From: Greg Jordan (jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu)
Date: Mon Mar 24 2003 - 08:04:31 MST
On 21 Mar 2003, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> ### I think that many of us would agree on a more rigorous division -
> roughly, "violence" non-consensually ends life, or causes severe and
> non-consensual physical suffering. There is a bit of a gray area
> regarding extreme mental suffering but for the most part it is not a
> major source of misunderstanding. Therefore, money motivating a hitman
> is violence, money moving a baker is not.
I wasn't bringing in the issues of consent (or intention or will) because
I believe the way the mind forms consent is vulnerable to forces just like
everything else, and of course consenting actions can exert force.
Does a suicide bomber consent to committing suicide? Does he consent to
adopting the suicide-bomber-philosophy? Does he consent to being
coincidentally exposed to the suicide-bomber-philosophy? Does he consent
to living in circumstances that favor the adoption of the
suicide-bomber-philosophy? AS you can see, the further you back up the
analysis, the more "consent" disappears in a cloud of smoke.
The same goes for economic activities: does a person consent to buying a
product he chooses to buy? Does he consent to only two products of the
sort he wants being available? Does he consent to only one product being
sold practically near to him? Does he consent to receiving marketing
influences? Does he consent to acquiring the characteristics that make the
marketing effective? Does he consent to being born with that
characteristic?
In other words, I think "free will" should enter the analysis only as what
it is, a kind of mental construct to deal with the fact that human beings
cannot quickly (in realtime) analyze all the forces operating upon them
and all the inner processes and external processes affecting the ongoing
exercise of their personality. The mind's self-mental model is crude, and
contains this "ghost in the machine" conceit.
> Paying someone to
> > manufacture a product is parallel to paying someone to murder a person -
> > just different results of the exercise of force.
>
> ### I do not understand.
Both are economic activities, or can be analyzed that way. There are
markets for hits, and markets for clothes hangers, pricing considerations,
advertising potential, etc.
> ### The construction "to make somebody do something" usually implies the
> use a threat of violence. A thug threating you with a beating if you do
> not buy a worthless trinket from him, may be threatened with violence,
> by reciprocity. Sometimes, however, this expression is used differently
> - e.g. if a shopkeeper will sell item A only in association with item B,
> many people will say he "made" them buy it. In this second, sloppy
> meaning, there is of course no violence or a threat of violence, and
> accordingly, the buyer's reaction may not include such measures
> (including the use of state-organized violence).
I still don't think you've defined "violence" rigorously. If you buy
something because youneed it to live, or crave it helplessly, or require
it for any minimal comfort, and because the person you are buying it from
is the only person you can (for whatever reason) buy it from in the
circumstances in which you need it, then I can analyze any of the
scenarios as a play of forces, without aesthetically judging whether it is
violent or not. If you exercise a perfectly calculated marketing plan on
the appropriate audience, you can "make" them buy it as if you had
programmed a robot - without any thugs, baseball bats, or so on.
gej
resourcesoftheworld.or
jordan@chuma.cas.usf.edu
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