this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2023
322 points (93.8% liked)
Political Memes
5483 readers
3513 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You already live in a country where the domination of the rich is maintained by social violence.
Based on what? Exactly what violence is taking place that if it ended the rich would lose their "domination"?
Nearly every aspect of modern life is backed up by the law. Law is nothing more than codified coercion. As I noted elsewhere, this is not inherently bad - but every legal protection fundamentally springs from, and is enforced by, violence. This is one the main things discussed in sociology with regards to governments. It's very basic.
As those with outsized influence are the ones who, well, have the most influence on the laws, as a demographic or class, such laws are naturally made to benefit the influential. As I mentioned before, this is not inherently a bad thing - many laws benefit ordinary people as well. But the vast corpus of private property and contract law, beneficial though it may sometimes be, has the primary and highest purpose of protecting the influence (ie the wealth) of the powerful.
The use of these laws to protect their interests, even while others starve, go deep into medical debt, or otherwise end up physically or mentally destroyed in the process of participating within the legal structures created by these laws, is a form of violence. It's just a form of violence that people are willing to accept - some without even considering it, it would seem.
You should just say ahead of time that your beliefs are based on an interpretation of critical theory and loosening the actual definition of violence. It'll save a ton of effort for the people who don't want to bother with you.
That law is codified violence is not even close to exclusive to critical theory, unless you're redefining critical theory as "All of modern sociology, all government philosophy of antiquity, and the ideologies of the Enlightenment"