Let us not forget that violence does not and cannot flourish by itself; it is inevitably intertwined with lies. Between them there is the closest, the most profound and natural bond: nothing screens violence except lies, and the only way lies can hold out is by violence. Whoever has once announced violence as his method must inexorably choose lying as his principle. At birth, violence behaves openly and even proudly. But as soon as it becomes stronger and firmly established, it senses the thinning of the air around it and cannot go on without befogging itself in lies, coating itself with lying’s sugary oratory. It does not always or necessarily go straight for the gullet; usually it demands of its victims only allegiance to the lie, only complicity in the lie.
Nobel Address (1970)
When violence intrudes into peaceful life, its face glows with self-confidence, as if it were carrying a banner and shouting: “I am violence. Run away, make way for me - I will crush you.” But violence quickly grows old. And it has lost confidence in itself, and in order to maintain a respectable face it summons falsehood as its ally - since violence can conceal itself with nothing except lies, and the lies can be maintained only by violence. And violence lays its ponderous paw not every day and not on every shoulder. It demands from us only obedience to lies and daily participation in lies - all loyalty lies in that.
Live Not by Lies (1974)
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
DH 05.05.09 at 5:41 pm
aka Japan and Germany WWII. Great response in reference to their regimes.
Kim 05.05.09 at 6:24 pm
Absolutely, DH - and Vietnam and Iraq too.
DH 05.05.09 at 6:43 pm
Not in Iraq in the absolute sense in that without Saddam’s regime there would be no need to go in. To a lessor extent in Vietnam in that the Chinese and the Communist had no right to be in control of Vietnam. If it weren’t for those groups being in there there wouldn’t be the need to go in as well.
The initiator and the instigator need to be looked at more harshly than you are letting on.
Tony Buglass 05.05.09 at 9:04 pm
“To a lessor extent in Vietnam in that the Chinese and the Communist had no right to be in control of Vietnam.”
The communists wouldn’t have been in power in Vietnam if the US hadn’t blown their chances. Ho Chi Min asked the Americans for help to free his country from Japanese occupation. The US ignored him, so he turned to Russia for help. They helped him, and he was persuaded that the communist way was the one, because it was the communists rather than the capitalists who helped. And when the Vietnam War came, the communists in question were Vietnamese communists. It was their country. They had every right to be there, and a lot more right than the Americans.
Kim 05.06.09 at 5:59 am
Er, the lies and violence of the Johnson, Nixon, and Bush administrations, DH. No doubt those of the Ho Chi Minh and Saddam regimes too, though the international aggressor in both wars was the US. As ever, it’ll be a cold day in hell when you check out the log in your own nation’s eye and see the US itself as an imperial Babylon.