Moral nativism is a theory that, in response to the question of where moral intuition, moral judgment, and other important elements of moral psychology come from, provides the answer that they are to some extent innate and emerged as a result of human biological evolution. Moral nativism relies on a two-stage argument. The first argument is that the mind contains a moral grammar: a complex system of principles, rules, and conceptual building blocks that generate and connect various mental representations upon which moral intuition depends. The second argument is that at least some of the fundamental attributes of this moral grammar are innate and are not based exclusively on experience, but rather come “from nature’s hand.” Cultural factors certainly influence the development of morality; nevertheless, a significant amount of evidence suggests that at least some aspects of moral cognition are innate.
How can we confirm the position of moral nativism? Darwin, de Waal, Kropotkin, and other biologists have emphasized that empathetic and altruistic behavior seems to have deep evolutionary roots. Rats experience stress when they hear the cries of other rats and perform altruistic acts to protect them from harm. Great apes experience evident grief over the death or disappearance of those to whom they were attached, and often comfort victims of attacks. Human infants cry more intensely in response to the crying of other infants than to comparable computer-generated sounds or even to a recording of their own crying; this means that “they react to the awareness of another’s pain, rather than simply to a specific pitch of sound.” Human children are also biologically predisposed to recognize and comfort those experiencing emotional distress. In a broader sense, young children are predisposed to help others achieve their goals, share valuable resources with them, and provide them with useful information. Furthermore, clinical and experimental studies have confirmed that specific areas of the brain underlie moral cognition, and that damage to these areas can lead to impaired moral judgments while leaving other cognitive functions intact.
We can also refer to norms that are universal across all societies. Research across hundreds of jurisdictions shows that the prohibition of murder appears to be universal and highly invariant. All known justifications and excusable reasons for committing murder consist of a relatively short list of defensive arguments familiar to everyone. Moreover, the attitude toward intentional killings specifically is even stricter. And a study conducted among ten cultures from different parts of the world, including residents of villages, cities, and even representatives of nomadic peoples, shows that battery, rape, theft, slander, and perjury are assessed as unlawful (i.e., “bad” or “extremely bad”) acts by about 95% of people.
Finally, one cannot fail to mention the theory of the violence inhibition mechanism, according to which many animal species and humans possess strong deterrents against causing harm to members of their own species. In animals, these deterrents are most often expressed through the ritualization of combat. In humans, they consist of unconditioned (innate) and conditioned (acquired during socialization) reflexes, primarily causing a reaction of rejection and internal resistance to witnessing the suffering of other people and performing aggressive actions toward them. Many studies, including anthropological and military ones, confirm that the average healthy individual possesses strong internal resistance to committing violence. And only a few, completely dysfunctional individuals, experience no resistance at all, even to committing murder—these are also called psychopaths.
From the proposed positions, it is strange in general to ask questions about whether one can do something. Of course, one can; the only question is the extent of responsibility.
If we are talking about sanctions from the Russian state, then solving the problem comes down to finding sufficiently safe ways of transferring money, publishing propaganda, delivering equipment, and so on.
However, I believe the question is more about whether other right-libertarians and right-individualists, upon learning of such activity, would feel obligated to obstruct you.
The RDK is a semi-autonomous armed formation within the AFU: in some ways it obeys the central command, it depends on it significantly for supplies, and it seems to be quite autonomous in matters of recruiting and the informational coverage of its activities. But there are other units within the AFU that independently conduct recruiting and crowdfunding. How is the RDK so different that the German Stirner asks about the permissibility of helping specifically the RDK, and not some Azov?
Azov was mentioned for a reason. Both this brigade and the Russian Volunteer Corps face numerous accusations that Nazis serve there. Economic theory tells us that values are subjective. Any person has every right to prefer one nation over all others; this in itself does not provide grounds to condemn them. Do the guys from Azov and RDK exterminate representatives of all other nations for the sake of the greatness of the nation they prefer over all others? No, they exterminate people according to a different criterion, and this criterion is no different from the one guided by other military formations within the AFU.
The only remaining difference between the RDK (and a couple of other smaller units) and other parts is that they physically, on foot, crossed the internationally recognized Russian-Ukrainian border to fight the Russian army on Russian territory. And what, does this make them aggressors? No, they are still participants in a defensive war. Just like the drone operators striking refineries deep in the Russian rear.
Ah, yes, they also have Russian passports, or at least they did at the start of the war. And what, does this somehow change their legal status? No, not even under Russian laws. They still remain AFU servicemen, toward whom all sorts of rights and restrictions associated with the laws and customs of war apply—laws which the RF pledged to observe (but does not). But even if there were a law in the RF according to which any RF citizen who joined the ranks of foreign armed forces was subject to execution without trial, what significance would this have for a legal individualist?
However, I assume that the reader with the nickname Max Stirner is a Russian citizen. Therefore, his question can be reformulated more sharply: does libertarian morality justify war against one’s own state? Actually, libertarian morality justifies war against any state. Even against states led by libertarians, such as Javier Milei, Nayib Bukele, or Hans-Adam II. Fighting against one’s own is even more meaningful, because that is where your main grievances lie, it is that state that causes you direct harm, whereas all others are just some predators roaming nearby, who, of course, should also have no place on earth. However, a successful war requires allies. Most of us do not have them. The RDK does. Let us be happy for them.
In my book about ancap, there is a chapter that I have to reference most often—the one about conflicts, morality, and law. And it looks like I will be correcting it slightly soon.
You know, for a long time now, I have been bothered by the tendency, well-known among libertarians, to call those who initiate violence “NAP violators.” Especially, of course, those who call the NAP a contract.
Let me recall my formulation of the NAP: no one has the right to initiate violence with impunity. This principle is primarily about the fact that there are no privileged individuals who have the right to initiate violence with impunity. So, who violates it? It is violated by those who give people such a right.
Let me recall my definition of rights: rights are claims that have been accepted. In other words, NAP violators are those who have accepted the claims of certain individuals to initiate violence with impunity. To put it bluntly: it is not Putin who violates the NAP, but those who believe that he has the right to give orders for killings.
The only one who has the right to cancel punishment for the initiation of violence without any judicial proceeding is the victim of the violence. Only the victim can forgive the attacker—after compensation for damages or simply so. But even the victim of violence cannot, without violating the NAP, claim that the attacker had the right to attack. Yes, they attacked, and then a reconciliation between the parties occurred. This does not create a precedent. The next attack will similarly require punishment. From everyone who agrees with the NAP.
This is precisely where the roots of libertarian morality lie.
The second question is quite simple, so I will answer it first. For a private security guard, it is also more profitable to steal products from the store than to ensure others do not steal. But only in the short term; afterwards, he is fired, with more or less of a scandal. It is important not to give him powers beyond those strictly required to perform his job duties; otherwise, he will not only steal but also intimidate other staff to cover up the theft by creating fictitious reports for the owners. I do not exclude that such schemes do arise in some places due to the negligence of store owners, but usually, there is a system of incentives that makes such behavior unlikely and prevents it from going too far.
Now let’s talk about children.
To begin with, I will note that even now, under the state, children are quite readily sold into slavery. And I am not even talking about state slavery, such as the forced labor of Uzbek schoolchildren collecting cotton, but about private slavery, which is forbidden by that very same state. Nevertheless, it is precisely under the state that the incentive system for the police, as highlighted in the answer to the first question, is such that it may be more profitable for the police to sell children into slavery themselves or to protect such trade. Private child labor slavery is more characteristic of some part of Sub-Saharan Africa with its rather primitive mining industry. In wealthier countries, sexual slavery is more prevalent.
The question is, why does all this hardly concern the authors of questions about child slavery under ancap? It is easy to answer. Under the state, private child slavery is considered marginal; it takes place somewhere far away and does not catch the eye. The authors of the questions are concerned specifically about a potential situation where such slavery is respectable. When you encounter it on the street and in the information space at every step, and therefore have to put up with the existence of this phenomenon, and if you try to fight it with means of moral pressure, you yourself find yourself in the skin of a marginal who prevents decent people from behaving in their usual way.
Could child slavery become a respectable practice in the ancap community? Of course, it could. According to the principles of libertarianism, restitution is a perfectly legitimate way of acquiring property, and if, for example, a child damaged some expensive property (which children sometimes do), then it is perfectly permissible to demand compensation from the child and even collect it by force, since the child possesses self-ownership, and at what age full legal capacity is assigned is a matter of convention. Restitution is perfectly permissible not only in monetary but also in-kind form; there you have the prerequisite for slavery.
Thus, practices where a child works off a broken neighbor’s window by mowing the neighbor’s lawn are more than likely under ancap, as they do not cause moral repulsion. What could prevent the development of harsher practices, where, for example, something is demanded from a child as restitution that an adult would find humiliating for themselves, such as filming in a BDSM video? It is that very moral repulsion that will prevent it. Too many people would be found who, applying the situation to themselves, would state that they would not agree to this for any amount of money, and therefore, to them personally, such restitution seems unfair (the subject of the conflict is valued as disproportionately less significant than the damage caused during restitution). Libertarian morality requires intervening in conflicts on the just side, so a child in such a situation would easily find defenders.
Well, if that is the case, then the authors of questions about child slavery under ancap can breathe a sigh of relief: it will certainly not get worse than under the state. They can continue to boycott manufacturers of clothing made using forced child labor and leave the ancaps alone.
In previous episodes: my summary of Konstantin Morozov’s article “Anarchism against Anarchy,” and my statement of the key thesis of this article by presenting the reader with a false dilemma.
Next, Konstantin responded to my article on his channel, and in the comments under that post, we had a more or less substantive discussion. This left each party with a feeling of being right, while simultaneously being accompanied by an adjustment by each side—not so much of their previously stated position, but of the approach to presenting it. The final response in the conversation belongs to Konstantin, and I will probably leave the last word to him, so as not to write another update on this same topic shortly.
I don’t know about you, but left-libertarianism has become a bit clearer to me. Not in the sense that I have become closer to it, but in the sense that I now expect less cannibalism from its typical representatives than from some conditional Karl Franco, even if he were thrice right-wing and thrice an ancap.
Let me remind you what this is about. Here is a summary of the first article by Konstantin Morozov—about how libertarians should embrace moral realism and, along with it, agree to certain taxes; and here is a summary of the second article—about how libertarians should embrace moral realism and, along with it, agree to the state and some form of state coercion. For those who doubt whether the articles were summarized correctly, there are links to the original sources that you can review.
In my view, Konstantin is proposing a false dilemma. Here is a chair with the spikes of moral realism; if you sit on it, your desires mean nothing as long as they contradict the only correct objective morality, which will be dictated to you by the state through the mouths of court intellectuals. And here is a chair with the dicks of moral subjectivism; sit on it, and your desires mean no more than the desires of any statist.
Of course, after the marginalist revolution in economic theory, there is no longer any point in seriously talking about the objectivity of values, and moral philosophers can strain every nerve trying to invent syllogisms to prove the opposite—so, without a second thought, I take a seat on the second chair and begin to proclaim from this cozy tripod, trying to do so more coherently than is typical for Pythias.
Conflict is a state in which the same object (the subject of the conflict) is viewed as a means to achieve different goals, whereby one use hinders the other or even makes it impossible.
Every person develops their own internal settings regarding which behavioral tactic to choose in which conflicts. These are their personal ethical norms.
As for morality, it is simply the order of behavior during conflicts that garners the greatest approval in a given society.
Thus, morality is based on the subjective values of individuals, but at the same time, it constitutes an abstract object that can be roughly outlined in some set commandments, while the subtleties of one or another morality can be dissected in hundreds of treatises and thousands of literary texts. In particular, we can describe libertarian morality quite clearly; a considerable number of libertarians accept these norms in general for themselves, though, of course, they will not hesitate to argue over various subtle points.
Naturally, libertarian morality includes a norm on the permissibility of coercion for the purpose of the fair resolution of conflicts (fairness being the sense of proportionality between the value of the object of conflict and the damage caused by the conflict). But at the same time, libertarian morality also requires a person to personally enter a conflict on the fair side, and this completely negates any attempts at a monopoly in the sphere of legitimate coercion. For a libertarian, the value of decentralization is higher than the value of monetary efficiency. All other things being equal, they will prefer a decentralized solution. If a centralized one is significantly more profitable, they may permit its use as a moral compromise and continue searching for a line of behavior that is more morally comfortable for them.
I am not speaking now in categories of “ought.” No one must adopt specifically libertarian morality. But if they do, their actions will be driven by approximately the considerations outlined above. Libertarian desires are better than the desires of statists—for libertarians, because values are subjective. They are also better than the desires of statists for many other anarchists, minarchists, liberals, conservatives, and several other abstract moral types. My task is simple—to formulate these desires and follow them. As for the fluttering of individual moral philosophers around the chair with spikes, I prefer to consider it simply a variety of intellectual masochism. Why not, as long as they don’t pounce on people.
Briefly, it states that: 1) there is philosophical anarchism, meaning the belief that the state has no moral right to coerce people, and there is political anarchism, meaning the belief that the state should be abolished; 2) political anarchism does not necessarily follow from philosophical anarchism, and one can deny the state the right to coercion without seeking to eliminate the state.
Konstantin claims: principled anarchism requires moral realism—the belief that objectively true moral judgments exist… because otherwise, anarchism itself would be nothing more than a set of someone’s personal desires. Meanwhile, anarchists do not deny the legitimacy of all coercion; they allow it to prevent more terrible coercion. But if coercion is permissible, for example, to prevent even more terrible coercion, then why cannot the state handle this? In other words, if the state behaves well, why should we demand its abolition? And any examples of bad states can always be dismissed as private cases subject to targeted correction.
The article would be incomplete if the author had not taken the trouble to address the obvious question: why does the state suppress its competitors in the matter of legitimate coercion? As a justification, it is argued that a proper state, to which philosophical anarchists should have no complaints, limits competitors for the sake of adhering to uniform, transparent procedural rules—in other words, to exclude vigilantism. That is, self-defense is fine, but dismembering a neutralized offender is not fine (shout out to Alexander Tatarkov and his constant leitmotif “we don’t need state prisons, give me the person who molested my daughter, I’ll sell him for organs”).
In the second part of the article, the author analyzes the question of how one might try to bypass the holes he found in the justification of political anarchism through moral subjectivism. It will not be possible to justify the state’s claim to exercise justified coercion if there is no single and universal standard for the justifiability of coercion. Next, he gallops through Stirner, Svetov, Belkovich, and Hoppe. Konstantin’s objections to the ideas of the aforementioned individuals boil down to the following:
If the individual himself is the final authority in determining good and bad, then why would coercing someone into moral orders to which they did not consent be wrong? Their subjective judgment on this matter cannot carry more weight than the equally subjective judgment of the person exercising the coercion that this coercion is justified.
In other words, in Konstantin’s opinion, if we take the position of moral subjectivism, we leave ideas about the necessity of abolishing the state even more without any support. For some, the state is evil; for others, it is good; everyone is right, let’s move on.
In conclusion, the author states that the most promising direction of work for anarchists is the search for strong practical arguments in favor of the idea that a stateless society will be effective, while any militant rhetoric directed at the state would be better tempered, looking instead at plans for various useful reforms.
I have already summarized Morozov’s previous article on moral realism once, but I never commented on it, and in the meantime, he has written more. In the next post, I do intend to speak out on the interesting questions he has raised.
Not long ago, I considered the question of morality in the context of the concept of the violence inhibition mechanism (VIM)—a cognitive mechanism that inhibits violent behavior in humans. A healthy person who does not suffer from VIM dysfunction is incapable of committing acts of violence against other people. The manifestation of direct brutal violence is successfully inhibited (restrained) in more than 98% of people. The capacity to commit violence is an aberration and a pathology, not the norm of human nature.
Within this topic, the question of a human’s ability to distinguish between transgressions of a moral and a social (conventional) nature (moral/conventional distinction) is of particular interest. Moral transgressions consist of causing harm to a person, whereas social transgressions consist of violating established norms. A beating, for example, would certainly be a moral transgression, while a student leaving the classroom without the teacher’s permission is merely a transgression of a conventional nature.
When a person encounters experiences that demonstrate moral transgressions, distress signals from their victims, such as a sad facial expression or crying, lead to the activation of the VIM and the emergence of a rejection response. The person develops an association between the moral transgression, the distress signals, and the subsequent rejection; as a result, they become capable of understanding and identifying moral transgressions by analyzing certain actions.
Such an association does not arise in the case of social transgressions, as they do not initially lead to the activation of the VIM in a person. Consequently, people with VIM dysfunction, such as psychopaths, cannot understand the difference between moral and social transgressions, because from a neurophysiological point of view, it truly does not exist for them—they perceive these transgressions identically; more precisely, moral transgressions are perceived by them in the same way as social ones.
The fact that psychopaths and people with violent tendencies are indeed incapable of understanding this distinction is a fact confirmed by a vast amount of evidence and research. Let us also recall the fact that violence is a deviation from the norm of natural human behavior. In fact, the morality of non-aggression is biologically predetermined for humans, which we learned by conducting research into human nature. Thus, this morality can be attributed to moral realism.
But we will not stop there, because it is worth mentioning one more thing—a person with a functioning VIM (which, as previously stated, is the norm of human nature) will become capable of recognizing transgressions of a moral nature, and therefore, a corresponding morality of non-aggression will develop in them absolutely regardless of whether they know anything about their own nature at all. If they are unfamiliar with the concept of the VIM and the notion of a moral transgression, the morality of non-aggression will be perceived by them as something intuitive, self-evident. For the vast majority of people, this intuitive understanding will coincide, and on the issue of violence, they will converge on a single position that committing acts of violence is unacceptable, without conducting any research and without attempting to form any logical conclusions (violent views will originate only from the violent minority). Such a universal intuitive understanding of morality pertains to moral (or ethical) intuitionism.
As we can see, the innate morality of non-aggression is simultaneously an objective fact of human nature, pertaining to moral realism, and an intuitively understood norm, pertaining to ethical intuitionism. Of course, we can see that the latter stems from the former—that is, a person’s intuitive understanding stems from their objective biological nature. Therefore, the innate morality of non-aggression simply unites these approaches to morality, simultaneously corresponding to both of them and deriving one from the other.
I was sent a link to an interesting article on the god-forsaken VKontakte, where a certain Konstantin Morozov discusses the moral justification of taxation, specifically for the purpose of implementing a Basic Income, and other interesting mental constructs of the left-libertarian camp. Without irony, I was interested in understanding their logic.
In short, the author’s argument is as follows. The compulsory nature of seizure is not in itself a criterion for its injustice: this is easily demonstrated by the example of damage compensation. Thus, to speak of the injustice of seizure, one must show that property is being seized to which you have a right. But how do you determine what a person has a right of ownership to? What makes them think they have ownership rights to that which is seized as a tax? Legally, this is state property and is subject to payment. Therefore, the libertarians’ resistance to taxes is rooted not in laws, but in morality.
This raises the question of the objectivity of morality. If we stand on the positions of moral relativism, where one thinks one way and another thinks another, and both are right, then the state is just as right in collecting taxes as the libertarian is in refusing to pay them. Thus, if a libertarian wants to justify to others that he specifically is right, he will have to adopt the position of moral realism.
By tracing the immorality of taxes back to the non-aggression principle, the libertarian relies on the idea that freedom requires no rational basis; it is some kind of self-evident good toward which everyone strives. But what exactly is the freedom being discussed? The libertarian conception of freedom as the absence of coercion is far from the only formulation, not even the most popular one, and certainly cannot be considered self-evident.
Next, the author examines several possible approaches to justifying the morality of compulsory seizures for redistribution in favor of the poor: the Lockean proviso, utilitarianism, Nozick’s compensatory justice, reducing the concept of negative liberty to its republican formulation… The author does not insist on the truth of any particular argument; he merely points out that smart men know how to reason beautifully and competently with logic and facts, while frenzied Eastern European libertarians, having filled their heads with their Svetov and up their asses… remain unconvincing, narrow-minded dogmatists demonstrating an extremely low level of discussion.
I am not going to start refuting the points from the article right now. For me, this is rather a useful warning that will come in handy when writing the brochure on ancap. In particular, I need to figure out what to do with moral realism. I define morality as a spontaneous order of entering into conflicts, and it will, of course, differ in various communities. Thus, the book about ancap acquires a sort of ethnographic character. As in, listen, there is such a people as ancaps in the world, and they have these amazing tribal customs, so unlike what is accepted among civilized people, but attractive in their own way, just as the customs of some Polynesians regarding free love are attractive to us. Will I justify why the libertarian social order is the best? Well, I don’t know. I’m not sure.
With this article, I would like to summarize the cycle of previously published notes concerning the NAP—from discussions on the relevance of the topic to various approaches to its dissemination in society. Most of the ideas are taken from Bitarch and have been thoroughly reworked. Links to earlier materials expanding on certain theses are generously scattered throughout the text; if desired, you can refresh them in your memory.
What is unsatisfying about the status quo? Without eliminating aggressive violence from the life of society, it is impossible for any somewhat libertarian model of the country’s socio-political structure to emerge (even healthy federalism, let alone ancap or panarchy). Furthermore, the habit of solving problems through violence creates powerful negative externalities in society—it reduces the quality of life and economic well-being, slows down scientific and technical progress, and even creates a risk of the extinction of all humanity.
What is the non-aggression principle (NAP)? There are many interpretations of the non-aggression principle, but we will limit ourselves to the most minimalistic version. Let us assume that the NAP prohibits only direct physical violence against a person’s body and property that is under their immediate physical control (for example, the house where a person lives and the phone in their pocket). According to this minimal interpretation of the NAP, the use of violence for self-defense is permitted only in the form of counter-violence against the aggressor at the moment they attack and only in the minimal amount sufficient to make them cease the aggression. To seek revenge, punish, or recover compensation using violence would already be going beyond such an NAP. Psychological influence, due to the ambiguity of perception, should also not be considered violence. Following the NAP in this form already ensures freedom of association, and further, within voluntary associations, additional rules can be used that are not derived from the minimal NAP but are convenient for the comfortable interaction of the association’s members. A violation of the NAP itself or the established additional rules within an association can be settled through conciliation procedures or simply lead to a refusal of further cooperation, whether temporary or lifelong.
Why this specific minimal NAP? It inherently corresponds to the notions of justice of the vast majority of people, even if they have no complex concepts of property rights other than those inherited directly from animal ancestors. There is a well-known study by biologist Konrad Lorenz, who described the evolutionary mechanism for the emergence of innate inherited morality regarding intraspecific non-aggression in many animal species, such as hedgehogs, porcupines, echidnas, venomous snakes, and insects. In those periods of human history when society lacked functioning institutions to counteract individual violence, natural selection quickly led to the recognition of the NAP in roughly this minimal form. A similar understanding of the NAP can also be found in international relations, that is, between states, especially developed ones capable of employing deterrent weapons.
Who will be responsible for maintaining the NAP in society? Volunteers. Look at the distribution of the Bitcoin network’s hash rate across mining pools. Bitcoin has existed for over 10 years, and there is still no global dominant pool. People do not spend their efforts gathering statistics and warning miners about the risks of centralization for no reason. It even reaches the point where mining pools that approach a dangerous threshold of dominance, under public pressure but without violent coercion, stop accepting new miners, voluntarily depriving themselves of potential profit. All these people perfectly understand the value of decentralization and that it is better to spend a little of their own effort or give up part of their profit than to have people lose faith in the reliability of Bitcoin during a “51% attack,” which would cause the coins to lose value and the losses to be far higher. The same will happen with the maintenance of the NAP. Volunteers will certainly be found for whom the opportunity to live in a society with a low level of violence and to “enjoy the freedoms we have” are not empty words, and who are ready to exert effort to maintain it.
The methods for fighting aggressive violence described below can be used by anyone and in any combination, depending on the preferences and abilities of the volunteers. Their effectiveness and, accordingly, the appropriateness of their application in each specific case vary. All described methods do not contradict the NAP and do not imply the use of aggressive violence even against the most hardened maniacs. The list is not exhaustive and leaves room for human creativity.
1. Moral pressure
This method involves expressing condemnation toward those who practice aggressive violence themselves, as well as toward all those who approve of it. People are uncomfortable when they are considered villains; they seek justifications for themselves, and the task of moral pressure is to debunk these justifications.
For instance, it is important to convey to people the idea that the state is a stationary bandit, and that political methods of management are, in essence, robbery. Justifying such things is either a manifestation of Stockholm syndrome or evidence of complicity in robbery, and therefore is also subject to condemnation. Few are capable of openly admitting they are a violent criminal and a robber; this is the lot of only a minority of people who see nothing wrong in it, while for others, the very concepts of violence and robbery are primarily associated with something immoral. Let a person first begin to state, even if only under public pressure, that they condemn state violence, and then grow accustomed to such rhetoric and believe in it themselves.
The more hardened the statist, the harsher the methods of criticism permissible toward them. They can be compared to pedophiles (a comparison that favors the pedophiles) and totalitarian dictators, for whom the price of a human life is zero. The strategy of Western fighters against homophobia and racism, utilizing the ostracism of such individuals, which has proven its effectiveness, would also be appropriate. All these methods can be amplified by proliferation through specialized online services.
A powerful strategy that is potentially possible is the use of existing left-wing activism to promote the NAP. The alarmist protest, the face of which became Greta Thunberg, succeeded because many beneficiaries of the agenda Greta transmitted were found within the establishment. Now, when many countries are shaken by protests against police aggressive violence, the idea of riding this theme and beginning to transmit a general refusal of aggressive violence looks quite realistic. The same corporations that sponsor this protest will fit into a new expanded discourse. The public loves apocalyptic predictions, and we have them.
2. Transparency
Psychological research shows: people, if they believe their identity is hidden, find it much easier to cause suffering and pain to others. Any situation in which people feel anonymous, when no one knows who they are or does not want to know, reduces the sense of personal responsibility and thereby creates an opportunity for atrocities. The violent effect of anonymization can be amplified by the effect of an upward spiral of emotional arousal, which creates a feeling of power. The Milgram experiment also showed that personal face-to-face contact increases the likelihood that people will not carry out inhuman orders from authority to cause suffering and pain. Anonymity promotes the commission of violence.
Accordingly, the threat of publishing unsightly facts always works as a deterrent to violence. To prevent people from resorting to this method of protection, proponents of aggressive violence usually use shame. You are told that “airing dirty laundry” is shameful. That informing is “snitching.” That the victim of violence, not the perpetrator, will be smeared because they were at fault. This is a serious obstacle that can be overcome precisely through the moral pressure described above. Never condemn the victim, even if it seems to you that they could have been less careless, more modest, or followed cultural norms that you personally like rather than their own.
Technically, it is not so difficult today to find all the data about a person, knowing their appearance, voice, or other clues. Big data is a powerful tool that can also work in the interests of civil society. De-anonymization services, hidden audio and video recording, trackers and the like are actively developing. If you know promising teams working on this—support them. If you know of ready-made useful products that help people uncover the identities of criminals—tell others about them.
3. Balancing the potential for violence
The more evenly the potential for violence is distributed in society, the fewer opportunities a potential aggressor has to commit violence for their own benefit. With a completely even distribution of the potential for violence, the attacker always receives exactly the same damage as the object of the attack. If, at the same time, the potential for violence is not only evenly distributed but also quite high, then even uniting ten people to attack one may seem like a bad idea: one-tenth of the damage received by the victim would be more than enough for each attacker.
Thus, there will be less aggressive violence in society the more evenly the potential for violence is distributed, the greater the potential for violence of the individual, and the more readily they are willing to use force for their own defense, that is, to practice the doctrine of deterrence.
In essence, the presence of a sufficiently large potential for violence in each individual makes an exact parity of forces redundant: it is enough to have the necessary minimum to inflict unacceptable damage on the attacker. A classic example of such a necessary minimum is a firearm: a standard rifled short-barrel weapon. With minimal skill and determination, it allows one to fight off a small group of aggressors or keep at a distance an ill-motivated crowd in which no one wishes to be the first victim. However, a pistol is simply an example of a convenient modern technological solution to the problem of balancing the potential for violence. As shown by the example of the technologically backward Senoi tribe, even blowguns with poisoned darts are quite sufficient to deter aggression, provided they are guaranteed to be used when aggression is directed at them.
One might object that individual self-defense works poorly against the state, but this assertion is refuted by practice. The well-known science fiction author Alexander Rozov expressed himself well on this matter in his blog:
“A completely different matter is in Sweden (with a comparable and very high level of economic well-being). There, a person is, in general, also powerless before the state. But this powerlessness affects almost exclusively the LAW-ABIDING person—he is easier to find and punish for something. But an armed bandit, although also powerless, is harder to punish (since he must first be found, and then detained—and he may offer armed resistance). Therefore, the Swedish police prefer to hunt law-abiding citizens.”
“A completely different matter is in Sweden (with a comparable and very high level of economic well-being). There, a person is, in general, also powerless before the state. But this powerlessness affects almost exclusively the LAW-ABIDING person—he is easier to find and punish for something. But an armed bandit, although also powerless, is harder to punish (since he must first be found, and then detained—and he may offer armed resistance). Therefore, the Swedish police prefer to hunt law-abiding citizens.”
Of course, the state can spend a disproportionate amount of resources on opposing a specific individual, inherently exceeding any of their spending on defense. An individual can oppose this with two tactics.
First, the price of an effective frontal attack by the state on a private person usually turns out to be several dozen times higher than the price the person spent to counter this attack; in other words, in an arms race, the defending individual has the advantage. Having firmly decided to sell their life dearly, they are capable of causing a lot of trouble even after death.
Second, transparency and moral pressure provide a very unfavorable background for large-scale state violence, whereas a large number of people may come out to defend the victim because they decide for some reason that it also concerns them. Despite the fact that the firepower advantage in such situations still remains with the state, mass civil disobedience is often enough for the state to hush up the conflict.
4. Non-violent upbringing of children
The most humane and unobtrusive thing a person can do to fight aggressive violence in the world is to pass values of non-violence to children. Of course, this means the need to act by personal example, that is, first and foremost not to apply violence to children oneself, so the task may not be easy. Nevertheless, the effort is worth it, for in the long run, this is the strongest means of influencing the world. A person who grew up understanding that they can trust people and not look for a catch, that people are benevolent and inclined to negotiate, will carry these values into adult life, and will react to stories about the realities of the beginning of the 21st century as we react to stories about public executions: with incomprehension and disgust.
Even if the state is not rejected by humanity for its inefficiency, being led by people who absorbed non-violent practices from childhood, it will become humane and unobtrusive in its methods, not even remotely resembling the gang of robbers from which it once grew.
Of course, when instilling values of non-aggression in a child, it is also important to instill a readiness to oppose it: starting from ways to nip a conflict in the bud through constructive negotiations, and ending with the use of means of self-defense, as described in detail in the previous point.
The idea of non-aggression leads directly to the idea of legal equality, so much attention will also need to be paid to instilling this idea. First of all, it manifests in the small things. For example, a society in which adults address children using the informal “ty” while demanding to be addressed with the formal “vy” is already instilling the idea of inequality. Meanwhile, there are situations of natural inequality of opportunities due to different ages and experience, and usually, it is more appropriate for adults not to participate in many children’s games on equal terms with children in order to preserve their dignity.
A good illustration of this thesis is the approach to adolescent sex. In Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon-Haunted World” (or “Science in Search of God”), the results of a statistical study by sociologist James Prescott are described, who compared the customs of hundreds of cultures in human history.
“…the fundamental differences relate to whether it is customary in that culture to hug children and whether premarital sexual intercourse is permissible for youth. He considers these parameters to be key and concludes that all cultures where children are hugged and adolescents are allowed to engage in sexual intercourse ultimately do without a pronounced social hierarchy, and everyone is happy. Whereas those cultures where certain social prohibitions prevent hugging children and a strict taboo is placed on premarital adolescent sex develop a strong hierarchy of dominance and wallow in violence and hatred.”
“…the fundamental differences relate to whether it is customary in that culture to hug children and whether premarital sexual intercourse is permissible for youth. He considers these parameters to be key and concludes that all cultures where children are hugged and adolescents are allowed to engage in sexual intercourse ultimately do without a pronounced social hierarchy, and everyone is happy. Whereas those cultures where certain social prohibitions prevent hugging children and a strict taboo is placed on premarital adolescent sex develop a strong hierarchy of dominance and wallow in violence and hatred.”
At the same time, as noted in the study, the prevalence of sex between adults and adolescents again proves to be a pretext for the development of dominance relationships.
Of course, if you practice non-violent upbringing of children, you will have to face violence from others directed toward them. You will have to be ready to counteract this, even if they are other people’s children; otherwise, you will simply instill in the child the idea that the main thing is personal well-being and it is better to turn a blind eye to everything else to stay safe. Depending on the situation, means of protection, public disclosure of facts of violence, and the creation of moral pressure may be useful here.
5. Freedom of Association
Modern people too often have to be part of various involuntary associations. This could be compulsory schooling, a conscript army, imprisonment, an orphanage, certain family-clan relations in archaic societies, and even the institution of citizenship itself.
It is precisely where leaving a community is impossible or associated with high costs that a phenomenon such as bullying appears, including the use of physical violence. Involuntary association with anyone develops in a person the ability to endure, to act covertly, hiding one’s interests and motivations, and sharply reduces empathy—in short, it makes them a rather unpleasant type. Spending energy on intrigues and survival in society, a person loses the opportunity for development and self-realization.
What can be done to develop freedom of association in society?
First, of course, it is important to recognize the problem itself, to speak publicly about its existence, calling things by their names: prison as prison, slavery as slavery, dependence as dependence.
In many cases, the exit from an involuntary association is not actually closed, and many people remain in them simply by tradition. Having found the exit, one should use it and learn to enjoy life in conditions of freedom, destroying with one’s own example the myths about the troubles awaiting those who leave the cozy cage. Thus, those who leave school for self-education will arouse envy rather than pity if they not only rid themselves of the pressure of the educational system but also achieve the life success for which the entire educational system is presumably built.
Similarly, it makes sense to flee abroad immediately upon the threat of criminal prosecution—or even simply in a situation where the political regime in the country becomes particularly unpleasant, and one can choose something less repulsive.
It is important to promote and publicly approve leaving toxic, abusive personal relationships—it is also desirable to provide support to victims of such relationships afterward so that they can find another support in life and not fall back into something similar.
Finally, it is not enough to know how to exit involuntary associations; it is important to learn how to enter voluntary ones, gaining pleasure, benefit, and security from this. This could be any interest-based group on social networks, membership in public organizations, or establishing a network of known service providers. Finally, one can simply become a regular at bars, clubs, children’s or sports grounds. Even such elementary habits as greeting neighbors in the building and talking with taxi drivers or hairdressers are already an important step toward building a civil society. When people evoke sympathy and interest in each other, it promotes the spread of the values of non-aggression.
6. Working with Heredity and Biochemistry
Biologist Konrad Lorenz proposed a model describing the appearance of innate morality of non-aggression toward representatives of one’s own species in many animal species (those possessing innate weaponry—hedgehogs, porcupines, echidnas, venomous snakes, and insects). The higher the ability of the species’ representatives to destroy their conspecifics, the faster the genes responsible for the tendency toward intraspecific aggression are washed out of the population during lethal conflicts. A strong animal may have a strong morality of non-aggression, and a weak one—a weak one. In its natural history, humans are very poorly armed animals. Therefore, in humans, instinctive prohibitions are initially weak, and natural morality is weak. Innate prohibitions in humans correspond to this state of affairs. However, reason has provided humans with the ability to significantly improve their tools for killing humans in timeframes that are negligible by evolutionary standards; therefore, an innate morality of non-aggression toward other humans never had time to appear in humans during natural selection.
It has been established that a tendency toward increased and pathological aggression can be either inherited or acquired (due to brain damage and hormonal imbalances). A single gene or even a precise list of genes responsible for the tendency toward intraspecific aggression has not been found to date, so this is a promising direction for applying effort if you specialize in the relevant biological disciplines.
Several approaches can be proposed for washing out the hereditary tendency toward intraspecific aggression from human society, which differ both in ease of application and in the speed of achieving results.
6.1 Forcing Natural Selection
When armed self-defense is available and welcomed in society, aggressors quickly exit the population. Thus, the implementation of the methods outlined in section 3 can ensure a long-term reduction of aggressiveness in society, although natural glitches and mutations will still not allow the complete and final elimination of intraspecific aggression; therefore, it will be necessary to constantly maintain a uniform BPN (Balance of Power/Non-aggression) so that pathological aggressors appearing by chance as a result of mutation are washed out of the population.
6.2 Sexual Selection
As historian Martin van Creveld said,
“the true reason for the existence of wars is that men have always loved to fight, and women have always loved warriors.”
“the true reason for the existence of wars is that men have always loved to fight, and women have always loved warriors.”
As women increasingly prefer caring partners over aggressive ones, carriers of genes with low aggressiveness get more chances to have offspring—after which aggressive individuals go off to squander their lives and manage perfectly well without reproducing.
In addition to these methods, which are suitable for application already now, the development of science may allow for more direct methods of influence in the future.
6.3 Embryo Selection
A DNA sample is taken from the fetus and analyzed for pathological hereditary diseases, including those related to a tendency toward aggression; in the event of a positive analysis result, the pregnancy is terminated. More obvious hereditary diseases, such as Down syndrome, are already fought in this way. Convincing a mother not to deal with problems she does not need and simply make another attempt at conception later is a solvable task, provided there are not too many cultural constraints in society prohibiting the termination of pregnancy.
6.4 Genetic Modification in Adults
A virus is created that integrates into human DNA and either switches off the genes responsible for the tendency toward aggression or reduces their expression. The technology of genetic modification itself has already been created and is actively developing, but exactly which genes and how exactly should be corrected still needs to be studied thoroughly. The direct switching off of genes most obviously linked to aggression so far leads to many undesirable side pathologies in experiments, so the technology is yet to be refined.
6.5 Genetic Modification at the Embryonic Stage
The method is the same as in the previous point, but it introduces changes into the genome that will subsequently be inherited. The task is much easier, since changes need to be introduced into literally one cell, rather than into an already formed organism.
6.6 Supportive Medication Therapy
Since the tendency toward aggressive violence is regulated by the hormonal background, it is not strictly necessary to delve into the genome if the hormonal background itself can be regulated. Currently, this is done with medications, but in the future, implanted hormonal regulators could be used for this purpose.
Some of the described methods can be practiced by everyone; some require qualification. In any case, speaking of methods 6.4 or 6.6, there can be no question of coercion. Even if someone committed aggressive violence under the influence of pathological tendencies, they should be left with a choice: ridding themselves of the pathology or bearing full responsibility for the act committed. In the latter case, this, again, should not be associated with violent punishments—only compensation for damages and restriction of communication opportunities.
Conclusions
Maintaining a low level of internal aggression in human society is a complex and multifactorial task. There is no single universal solution here; instead, there is room for initiative in a wide variety of directions, some of which are outlined above. It is important to realize the existence of the problem itself, not to hush it up, and to discuss it freely, as if it were a problem of cardiovascular diseases. One manifestation of strong intraspecific aggression in humans became such an institution as the state, with its tendency to sacrifice countless victims on the altar of its own greatness, or simply to poison people’s lives in peacetime. As humanity realizes the tendency toward violence as a problem, this toxic institution will go into the past—either completely, or it will transform into a harmless set of voluntary services. As ideas about the necessity of transitioning to non-violent interactions penetrate, they will find increasing support both in funds and volunteers, but for now, a great responsibility for its rooting in society lies with the few adherents of the idea.
