Frankie
Good morning, Dr. Kaspar. Some people have been wondering if you would be willing to publicly denounce political violence.
Dr. Kaspar
Sure, I can do something like that. [Laughs.]
I denounce the state’s monopoly on political violence.
Frankie
[Laughs. Short pause.]
It’s never simple with you, is it?
[The question seems pointed, but it’s merely playful banter.]
Dr. Kaspar
How much ever is? Look around! [Laughs.] So many people just seem… confused. This is a tangent from the state’s monopoly on violence, but let me give you an example of how ridiculous some of this stuff is.
With one breath, a first person will say, “Political violence is never acceptable! This man was just speaking his mind! No one should be killed for that!”
While a second person will say, “I’m not sad that that man is dead. I found him vile and despicable. Here are clips that prove how vile and despicable he was.”
And that first person will say, “How could you say that? How could you speak your mind? I’ll kill you for speaking your mind! I’ll find you and kill you!”
That happened to me. And, as far as I can tell, I’m not alone in that.
Frankie
That first person sounds rather hypocritical.
[The statement sounds leading, like Frankie is setting Dr. Kaspar up, inviting a rant.]
Dr. Kaspar
[Sighs.] It is and it isn’t. [Pauses. Sighs.] This is a whole different topic of conversation, but I tend to think of hypocrisy as a mask—a layer that covers other values.
For example, I didn’t like the whole January 6th insurrection back in 2021. Why didn’t I like it? Was it that I thought that insurrections are bad? That’d be easy to say—I saw a lot of people saying just that.
Yet, I suspect that a lot of people—myself included—would be fine with the “good guys” leading an insurrection. I don’t think it’s hypocritical to believe that it’s “more okay” for only certain groups or individuals to do certain things. There are different groups with different values. Yes, I am much more likely to enjoy an anti-fascist insurrection against a fascist government, and I am much less likely to enjoy an insurrection led by reactionaries, regressives, and Nazis.
If I had said that insurrections are bad when the “bad guys” did it only to applaud an insurrection when the “good guys” did it, then that would look like hypocrisy. That’s doesn’t represent what I value, however—though, maybe that’s the real hypocrisy. [Laughs.] If hypocrisy is saying one thing and doing another, then why not also saying one thing and valuing another? That makes sense to— [Pauses. Laughs.]
You get the point. [Laughs.]
Frankie
[Laughs.] You know I do. We’ll come back to that whole topic later, I’m sure.
Ultimately, you denounced the state’s monopoly on political violence, and now it sounds like you’re saying that you feel like many people aren’t even aware of what they actually value when it comes to political violence.
Dr. Kaspar
Very concise! That makes one of us.
[Pauses, considering.]
Yes, I’d say that’s a good summary.
Max Stirner
The state practices “violence,” the individual should not do this. State behavior is an act of violence, and it calls its violence “legal right”; that of the individual, “crime.” Crime, so the violence of the individual is called; and he overcomes state violence only through crime, when he is of the opinion that the state is not above him, but that he is above the state.
Transmission interrupted.