“Violence by definition is what is stronger than I am myself and therefore what I have to endure. It can never be drawn into the circle of political manageability without residue. Whoever allocates to his thoughts and words a power they don’t have, especially from the not having that inspired them, places himself outside of the matter and underestimates violence. He acts as somebody who went to the beach and started blowing, believing that this would give wind to the sails of a ship in the distance that he did not see, whose course he doesn’t know and who has switched to steam a long time ago.”
“Only reality is the point of existence, not something that is outside it or is added to it with lyrical violence. The closer we are to reality, the more our existence has a point. The meaning of thinking is that it brings man closer to reality. That indeed is a product of thinking, not just of deed.”
“Violence and emphasis are the denial of the power of the impotence, of the defenseless, but conscious undergoing. As long as this power is denied and the possibility of a technique of passivity is neglected, an ideology of activity can only lead to violence or choke on its own excitement.”
“As a radicalization of annoyed impotence thought can make a step here against the domination of violence. That is the discovery that precisely the most important things are given and received, not conquered. Thinking can cultivate receptivity against violence and with that disarm part of violence. As insight into impotence it liquidates part of the emphasis of the will, which is the cornerstone of every ideology of activity. That is not as much an ethical as a technical mission. It is not about an incitement to immediate and noble non-violence, but about the liquidation of violence as a doctrine.”
“The deed rushes past wisdom, and rouses by its infectiousness the squaring of its effects. Violence finds more ears willing to listen than patience will, especially in a culture that has always glorified big, spectacular acts of heroism. It is almost a physical law, that in such a culture no real possibility remains unrealized. The weapon calls forward the violence, the iron pulls the man, says Homer. A threat, once expressed, almost by law solidifies into a reality. Collectivity is the place where possibilities as such cannot be contemplated and taken into consideration, but where realization is the only attitude towards realizable possibilities. Without hesitation, skepticism or distance a rumor becomes a message, an impulse an activity, a threat violence.”
“In a reasonable and technical society the individual aggression should not be able to pass on its impulses to technical collective provisions, so that from those provisions a perpetual lesson in tolerance would egress, like the face of reason, an anonymous authority that can not fall back on feudal relations. It has distanced itself from those in a technical way, that is to say in a realistic and not emotionally manipulable way. That this reasonability is not in the least a vague illusion or an unrealizable dream, can be seen in the way modern traffic is controlled. If you adhere to the laws of traffic, you don’t obey anyone, you are not a hero and you don’t have to demonstrate courage; your aggression only meets itself, and does not get the chance to realize an ideology. It becomes a completely powerless impulse, for which there is no room in the system. The sheer technical regulation prevents chaos and violence; the reasonability is calculated without taking into account the abundance of aggressive impulses. Within the system there can not be a decision for violence: it is rejected plainly as primitive.”
“The phraseology that defends the handiwork of bravery prevents technique from doing its sober and businesslike but clarifying work. It is a feudal ethical obstruction in a matter that is not suitable for the lyrical violence of personal merits and awards. For nonviolence is not a favor and peace is not an exceptional state that should be maintained at the cost of great offers. Sooner violence is an ‘offer’; and an ethics of courage that demands offers, implicitly demands violence and catastrophe. So whoever suggests that nonviolence is an enormous ethical exertion, introduces a military and martial concept on to the terrain of peace, and by glorifying courage, they continue the war.”
“Courage is the lyrical density of misjudged impotence. Only the acknowledgement of impotence can liquidate courage without making it into cowardice.”
“Sentiment is the flip side of violence. Therefore it cannot and will never be disconnected from it. If you cultivate one, you’ll also increase the other, even if you think you can turn against violence this way. War criminals were sentimental at Christmas, to serve violence the rest of the year without shock. Peace becomes a Christmas matter to justify and ensure the existence of wars. Guilt is ritually cranked up to sentiment and localized in a season, in which it can change very little of the normal way of things. It is no coincidence that the cosy winter fest gets celebrated during a time in which it was less opportune for the old Germanics to go to war. The ritual celebration channels the sentiment and puts it as it were in a remote place to make more room for bravery. This is how the equilibrium gets restored every time.”
