The Temptation of Violence

Abstract

This study discusses only one, but very significant, aspect of the phenomenon of violence: the desire of violence to expand, to penetrate into all spheres of human life and society. In this context, violence is considered as one of the main social regulators. It is argued that other main social regulators are traditions, the market and moral and legal reason. A distinctive feature of violence, considered as a social regulator, is the coercion of some social subjects by other subjects. At the same time, this coercion is necessarily based on the actual use of force or the threat of its use. Next, the relationship between violence and other social regulators is discussed. It is shown that the absolutization and universalization of the role of violence occurs when, for one reason or another, other basic social regulators are weakened or even destroyed. The appearance of ease and the seeming effectiveness of the universal applicability of violence are the foundations of the phenomenon that we call "the temptation of violence." It is argued that the absolutization and universalization of the role of violence in public life inevitably leads to the establishment of totalitarian control of power over society, to the coarsening and primitivization of the life of the relevant community. The assumption is put forward and justified, according to which such tragic processes took place in our country during the Civil War and the policy of war communism.