I was also going to come on here to say you write beautifully. I feel like I remember hearing on your podcast or elsewhere that writing was hard for you, that you struggle through it. Your prose is graceful, whatever your process.
I think an additional element to consider when putting these two murder-tolerating systems of thought side-by-side is anonymity; that is to say, people in these situations operating in varying states of "unknown-ness".
The hatefulness of war, systemic institutional violence, systemic injustice, etc. is in part because the people perpetuating the systems don't specifically know the people being violated, which makes these forms of violence easier to metabolize, particularly for the violators.
Anonymity is an essential element for forming out groups, etc. More on this later, my lovely wife needs me to drive her somewhere!
The human appetite for death stories (cinematic and video game heroes whose core identity is killer of people, true crime podcasts, that rich vein of tragic country and blues ballads; the list is endless) finds special purchase in the American imagination.
But we find a difference between the father who destroys his trusting family or whatever and Luke Skywalker annihilating Imperial Stormtroopers by the score. We cannot imagine ourselves as the stormtrooper. In our imagination, we're never the zombie, only the hardscrabble survivor of the apocalypse.
The ballad of Thompson & Mangione is difficult to hold in our American psyche because we can see ourselves in both men. The heroic captain of industry, winning at capitalism!
The deeply-principled man of action!
These are challenges to our preference for anonymous victims, anonymous killers, anonymized violence or suffering over there, far from the shores of my own psyche.
I guess I don't really have a central point here, but more of another frame of analysis to lay beside the others when considering how we might think about this ancient and difficult melodrama of volition, tolerance and the death output societies produce.
I was also going to come on here to say you write beautifully. I feel like I remember hearing on your podcast or elsewhere that writing was hard for you, that you struggle through it. Your prose is graceful, whatever your process.
It's still a struggle! But I am thrilled to hear that it doesn't show.
Sam, you are a great writer and soul.
That's incredibly kind!
I think an additional element to consider when putting these two murder-tolerating systems of thought side-by-side is anonymity; that is to say, people in these situations operating in varying states of "unknown-ness".
The hatefulness of war, systemic institutional violence, systemic injustice, etc. is in part because the people perpetuating the systems don't specifically know the people being violated, which makes these forms of violence easier to metabolize, particularly for the violators.
Anonymity is an essential element for forming out groups, etc. More on this later, my lovely wife needs me to drive her somewhere!
Alright, to resume:
The human appetite for death stories (cinematic and video game heroes whose core identity is killer of people, true crime podcasts, that rich vein of tragic country and blues ballads; the list is endless) finds special purchase in the American imagination.
But we find a difference between the father who destroys his trusting family or whatever and Luke Skywalker annihilating Imperial Stormtroopers by the score. We cannot imagine ourselves as the stormtrooper. In our imagination, we're never the zombie, only the hardscrabble survivor of the apocalypse.
The ballad of Thompson & Mangione is difficult to hold in our American psyche because we can see ourselves in both men. The heroic captain of industry, winning at capitalism!
The deeply-principled man of action!
These are challenges to our preference for anonymous victims, anonymous killers, anonymized violence or suffering over there, far from the shores of my own psyche.
I guess I don't really have a central point here, but more of another frame of analysis to lay beside the others when considering how we might think about this ancient and difficult melodrama of volition, tolerance and the death output societies produce.