The problem of violence is something that all of us are going to have to contend with, in one form or another, both theoretically and practically. This is especially true as the world continues to transition towards greater divisiveness, more armaments and greater civilian deaths. Increasingly, the distinction between combatants and noncombatants, which forms the basis for "Just War Theories," is disappearing and, as a result, theories of war are now being reconsidered.
In a prior paper on "Norms of War in Judaism" (World Religions and Norms of War, United Nations University Press, 2009) I tried to argue two points: first, that the just war theory does not have the same significance in Judaism as it does in Christianity, and second, my own feeling that the Just War Theory emerged largely out of a Greek and Roman context. This context presupposes the beliefs that war is inevitable, that there is no way to end war, and that if there is no way to end war, then the real question is - how can you reach agreements and make some arrangements wherein the worst elements of war can be minimized or contained?
Contrary to the Greek/Roman concept of the inevitability of war, the Hebrew Bible contends that the state of war is not a natural state, that human beings are not by nature warriors, and that there could even be a society without warriors being the major and central element, (Isaiah 2:4). A war-free and warrior-free society was not even conceivable to Plato or to be found in any other ancient writings.
In that earlier essay, I came to the conclusion that war may be necessary in certain very special situations, but to affirm that it is just, one has to make numerous exceptions and qualifications. At best, one can say that a war should strive not be unjust.
For example, I think all of us would acknowledge that the Second World War was certainly, and should be conceived of, as a Just War, and that it was not only just but absolutely necessary to defeat Hitler. But even this most Just War, a war in which President Roosevelt affirmed prior to U.S. entry into the war in 1939, that under all circumstances it was to be a top priority to safeguard noncombatants and to make an absolute distinction between combatants and noncombatants, in spite of this, the war ended with the fire bombing of Dresden and a hundred Japanese cities, and in which Tokyo was devastated and the atom bomb was dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In all these places the vast majority of those killed were civilians, so this whole concept that a Just War is a war in which only combatants should be killed or hurt and noncombatants are to be protected may be true theoretically, but it is impossible to achieve. Even more distressing, we now recognize that in the contemporary situation, wherein non-declared wars, terrorism, and things of that nature are eclipsing traditional warfare, the whole issue now has to be reconsidered.
So in reconsidering the problem of violence, my own way of approaching questions follows a pretty set pattern; when it comes to Judaism, I always look at what the Bible says first, and then what the rabbis say. But when it comes to philosophy, I always start with what Plato says. You know, Whitehead had a wonderful statement: he said that the safest generalization of Western philosophy is that it's nothing but a series of footnotes to Plato. That said, if you turn to Plato, one sees he believed that every human being embodies a threefold structure, and he believed the threefold structure must be replicated in the state. Every human being, according to Plato, is comprised of the rational faculty (reason), will, and finally, desire. We can represent these faculties symbolically; reason is represented largely by the human element, whereas will is represented by a lion, namely someone who is ferocious, aggressive, and intent on domination. The third element, desire, is represented by a many-headed-Hydra, since whenever one eliminates one desire (one head), another takes in its place endlessly.
Now, Plato defines violence as an order that is "upside down," where the higher serves the lower, (Plato's, The Gorgias). This follows when either the will or the desires take control of reason, (the rational faculty), in other words, when the philosophers (reason) are not in charge. So, for example, if you have a soul in which the reasoning faculty serves, or is directed by the will, then "reason" becomes the means used by the will. Keep in mind that Plato said that wisdom is the knowledge of ends, and reason is the faculty by which one arrives at such knowledge. Now, if "reason" no longer establishes "ends" but instead establishes the means for the "will," then "reason" becomes "means," and all ends are "irrational," since it becomes subservient to "will" or "desire." Plato presents this division in his Republic, which is his conception of the ideal, or the best state although even Plato can't imagine an ideal state without soldiers.
In other words, war becomes the main problem, because in Plato's (and the entire ancient world's society) there's no way that a state can survive without soldiers to defend itself. As a result, survival becomes the chief value and the only way that you are going to overcome the predicament of the wrong element in control is if you have philosophers who are kings. Plato believed that If you can have reason (i.e. the philosophers) in control, (just as the rational faculty has to be in control of the will and desires) so in the state, the philosophers (or the rulers) have to be those who have a proper knowledge of ends, and they rule over the soldiers and the workers. But if the soldiers take charge, then it is going to be a problem because then the goals are not going to be the goals of reason and wisdom; they're going to be the goals of might and conquest. Now, Plato therefore warns that if a person is not interested in engaging in politics, he's going to be condemned to living in a situation wherein someone inferior to him is going to rule him.
And so, what is violence for Plato? Violence for Plato is a situation in which the higher is subsumed under the lower. In other words, it's disorder; its a circumstance in which things are basically upside down, so the Lower takes the place of the higher; it's when will and desire take the place of reason and wisdom, and this reversal results in violence. An acute discussion of this upside-down existence can be found in Robert E. Cushman, Therapeia: Plato's Conception of Philosophy, University of N. Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1958 pp. 44-51, as well as John Wild's discussion of Tripartite Existence in his Plato's Theory of Man, Cambridge Mass, 1945,ppg 34-44))
Nettleship, in his excellent work on Plato, summarizes Plato's view by affirming that "of all kinds of helplessness, the most shameful is to be unable to help ourselves or our friends not to do injustice," (Philosophical Remains, MacMillan and Co.,. Ltd., London 1901, p.299) that the worst thing that can happen to a person is to be unable to prevent yourself or your friends from doing evil. What Nettleship means here is that when you're not in control of yourself, so that the faculty that should be in control (reason) is out of control, then you have violence.
That's basically the way Plato defines violence, and this can most clearly be seen in two main encounters in Plato's dialogues. We see it in the first book of The Republic, in Socrates' confrontation with Thrasymachus, and more sharply and much more radically in the third part of The Gorgias, in the confrontation with Callicles. In The Gorgias, Socrates says something paradoxical: he claims that he is the only true statesman and Callicles responds by ridiculing what Socrates asserts, asking, "How can you claim to be the only true statesman when you are not in control of anything; if you ever got into a law court you would end up being killed. Callicles believes that Themosticles, Simon, Miltedes, and Pericles were good men and made the state better. Socrates disagrees and asks, "Were the Athenians better at the end of Pericles career than at the beginning?" Socrates said that while it's a fact that Pericles began his career by being popular, towards the end of his life he was condemned for embezzlement and nearly put to death.
Socrates maintains the same problem is illustrated by the ostracism of Simon, the banishment of Themosticles, and the condemnation of Miltiledes. There's no reason to continue, you can put your own names in for all those rulers who come in glory and then leave in shame (see Nettleship p. 301).
I think the full expression of the fierceness of Plato can be found in Shakespeare's histories, superbly illustrated and described by Jan Kott, in his book, "Shakespeare Our Contemporary." Kott describes the essence of Shakespeare's political perspective in his historical works which he describes as the Monarchical principle. He states, "Each of these great historical tragedies begins with a struggle for the throne or for its consolidation, each ends with the monarch's death and a new coronation. In each of the histories, the legitimate ruler drags behind him a long chain of crimes, he rejects the feudal Lords who helped him to reach for the crown, he murders first his enemies, then his former allies. He executes possible successors and pretenders to the throne, but he's not been able to execute them all. From banishment a young prince returns, the son, grandson or brother of those murdered, or to defend the violated law; the rejected Lords gather around him because he personifies the hopes for a new order and justice. But once again, every step to power continues to be marked by murder, violence, and treachery. And so, when the new prince finds himself near the throne, he, as his predecessor, drags behind him a chain of crimes as long as that of the until now legitimate ruler. When he assumes the crown he will be just as hated as his predecessor. He has killed enemies, now he will kill former allies and a new pretender appears in the name of violated justice. The wheel turns full circle, a new chapter opens, and a new historical tragedy begins." (Jan Kott, Shakespeare Our Contemporary Part One).
I don't think you can get much more brutal than that. Now, if you turn from Plato on the one hand to Shakespeare, he basically argues that the very nature of human beings is such as to be incapable of overcoming the violence within. Even in Plato's ideal state, soldiers and war remain necessary, and most important, even Plato's ideal state cannot last because even the philosophic state dissolves into tyranny, where War is the reality of the very nature of things.
Now, turning to the Bible on the other hand, especially the Prophets, it is clear that war is considered to be the greatest evil. There is no evil as great as war. Why? Because it is war that produces the destruction of the land; it is war that produces famine, poverty, and death; it is war that produces orphans and widows and strangers. It is war that gives vent to Violence, to the idolatrous in human beings.
And what constitutes violence from a Biblical point of view? I am going to offer this as a tentative definition: violence is power disassociated from justice working through love, goodness, and truth, that is, any power that is disassociated from goodness, from love, from justice and especially truth, is violent, because you can have justice based on vengeance and hatred. You may say to me that is a pretty radical definition; it is radical, I don't deny it. But the more I think about it, the more I've come to the conclusion that that's exactly what the Bible is saying. And that's why the Bible offers an alternative to traditional kingship. In the Bible, the king must be subservient to the rule of God.
If you look at 1 Samuel chapter 8, the people come to Samuel and say, in effect, we need a king, we want a king and want to be like all the other nations. In Samuel 8, verses 4-18, Samuel replies to them (and this is a paraphrase):
'You want a king? Do you know what it means for you to have a king? The first thing he is going to do is multiply horses, which means he's going to create armies and build armaments. The second thing he's going to do is multiply wives, and what does that mean? He's going to multiply treaties with other countries so that he can be in league with other countries to go to war. Third, he's going to multiply silver and gold and make your children slaves. If that's what you want, then get a king.'
Now, that's a very strong condemnation of Kingship as it existed in the ancient world. But the antidote to such unbridled kingship appears in Deuteronomy, Chapter Seventeen:17, where it says, in paraphrase:
'If you want, you may appoint for yourself a king, only he may not multiply horses, he may not multiply wives, he may not multiply silver and gold; and what he should do is write this teaching (the Torah) so that he studies it day and night and he abides by it and lives by it.'
This writing, this commandment, is the first time anywhere ever that a king became subject to law; that a law was imposed that was higher than the authority of the rule of the King. And what you have in the Bible is a complete rejection of the then existing ideas of kingship, which is: I can get away with anything, I can do what I want, I can act with impunity because there's nothing above me.
Ezekiel illustrates how such power leads to idolatry in Chapter twenty eight. The chapter begins "The word of the Lord came to me: 'Son of man, say to the Prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord God:
"Because your heart is proud
and you have said, "I am a god,
I sit in the seat of the gods,
in the heart of the seas,
yet you are but a man, and no god,"
And then the chapter continues, saying,
"Will you still say, 'I am god,
in the presence of those who slay you,
though you are but a man and no god
in the hands of those who wound you?"
The fundamental problem from a Biblical point of view, and the real foundation of violence is a false sense of self - that is, it's an idolatrous sense of self. Any practice or worship that reduces the dignity of another human being is idolatrous. And what does it mean to be an idolater? An idolater is someone who literally wants to feel good at the expense of someone else. That the way he feels good is by dominating others. This idolatrous element is also very clear in Isaiah with respect to what the King of Assyria says in Chapter ten, verses 13-14.
"By the strength of my hand, I have done it,
and by my wisdom, for I have understanding;
I have removed the boundaries of peoples
and have plundered their treasures;
like a bull I have brought down those who sat on thrones.
My hand has found like a nest
the wealth of the peoples;
and as men gather eggs that have been forsaken
so I have gathered all the earth;
and there was none that moved the wing
or opened the mouth or chirped."
The discussion of the Babylonian King in Habakkuk, Chapter One, 6-11 is no different.
"...who marched through the breadth of the earth,
to seize habitations not their own.
Dread and terrible are they;
Their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.
Their horses are swifter than leopards,
More fierce than the evening wolves;
Their horsemen press proudly on.
Yea, their horsemen come from afar;
They fly like an eagle swift to devour.
They all come for violence;
Terror of them goes before them.
They gather captives like sand.
At kings they scoff,
And of rulers they make sport.
They laugh at every fortress,
For they heap up earth and take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
Guilty men, whose own might is their god!
Since Kings are those who are interested in war, so what is the solution from a Biblical perspective? The solution is to have a different kind of king; - a King who is interested in peace, a king who is interested in justice and a King who is humble. What is needed is a totally different sense of majesty and we see that in Zechariah, where the Messiah enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey, not on a mighty steed with an army. So the Bible offers as an alternative the messianic King, a new King and future reality who will institute justice and peace
Now why did the Bible introduce this concept? The Bible introduces this idea because Judaism, via the prophets, affirms two things. First, they asserted that weapons won't work. No one is as clear on this as Hosea. Hosea was the first person ever to have condemned armaments. Then, Isaiah and Micah are the first ones to foretell the cessation of war. Their revolutionary proclamation " they shall beat their swords into plough shares and their spears into pruning hooks, nation shall not lift up sword against nation nor be habituated to war anymore." Micah adds, "Each man will sit under his vine and his fig tree and none shall make him afraid."
Yehezkel Kaufmann in The Religion of Israel, Schoken Books, p.388 points out, "This vision is the first adumbration of the idea of an international morality. Going beyond the older conception of a universal individual morality, the prophet envisions a morality which will be binding upon the nations in their relations with one another. To this day, the sword, recourse to which is forbidden to individuals by law, still remains the recognized arbiter between nations; murder is a crime, war is not. For Isaiah, social and international evil are equally the offspring of idolatrous pride and lust for power."
So, what the Bible tells us is that kinds are seduced by power, worship and idolize it, and violence ensues because of this arrogance, and the very idolatrous quality of human nature which must be overcome before we can have peace. Because whatever power one uses, if that power isn't used for truth and for goodness and for justice manifested through love, then violence is the result .
Now the rabbis build on the concept of the idolatrous vs. the righteous, the arrogant vs. the humble through the doctrine of the good and evil inclination. They claim that the evil inclination, or the yetzer hara, is an inclination toward unbridled power and control. It's that inclination, more literally that formatory power within us, that wants excess, always wanting more. It is that part of ourselves that is always consumed with ambition and strives mightily to fulfill that ambition. Yet Judaism doesn't say there is anything intrinsically wrong with ambition if that ambition is used for good; what it condemns is the self-centered ambition realized at the expense of others. So therefore, the Yetzer hara, the formatory power, has to be controlled. And how is it controlled? It's controlled by the Yetzer tov, which is the good inclination. Without the control, or the governance of the good inclination, the evil inclination by itself can be very destructive if it is allowed free reign. Unchecked, it can lead to great harm and devastation; unchecked, uncontrolled, unregulated, unmanaged it leads to idolatry and death.
There are numerous rabbinic comments to illustrate this duality and there is no need for me to go into it. (see my Introduction to The Inner Journey: Views from the Jewish Tradition, Parabola Press.) Let me just simply say that violence from a rabbinic point of view results from the unbridled expression of the Yetzer hara without the structured organization of the personality, the Yetzer Tov, which keeps it under control. And here again you have a kind of parallel to Plato, because Plato says, "Where the higher is at the mercy of the lower," is a state that ensues when reason is controlled by will, and in a way you could say that that's true with respect to the Ytzer hara and the Yetzer tov. Therefore violence is the use of power where truthfulness or love or Justice as respect for the dignity of all human beings are absent.
I want to conclude with a passage from the New Testament, The Gospel According to Luke, (Ch. 20: 20-25) that refers to rendering unto Caesar and rendering unto God. Now the reason I thought the text from Luke would be appropriate is that it's clear that it's the Roman government that wants to entrap Jesus through their agents. Everything that we know about the Roman government (and it's Caesar's government) illustrates its ruthlessness and love of power, which is perfectly described in Seutonius's Lives of the Twelve Caesars or the discussion in the Ecole initiative: 2007 Archive edition Pontius Pilate
http://ecole.evansville.edu/articles/pilate.html
which states " The Roman government recognized the political importance of the High Priesthood and sought to keep a tight control over it, appointing and deposing High Priests at will" In discussing Pontius Pilate it states, "Unlike his predecessor Gratus, who changed the High Priest four times in his eleven years, Pilate made no change to the incumbent of the High Priesthood. This was not out of any wish to respect Jewish sensitivities, but rather because he found in Gratus' last appointee Caiaphus, a man who could be relied on to support Roman interests."
The Roman government had spies everywhere. They were trying to trap people into saying things that could be perceived as revolutionary and therefore immediately arrested and dealt with. So when Jesus was asked if the taxes should be paid or not, he replied, "Show me a coin. Whose likeness and inscription is on it?" He said to them, "Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's."
How would you interpret that? Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's. Well what should Caesar get? What really should Caesar get? What is the Caesar principle? I think a good deal of what Jesus says could be interpreted as kind of a teaching that appeals to the inner person, and so in finding an answer to this question I would interpret it as follows: What in you are you rendering to Caesar? Are you feeding in yourself the self-centered, power-seeking, idolatrous self? And what in you are you rendering to God, which is truth, justice and love. And are you confusing the two? Did it ever occur to you that you think you're serving God when by your actions and your thoughts you are really serving Caesar?
