PARADOX OF VIOLENCE

Abstract

The article raises the question of the reason for the constant violent actions, primarily military, despite their long-standing universal condemnation. This brings us back to the problem of the ontology of violence. The author proposes an approach based on the understanding of violence as labor with excessive use of force. This is due to the archaic understanding of power as a source of the sacred. Truth is an attribute of the sacred in archaic thinking. Here the connection arises: power - the sacred (deity) - truth. Thus, for the archaic mind, force (and violence), the sacred and truth were different projections-realizations of one essence. The civilizational model of the world suggests a different connection with the sacred and truth. It contains at its core not the principles of a single truth, but the principles of cooperation and coexistence of different positions instead of subordination to one unity. The old model of violence as a way of participating in the truth of the object and confirming the sacred status of the subject is still valid in the modern world. According to the author, violence has an ontological dimension in the old model of a single truth, but cannot have it within the civilizational approach. The modern civilizational model can oppose force only by persuasion or the reasonable use of force. This state of affairs makes it difficult to spread the civilizational approach.