voinovich and violence

The Raising Cain paintings are starting to come together. I've been working on them for almost a month now and have twenty or so started. I've just posted photos of them as they are now click here to check them out (you'll have to scroll down).

I'm discovering as I get further into this project that try as I might to give violence it's fair shake, I seem to be continually confronted with the conviction that there is really never a productive use for the thing. We have world leaders who seem to take it for granted that violent action is a legitimate strategy and that success can be achieved by responding to violence with greater violence. They honestly seem to believe that violence will achieve desired results (and ludicrously, even peace). I've searched and searched and failed to find instances when that has really been the case. There have always been other options visible to those able to see through the propaganda.

The current situation in Lebanon (not to mention Iraq and afghanistan of course) serves as a prime example for how violence simply adds to and exacerbates the problem. This seems so monumentally obvious that I'm dumbstruck by the insistence of national leaders and decision-makers to continue falling into this same delusion over and over despite millennia of examples to the contrary.

In addition to this, a train of thought that I keep returning to is that we are infected by a paradigm level belief in the existence of evil. This taken-for-granted premise to our actions allows us to categorize our adversaries as "evil" which serves to afford us the seemingly legitimate option of ignoring their point of view. at the root of violence is misunderstanding and a lack of empathy, which is of course fostered by our belief that evil exists and is guiding the actions of others - others who of course view us in a reflective way. Remember that rather than look for a reason behind terrorist attacks, our leaders chose to simply label the terrorists as "evil-doers" and respond in kind. The "evil-doers" in return toss around phrases like "the great satan" and our politicians are surprised that the violence continues to escalate "despite our nation's best efforts" as george voinovich stated the other day. how can this man really view the actions of the untied states during the past five years as "best efforts"? and how can he miss the fact that our actions are the cause, not the solution? I'm more convinced than ever that evil simply does not exist... confusion, ignorance, misunderstanding, yes - but evil? no.

Violence does however exists in our society - not to the extent relative to non-violence that it would seem it does if we simply watch the news and read the paper, but nevertheless to a greater extent than it needs to. Violence is never necessary and is always correctible - but not with more violence - only through listening, understanding and agreement. examples of diplomacy being used to counter violence are the British negotiating with the IRA and the Spanish with ETA, as pointed out by Brian Michael Jenkins, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp. in Arlington, Virginia and reported by Howard LaFranchi of The Christian Science Monitor the other day.

And yet condi rice isn't even going to talk with hizbollah leaders during her "diplomatic" trip.

In the meantime, there really are other issues of greater importance and urgency facing us than violence, but none so readily correctible by a shift in viewpoint... maybe the next group of paintings though should try to examine our environmental crisis, world hunger and poverty, or our educational system... we'll see.