Typical Collective Violence

1
Typical Collective Violence

• Wars came with the formation of a civilization
• History shows that humans engaged in wars
  frequently and these wars destroyed immeasurable
  lives
• Einstein once said Is there a way to liberate
  mankind from the doom of war?
• Reasons for wars range from to survival
  instinct to pseudo-scientific claims of
  superiority, which lead to hatred and killing.
• One particular reason traumatic memory results
  in self-righteous exercise of violence in the
  name of vengeance

2
The Origins of human violence

• Nature/nurture dichotomy
• Aggression
• Death instinct (innate aggression)
• Destructive (active)
• Reactive (response to frustration, humiliation,
  and endangerment)
• cultural identities
• Ideology
• Religious
• Ethnicity
• Gender
• Class
• Traumatic memory
• Natural Philosophy of Violence
• Impulsion of qi, which is shared by nature and
  human

3
Natural Philosophy of Violence

• Developed in the Warring
• Reciprocal dialectic of nature and culture
• Human behaviors mirror natural order
• Qi is shared by myriad things/creatures and is
  the origin of violence
• Men and physical world act directly upon one
  another through the medium of qi
• Natural environment, human physiology, and
  political action are interconnected and mutually
  influence

4
Sanctioned Violence

• Expressions of qi in natural and physical world
• Common expression Wind (feng), storm,
  thunderstorm,
• Violent expression killing (punishment)
• Expressions of qi in human world
• Common expression anger, aggression
• Violent expression
• killing in the form of punishment
• killing in the form of vengeance

5
Extension of the qi /feng Theory

• Qi/Feng is used to denote environmental
  influences
• Shapes distinctive behavior or temperament
  characteristic of each region
• Shapes the spirits and the bodies of men
• Mens lives and their environments act
  reciprocally through the medium of wind
• This theory of environmental influence is now
  known as wind and water (fengshui)
• Blood and qi (animal energies, valor) in human
  body, once excited or aroused, can lead to
  bellicosity and violence

6
Civilization and Collective Violence

• Violence came with civilization
• The Yellow Emperor Myth
• Created with a belief that in the earliest times
  men had not been clearly distinguished from
  animals
• sages separated men from the animals, undertaking
  the effort of making separation and
  distinction
• The Yellow Emperor was the foremost among these
  sages
• Initially, one of the nobles under the Divine
  Husbandman, the ruler
• Practiced the use of weapons to help the Divine
  Husbandman to punish those who did not attend the
  rulers court

7
War Literature

• Stresses that qi is essential to victory
• Military commander guides the expression of qi
• Individual qi gives way to group/collective qi
• Drum, bells, music, war dance are used to stir up
  the qi of the troops and horses
• Commander possesses the deamon-like qualities and
  knows how to lead his army by following natural
  order (proper seasons) to attack
• He knows how to manipulate qi of his soldiers and
  channel this qi into becoming effective fighting
  spirits.

8
Yellow Emperor Subdued the Fiery Emperor and Chi
You

• He cultivated his spiritual potency and arrayed
  his troops. He channeled the five qi, planted the
  five grains, consoled the myriad people, measured
  the four quarters, and instructed the bears,
  leopards, and tigers, and with them he battled
  the Fiery Emperor and killed him. Then the nobles
  reverenced him as the Son of Heaven
• The Yellow Emperor levied armies of the nobles,
  battled with Chi You, and killed him
• led an expedition against any states that did not
  obey him.and conquered all of them.

9
Battled with Chi You

• Chi You created weapons and attacked the Yellow
  Emperor, so the Yellow Emperor ordered the
  Responding Dragon to attack him at Jizhou. The
  dragon sucked up the waters, but Chi You asked
  the Wind Monarch and Rain Master to unleash great
  winds and rain. The Yellow Emperor then called
  down the celestial woman Bo, and the rain
  stopped, whereupon he killed Chi You.
• The Yellow Emperor battled Chi You at Zhuo Lu,
  and Chi You created fog which lasted three days.
  The soldiers did not know what to do, so the
  Yellow Emperor ordered the Wind Monarch to
  imitate the North Star the Yellow Emperors
  spirit progenitor and create the south-pointing
  chariot a proto-compass in order to
  distinguish the four directions, and they
  captured Chi You.

10
Two Creators of Warfare

• The Yellow Emperor and Chi You were two creators
  and patrons of warfare
• Chi You, created weapons to destroy human,
  political order
• The Yellow Emperor, implemented weapons to
  restore order
• Both were bringers of storm and introducer of
  warfare
• Both became cult figures and were sacrificed in
  rituals, particularly those associated with
  warfare

11
Symbolism of the Yellow Emperor

• The tales of the Yellow Emperor and his battles
  were reinterpreted as accounts of the origins of
  violence
• The Yellow Emperor symbolized the power that
  destroyed the creator of weapons and warfare
• He became ancient prototype for all the major
  innovations in warfare
• His heroism on the filed of battle, which took
  the form of collective violence, was glorified.