Violence is an answer, but the thing is that violence alone is a stupid answer as per history. Serbia did not have a good time when a Serbian national shot Franz Ferdinand. The assassination of the czar did far less to stop the czarist regime than an international women’s day protest did (and yes, that protest evolved to violence, but it didn’t start there). Before John Brown can be effective you need The Abolitionist making people oppose slavery so that there are large portions of the public who see it as “man risks life to free fellow humans from life of incredible cruelty” rather than “schizophrenic Calvinist attacks rich people with sword, steals property”
Violence is the final fallback for when discussion fails, but you need to be certain you have a chance whenever you escalate in ways that can turn off the average person, otherwise you just make the state’s job of justifying its overwhelming violence against you easier.
Violence is an answer, but the thing is that violence alone is a stupid answer as per history. Serbia did not have a good time when a Serbian national shot Franz Ferdinand. The assassination of the czar did far less to stop the czarist regime than an international women’s day protest did (and yes, that protest evolved to violence, but it didn’t start there). Before John Brown can be effective you need The Abolitionist making people oppose slavery so that there are large portions of the public who see it as “man risks life to free fellow humans from life of incredible cruelty” rather than “schizophrenic Calvinist attacks rich people with sword, steals property”
Violence is the final fallback for when discussion fails, but you need to be certain you have a chance whenever you escalate in ways that can turn off the average person, otherwise you just make the state’s job of justifying its overwhelming violence against you easier.