So, I just saw the new movie adaptation of Ironman. If one can look past the racism and sexism that Hollywood seems incapable of transcending, it offered a fairly intriguing story. The narrative is well-rounded, with enticing action sequences that are by no means the central focus of the movie. By the end, some important questions have been raised about violence and morality. This gave me an opportunity to ruminate on these themes. Here’s what I scribbled into my notebook shortly after the credits rolled:

Politics is the practice of distributing power.

Power means ? ability to allocate resources [of all kinds] - money, food, social capital, rights/freedoms, etc.

For this reason, violence will always be political, because as a means of coercion it is a form of power

(on an arms race…)

Weapons, ideologies, values … these create political hierarchies, that is they all involve the distribution & negotiation of power

Hierarchies are efficient but unjust because those at top, the rulers, are the only ones negotiating power (that’s absolute & it is obviously a spectrum) - anyway, hierarchies seem to make sense and be necessary to “get stuff done,” but what is happening at the top is no different than what we all do every day - negotiate power

power is the ability to get what one wants

calling in sick, saying “no” (to anything), asking a favor, rape, theft, etc.

these are all forms of power

some are just, some are not just

SOCIETY is a vast system of power relationships, and so politics as defined here is an element in all human interaction

so an interesting theoretical inspired by Ironman - 10 men have the power (in this case through physical force) to “rule the world”

this is a bad idea for several reasons

(1) it is unjust because the rulers do not have the consent of the governed

(2) it will be ineffective because, let’s assume they are all equal, there will still be power dynamics between them that can cause rifts

(3) illegitimate can be determined in terms of value-congruence and that can be a simple analytic description

we can also say illegitimate is WRONG, and by that we can mean it conflicts with the laws of reality

–>or, to be value neutral, it acts within a particular system of laws, and therefore will have certain consequences

–>these types of interactions (the bees dying are an example, unequal distribution of power leading to riots…) have unseen consequences

nature tends toward equilibrium/balance (HOMEOSTASIS???), so a riot is just like a storm of power, a violent clash the result of which is temporary equilibrium…

so all that said, the 10-man oligarchy would have unforeseen consequences … because the rise to power was unnatural & illegitimate … which means storms will brew …

(and THAT said, the goal of political theorists is to construct an idea of a system of power that is natural/legitimate - that means sustainable)

this is sort of a critical perspective of history/power/politics

so - violence/weapons have a propensity to shrink the sphere of discourse, because they enable the holders to effectively silence all others

this is wrong, because greatest freedom means greatest ability to participate or not participate as one desires

SO–>

shrinking the sphere of discourse is bad because (1) it silences many people and this is not utilitarian, and (2) it doesn’t solve any fundamental issues, because that shrunken sphere will still engage the same debates as society at large…

& if they don’t, there isn’t congruence which is more conspicuously illegitimate