The Democratization of Violence

The 18th Century taught us that even the biggest army could still fall to a smallest militia. And already the twenty-first century has bent that arc down to only a handful, approaching one.

When we live in a world where any person could end it, how will we act? Would you kill me before I can kill you? Or would we recognize that we owe our individual sovereignty to all the billions who allow us to have it here on this crowded spec of wet iron in the middle of nowhere.

Because they can take it back whenever they want. And nine times out of ten--for nine people out of ten--they do; the ones carrying the guns as much as the ones not-watching it on tv.

The democratization of violence is technology's gift of the universal franchise for tearing something down or blowing somethig up.

In a world of retail access to total violence, we simply can't continue to govern by invinciblility. The ruling Prince may be right that love fades, but he's forgotten that hate lasts forever and 21st century peasants have a much more effective fertilizer bomb at hand.

[we need to look up from these flickering shadows...]

Stop thinking we need to make people see things just like us. Society is not about concensus, it contact. It's about a negotiation where no advantage is taken except shared by all equally.

[i know. In our time, it's hard to think of something we could all take equally as much of an advantage. It's an oxy moron, or something from Escher. And who does that frame in opposition?]

More to come.


-- Mobile and Free