The Force Fallacy
Might isn't right and that's a problem
The idea is simple. The strong say to the weak, do as I say or I'll harm you. In practice, force is rarely that simple.The strong are liable to the illusion that they are like gods and in control of everything. But as Burns once wrote "The best laid plans of mice and men go aft agley"
There is a bloodless form of force. That's when somebody is so much stronger than their opponent that the weaker one just has to comply with orders. This is pretty common in civilized countries. People tend to comply with the police peacefully. And if they don't the police can be quite violent. But the fact that the police have to get violent at all shows that the threat of overwhelming force often doesn't intimidate.
After 9/11 the world invaded Afghanistan with an overwhelming display of force. 15 or 20 years later the Taliban forced them out. So much for the power of the strongest military in history against a small impoverished country.
Force has an air of invincibility. It is true that force can force people to behave differently but it rarely plays out as planned. Hitler started out seeming invincible and ended up a suicide in a bunker. I think Putin thought he'd take Ukraine in a few days with a tank strike. Saddam thought that Kuwait was an easy mark.
It is said that violence is the last resort of the incompetent. That doesn't seem to be true. Violence seems to be the first resort of the incompetent. After all, the world is too complex for incompetent people - their first thought is to use force to get their way. The idea is conceptually simple but I remember graffiti in the toilet when I was in art school. "As soon as we kill all the animals we'll force them to show us where the money is hid." It's barking mad.
The MAGA cultists are big fans of force. But they are like King Canute trying to command the tide. They speak of millions of illegal immigrants and hope to turn back that tide with a few thousand soldiers. Basically they ignore the complex social forces that drew undocumented immigrants in the first place let alone the complexity of removing people with jobs and families.
Force is an aspect of any society. As the libertarians used to say, men with guns are always in the background. One of my observations of history is that societies tend to evolve so that the men with guns go further and further into the background because most people spontaneously try to live in peace. And after all, men with guns are expensive to maintain - the fewer the better.
What do you think?
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.