On Violence

Sound Bite

Violence and reason are related. Violence is done to reason every time we fail to listen. Everything else, all the real violence, starts right there, including tough talk in lieu of rational argument and the violence of not allowing us time to think things through. Of course, other concepts are closely woven in, including the distinction between reason, thinking, and feeling, where they merge, and how one may stimulate the others. This book presents a philosophical dialogue, a virtual conversation among thoughtful people, through which we can evaluate and refine our own positions, gaining clarity and confidence while lightening what can be weighty matters.

About the Book

Violence and reason are related. Violence is done to reason every time we fail to listen. Everything else, all the real violence, starts right there, including tough talk in lieu of rational argument and the violence of not allowing us time to think things through.We live in a society that often perpetrates mass violence on its own citizens, but this is not a political book.The book’s aim is to nourish the desire to know, a desire we all feel at some time or other.Here we have a friendly coffee-shop conversation between two characters, Director and Protégé. Director is a philosopher. He and his friend explore what violence is, where it comes from, and, by implication—where it might be going.  Bouncing ideas off each other, the characters find some clarity and lighten what can be weighty matters. This is the kind of stimulating conversation we rarely have time for in real life, even if we have the right partner to engage with.

Introduction

This book makes use of the classical philosophical framework, the Platonic dialogue. The dialogue format is well suited to serious topics such as violence — but it is also well suited for less than serious subjects. Plato himself has been treated seriously enough from antiquity up until the present day. Iris Murdoch made an attempt to render Plato more human in her Acastos. A human Plato that we can laugh at, she knew, is what we need in order to come to good terms with the Socratic legacy.Author Nick Pappas has published a series of books offering readers that rare opportunity to sit down with intelligent partners and think. The characters are modeled on real people, not ivory-tower intellectuals spinning abstract schemes out of fluff, but looking at real-life situations and considering the choices we make, the times we avoid engaging, and the opportunities we may miss along the way.