[I explore these ideas further in VIDEO and PODCAST form]

This is a very interesting concept that I'm starting to become more familiar with. I am slightly upset that I was never made aware of it during my schooling years.  Turns out that it is one of the most defining factors that determines how humans organize themselves in different kinds of societies.

If you think about it, across the span of our history, we can see a wide range of civilizations arise. All of them with their own set of values, institutions and structure. I have begun to study why certain kinds of them come about at their particular moment in time, and what makes them change. In doing so I’m hoping to attain a greater understanding of the current moment our particular society is going through. With all the chaos and confusion in today’s world, I’m very much in the belief that our current structure is changing. Many elements are signaling us that the way we have organized ourselves is outdated, and therefore, inefficient and vulnerable.

So what really is “The Logic of Violence”?

Simply put is a concept that takes into account how violence is implemented in the world. This changes from culture to culture, and each particular moment in history has it;s own. It is very dependent on the technology available, as well as the latest weapons of the day.

We can even say that the macro geo-political organization humans create, are a direct response to this logic of violence. Society's  main function is to keep its inhabitants safe enough to produce resources to continue to grow and develop. In this sense, every time there is a shift in the logic of violence, the whole society has to change in order to address it.

Let’s quickly go through some examples to paint a clearer picture.

Imagine the early time in history, when humans were divided into small groups of hunters and gatherers. Because people needed to keep moving it was not ideal for them to have extra capital, it would be a liability. This meant that attacking another band was not very profitable. Sure, it would help secure a certain area and access to certain resources, but other than that it would incur a great risk and not an equal reward. During this time we see less conflict between tribes. As a result, society is kept extremely simple.

When we moved to a more agrarian society, for the first time we were able to produce and store more than the tribe needed. This created two very interesting factors. The first one is that of “sitting capital”, a source of value that is just sitting there, this would be the extra food produced. This changes the logic of violence, as it would make attacking someone's farm a very profitable exercise. Just as you would expect, it also became a more usual occurrence. It is not until the logic of violence shifts to make attacking more profitable, that we actually see the number of attacks go up.

In order to defend themselves, and their new capital, farmers tended to band together in larger numbers, creating this way the first “cities” or towns. This is a clear example of a new technology (farming) creating a shift in the Logic of Violence, which creates a necessity for a society shift (at a global scale) to address this change. 

This happens every time. In the middle ages we see the knight emerge as the greatest weapon ever produced. One knight with full armor, a warhorse and a spear could beat to submission  a whole bunch of peasants. This creates an imbalance, because it was very expensive to attain this power. The society we find here is one where a few knights ruled over a lot of peasants, who in exchange for their service got protection. The society itself adapted to a vertical structure with the normal folk in the bottom, the knight over them, the lords, and the king at the top.

We even see very big structures (castles) being built everywhere. They were very expensive but once established they were really hard to take down.

This way of living went on for a while until the invention of gunpowder. Here we see another shift in the logic of violence. Now an untrained soldier with a rifle suddenly was as deadlier as a trained well equipped knight. Cannons soon followed and made the castles completely obsolete very quickly. Once again this shift changed the whole world. Here we start to see the emergence of the countries as we know them today. The vertical structure in society collapsed, and now we see one person at the top and everyone else grouped below. There were no more “lords” and “knights”, but for the first time we got the concept of “citizen”. This happened because there was no longer a big difference between a rich person (who before could afford the weapons to be a knight and become very powerful) and a normal one. 

This also shifted the balance of power. Before, the king, if wanted to wage war, needed to negotiate with the lords and knights, all of whom had a lot of power to reject the proposal.

But now, gunpowder makes it easier to attack, harder to defend. In addition to this, the new society structure where everyone beneath the king is equal, makes it that no citizen has enough power by themselves to refuse. The consolidation of power in smaller groups, plus the shift in the logic of violence lead to more wars than ever. As you would expect, large kingdoms and countries started to form.

This went on until recently, the main reasons we have organized as we are now is so that it is easier for us to amass great numbers of people (if need be) to form an army and defend ourselves. As well as collect enough taxes to maintain said army until it reaches its objective. In fact, how good your country is in doing these two things was the major factor that determined its success.

But here we reach the problem, the logic of violence has shifted once again. We can still find places in the world where armies fight each other. But it is very rare, and will become rarer as we continue on. All the conflict now is done either digitally or in an economic fashion. Both areas in which having a large army proves useless, just like having an army of very expensive knights when gunpowder is already a thing. All that used to be our greatest advantage is now our biggest liability.

One hacker today can cause more damage than a full army. Before, we needed centralized structures to build and gather our people quickly in case of attacks. But now all that just makes us more vulnerable to cyber strikes. We have already seen some of our infrastructure being heavily damaged by this, and it costs a lot to repair. Societies around the world are waking up to this fact, we need to start updating before our vulnerabilities get exploited too much.

Understanding history with the “Logic of Violence” perspective offers deep insights. Time and time again we are shown that it is impossible for it to change, without changing the whole macro political landscape. Our entire society and institutions have been built to respond to the logic of their day. This means that now, they are utterly obsolete. Some may be able to adapt and update, most, I’m afraid, will collapse entirely.

I am not writing this to scare you or to bring you down. I do believe that the new world we need to build is going to be a lot better. We will enjoy a level of abundance we have never dreamt. I’m only worried about this transition period that we are in. Too many people are completely unaware of what is happening around them.

Unfortunately the people in power are not trying to guide us to this new world, in fact they are doing what they can to slow us down. The power the state now enjoys over its citizens cannot endure, I think most of the problems today stem from the fact that they are starting to feel this. They sense their authority being degraded and slowly fading, foolishly they try harder and harder to keep it. In the end, it is a futile attempt of stopping the inevitable, only causing more pain than required.

I only want people to pay attention to the changes we are facing, so we can smooth the transition into a brighter world.

Have a great day!