The utility of violence

I've adopted a specific principal from Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy - Thou shalt not initiate the use of force against another. The key word here is "initiate". It's perfectly reasonable to defend one's self against the use of force or intimidation from another. In fact, since not doing so most often makes the overall situation worse, it could be considered a violation of the "Make it Better" principal.

When I was young I was prey, rather than predator. I was a good Catholic and believed that all violence was bad. In hindsight, this is very convenient because doing nothing is quite easy. Being receptive and cooperative toward bullies, of course, lead to more bullying. I eventually came to realize that fighting and losing was way better than just losing.

If you don't defend your own rights, how can I count on you to defend, or even recognize, mine? If you can't be counted on to defend the basic rights of others, why would others go to any effort to protect yours? Self-defense isn't just permissible, it's the right thing to do.

An objective analysis of my own experience with bullies is that the existence of violence in the world wasn't my problem. The fact that I wasn't any good at it, was.

The Star of Bethlehem

Just an interesting point to ponder. I just heard the most credible explanation of the Star of Bethlehem story on the Discovery Channel. A researcher who has been studying the issue for 30 years (which is kind of weird in and of itself) discovered that around the time Christ is estimated to have been born (yes it's just a guess. He didn't have a birth certificate and for centuries, nobody cared) a unique planetary alignment occurred. Every year, planets appear to reverse the direction they travel across the sky for a number of days, then stop and go back the other way. The effect is due to the Earth revolving around the sun and crossing the perpendicular line between the other planets and the sun. It's not that unusual. But for two to do it at the same time is. At this time both Jupiter and Saturn came together in the sky in "reverse orbit". To Persian astronomers this would have represented a transfer of power from the "old king" to the "new king". This would explain a lot. Imagine you're a king or group of kings in Persia and your astronomers tell you that there's going to be a new king. You'd better produce one for the folks or they're going to assume it's supposed to be you that's getting the boot. So, you send your emissaries off to a distant land to find the real new king. Then you can explain the occurrence as signifying a change of power for someone else.

So, the three wise guys show up in Bethlehem weary from searching far and wide for some new king to pin the celestial event on. They can't go back and tell the boss they didn't find one or their throats would likely be cut and new emissaries would be dispatched. Finally, they just decide to pick one. They spot a commotion in a nearby manger or hotel or whatever it was, see a newborn infant, give the little crumb cruncher some goodies, declare him a king and go back home.

I imagine this would stun onlookers and from that day forward all of the youngsters comings and goings would be closely monitored and grossly exaggerated. Of course he would be told of his magnificent destiny and his counsel would be sought by all. Like Billy Idol, he became what they named him.