Violence never solves anything?

To open here it needs to be said that I am not advocating for violence. The title poses this as a question. It does not offer the phrase as a statement, because to do so would be to perpetuate the falsehood. "Violence never solves anything", as a statement, is intended as an ideal. Every time I hear this phrase I am reminded of a scene in the film Fury. In this film Brad Pitt portrays a tank commander in the waning months of the second world war. During a brief respite from combat he and his crew are making themselves guests in the home of German civilians. Pitt's character seizes the teachable moment and in one of the most profound lines of cinematic history he states to one of his subordinates: "Ideals are peaceful. History is violent."

One of the best tools available for determining the truth of something is an examination of it's source. It is with this method alone that the assertion of violence never solving anything is refuted. Go back and examine the recorded history. Pay close attention from this point forward. In both cases you will learn that those who most often spout this line also happen to be those who have a cadre of hired thugs surrounding them for protection. And enforcement. If violence never solves anything, then why are the aforementioned hired thugs heavily armed? I guess we are meant to assume that this is all merely for show.

Even if none of those weapons are ever unholstered, the very fact that there are goons wielding them suggests two distinct possibilities. The first of these is that if goons were hired and given these arms, then this must have been done with the thought that arms might be necessary to enforce the rule. Armed enforcement is violence. Secondly, the hiring and arming of thugs would suggest that the hiring party is aware of some activity for which they may need to defend themselves from some response to their provocations. The two possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

The ideal is that there would be no wars. The reality is that war is a constant, only varying in scale. If anything less than the ideal is to be considered a problem, then war is a problem. Problems invite, indeed sometimes beg for solutions. If there are two warring parties and one prevails over the other by violence, then the war has ended. Problem solved. At least the problem of the war itself. Seldom ever are wars resolved to the satisfaction of their justifications. Anyone who has had a steady pulse in the last thirty years can see this quite plainly.

What does it mean to solve something? The answer varies somewhat with context, but according to Oxford:

 find an answer to, explanation for, or means of effectively dealing with (a problem or mystery)

Violence will find no answers, nor will it give any explanation, but it will most certainly deal effectively with certain problems. When something is deemed effective it is done so by a pragmatic evaluation; not any moral considerations. For good or ill, makes no difference, a bucket of water is effective for dowsing a fire in a waste basket. This renders no judgement upon the character of water; it merely recognizes that it is effective for the purpose. Thus we may likewise state that violence does, in fact, solve most things. I will venture to say further that it always has. Stating this as an historical condition can in no way be construed as an incitement to, nor an advocacy for violence. It is the simple acknowledgement of the status quo.

Pacifism is an ideal. It may also be a creed by which to live. I don't discourage it; it is laudable and, if practiced consistently it may well contribute to a greater peace. It is also woefully ill equipped to survive any collision with unpleasant realities. 

Civilization is an ideal, a confidence game that works as long as you can keep enough people convinced. Once the end of that tassel becomes frayed the whole thing can come unraveled faster than you might think. I can recall some cinematic hyperbole which suggested that we are but 72 hours from cannibalism. Under the most extreme conditions this might well prove to be true.

Civilization, or perhaps better stated in this context "society", presumes to usurp the individual's right of self defense. This is true not only in the physical sense. We are assured that the lofty institutions of Law and Justice are the pillars that support society, and that these are the civilized means of resolving disputes. It is from this primarily that the trope "violence never solves anything" originates. These are ideals. They are ideals that may work, yet they may only work as well as their weakest link: the human beings who exercise that authority in the name of the state. It is ostensibly (and often cited as) in the name of the people. That is another falsehood. Society manifest as the State does nothing for people, only to people.

When these institutions fail to deliver, as agreed upon in a social contract, there are to be mechanisms in place to assure correction and restoration. When these mechanisms fail it is not by some accident. Rather, this occurs only by some malfeasance on the part of those tasked to administer the remedy. We have long since crossed that Rubicon, transcending the miscarriage of justice into a state of maladministration. These institutions have not only failed in their stated purpose; they have further been perverted to an ill purpose.

When the very institutions designed to serve as a shield are co-opted by malefactors, who would instead wield them as a sword against those they were meant to protect, they no longer serve as part of a republic. They have become extra-constitutional, criminal enterprises. This is not law to be obeyed; it is tyranny masquerading as law to be defied. It is the time for the governed to revoke their consent. This is not a call to violence. Defiance may take form by any number of peaceful means, though these are not always an effective remedy.

One can rest assured that there will be violence. Whether inflicted out of exasperation, or incurred by provocation, it will happen. This leads us to a state that is best described in a passage from Thomas Paine's Common Sense:

"We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in."

Of course if violence never solves anything, then all those feds could put down their guns and we could just talk this whole thing out. Right?