
escalation.
1) Posturing, bluster, bluff, challenges
(referred to as diplomacy when engaged by countries) are all ritual behaviors
that precede initiation of attack.
2) These protocols are designed to
allow the parties to decide whether to continue to blows or mitigate the event.
3) The point is that no one, parties
or onlookers, is surprised by the attack or who the attacker is.
3.
Ruthless
individuals, forego the rituals and attack.
a.
Such
individuals have violated the trust component of confrontation.
b.
This
display of ruthlessness is “predatory” behavior and is generally held in disdain,
though admittedly necessary on occasion.
4.
Ritualized
pre-attack behavior and predatory behavior are each seen in the animal
world. There is reason to conclude these
behaviors operate at a “hard-wired” level.
5.
Man
has evolved a series of behaviors, civil behaviors that are designed to allow
the practitioners of such behaviors to live a life of violence avoidance.
a.
Civility,
the abhorrence of violence, is a process where the members of a culture become
less inclined to use violence.
b.
Politeness
is for the specific purpose of reducing instances of violence by avoiding
actions which might give offense.
c.
The
VCA see politeness/ruthlessness as a strategy.
d.
He
sees your politensess and his ruthlessness as putting him in control of what
will occur.
e.
It
is not bad manners to point out bad manners.
f.
It
is a means of determining the true motives of the aggressor.
6.
The
practice of civility, in some components of Western, particularly American
society, has taken on trappings of moral superiority.
a.
It
is considered impolite to be impolite, even when intentional offense is
offered.
b.
Nothing
is worth fighting for, even when one’s life is threatened.
c.
Those
who would fight for what is there’s, even their lives, are viewed with disgust
and distrust.
d.
Such
people are removed from reality in their daily lives.
e.
They
live in a self-constructed fantasy world.
B. A civilized society organizes
itself under a sovereign that holds a monopoly over the use of force.
1.
The
sovereign organizes dispute mediation apparatus for the purpose of maintaining its
control over the use of force.
2.
Without
this dispute mediation system, the politeness strategies would not be
sufficient.
3.
Police,
courts and citizens operating under justification principles operate in this
system.
II.
Citizens,
Justification, Claim of Right and Sovereign
A. In American society the sovereign
has enumerated principles of justification where a citizen can exercise his
claim of right to possession in the face of predatory violence.
1.
Among
the components of the definition of slavery is the lack of expectation to the
private ownership of property, including family and life.
2.
Slaves
have no right to claims anything as theirs, freemen do.
3.
If
a freeman has the right to ownership, he has the right to fight those who
would, without legal justification, take it from him.
4.
Hence,
the legal principles of justification.
a.
These
legal principles graduate the level of force permitted based on the possession
that is sought by the aggressor and the level of violence offered in the
seizure.
b.
Proportionality
of response is a component of justification.
c.
When
confronted by an aggressor, it is the knowledge that his actions will be reviewed
by the sovereign that guides the decisions made by the defender.
5.
Freemen
are willing to fight for their claim of right rather than submit to those who
would take that possession without legal justification.
a.
Possessions
include his life and the welfare of his family.
6.
Freemen
fight for what is rightfully theirs as a matter of honor. That same concept of honor causes him to fight
within the rules established by the sovereign.
They observe the rules of civility as a matter of character.
7.
While
observing the principles of justification, the freeman also understands that a
lethal assault by an aggressor calls up in the defender rational and
justifiable ruthlessness.
8.
Ruthlessness
is the only antidote for ruthlessness and savagery.
III.
Savagery
A. Savagery is doing the
unimaginable.
1.
As
civilization evolves, some actions become unimaginable.
a.
Severing
a head, dismembering a body, are just as unimaginable if they occur in an
American city or the streets of a Middle Eastern country.
b.
Civilization
sees such acts as depraved.
c.
But
such acts are part of the real world. They
are the product of an intentional desire to to shock the sensibilities.
d.
They
are not evidence of a sickness but rather a strong will.
e.
Men
who engage in savagery must be dealt with directly. They must not be dealt with savagely.
f.
Those
who engage in savagery are part of hard reality, they are not aberrations.
IV.
Fantasy,
Civility and Savagery
A. Civility and savagery share the
concept of fantasy.
1.
Modern
civilization is largely a western society construct.
2.
With
its Greco-Roman roots, it became a bud in the Enlightenment and Reformation and
came to bloom in the 19th century.
3.
It
is derived from what de Tocqueville referred to as “habits of the heart”. Largely it is a product of trial and error
that produced a workable construct.
4.
This
construct was introduced to non-western societies through European imperialism
of the 17th to the 19th centuries. Societies that did not pass through the Enlightenment
or the Reformation learned western civilization constructs through mimicry.
5.
Nation-state
sovereignty is a western construct that tries to operate in parts of the world
that have tribes, warlords and gangs as integral parts of their cultural
structure. Some non-western
nation-states were formed by fiat in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries.
6.
The
cornerstone of nation state sovereignty is that each nation state is
responsible for the actions of all parties within its respective borders.
7.
Throughout
the history of man, tribes, warlords and gangs have engaged in behavior that
western civilization presently regards as savagery. Such conduct was and is the hard reality of
the world.
8.
To
present day western civilization, savagery is “unimaginable”.
B. Reason and fantasy.
1.
One
of the pillars of western thought is the concept of reason. The ability to reason has contributed greatly
to science, technology and the reduction of violence among its
practitioners. It is a marvelous
construct.
2.
It
also produced a world of fantasy in some portions of European and American
society.
3.
Some
members of society rejected concepts like free will, honor, character and
wickedness and constructed explanations for behavior that looked for “root
causes” that were out of the influence of the actor who engaged in the
behavior.
4.
To
identify the “root causes” these searchers used their own frame of reference
without regard to reports of the actors.
5.
They
used “reason” based on their own world view models.
6.
While
they could conceive of VCA committing “instrumental” acts, they postulated the
acts were to varying degrees the result of constrained choices due to
circumstance. Social engineering would
correct the problem.
7.
VCA
with “expressive” motivation were largely seen as products of social
pathologies.
8.
Little
effort was exhausted in explaining the role of civilization in reducing VCA
behavior from its historic occurrences.
(eg cannibalism, medieval torture)
9.
VCA
engage in ruthlessness and savagery because it works as a strategy. (Vlad the Impailler)
10. Some expressive VCA are propelled
by fantasy or magical beliefs. (They can
feel the life energy of the person they strangle flow into them through their
arms. Several score virgins await them
in heaven.) But they are not
psychotic.
11. Such beliefs are based on a desire
to believe them, not pathology, just as the belief they are not responsible for
their acts, but manipulated into them by the political acts of another is the
result of a desire to believe, not reality.
C. Civility, Honor and Character
Trump Savagery
1.
Men
who go about armed must be the example of civility, even in the face of
savagery.
2.
They
must learn to be honorable in the same way it has been conveyed through the
centuries, through the example and teachings of their parents.
3.
They
must learn the sense of shame that comes from dishonorable behavior and they
must dread worse than death the loss of trust of other honorable men occasioned
by their dishonorable actions.
4.
They
must learn the self-mastery of self-discipline that permits them to be in one
instant ruthless in their response to an aggressor and in the next instant to
refrain from taking mean advantage of him when the next blow is not necessary.
5.
They
must learn that to be truly a free man they must be willing to die than to be
subjugated to a ruthless savage.
6.
When
all of these qualities are in place, and can be called up without thought, the
man who holds them as his dearest possessions is the most civilized among men.