Well, after about half an hour of freaking out at not being able to copy and paste to the blog using Internet Explorer I have now switched to Firefox, lets see if it works shall we?

Chris Bope

Intro to Philosophy

Pen Over Sword

1/08/10

In order to answer the question of which is mightier, first it must be established what “might” is. In this instance might means the ability to shape the external world to internal will. When we compare pen and sword we are of course not talking about literal pens and swords, but rather these are neat allegories, the pen standing for reasoning, rhetoric, and ideology, and the sword standing for the use of violence. Overall, in the task of making people act and think the way that an individual wishes them to, the pen has proven to be vastly more effective.

A major use of violent actions in pursuit of social reform today, is the use of suicide bombers by terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. These bombings are fairly good at raising people’s stress levels in nations in which the attacks are occurring, but not very affective at inciting support for Sharia law, or acceptance of Jihad. For many people in countries in which this is not happening, news of suicide bombings and increasing numbers of victims, goes unread and uncared for by a vast majority of people. I have had several conversations on the subject of “how to be a good despot,” and it is accepted by everyone in these conversations that it implies the use of fierce and consistent violence. In order for people to be bent to an individual’s will, they must be constantly in fear of being killed, or seeing people they know killed. Killing must be random often and indiscriminant, which is a lot of work, for what is sure to be a small all powerful class of rulers. And it will be constantly under threat of being overturned.

In comparison, rule by rhetoric and reasoning is much easier and more secure. Some of the most successful non-democratic governments, such as the former Soviet Union, and the misleadingly entitled Democratic republic of Vietnam, exist(ed) and thrive(d) for as long and well as they have (did), because they had many people who had been so convinced by the respective ideologies of socialism and communism, that they were willing to make great personal sacrifices for the betterment of their nation. People will work much harder, and with much more care, if they are doing it because they want to rather than because they have to. Control by the pen is at its best in the form of religion. Religions tell people what to do and how to think about the world, and the major ones, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, each have influence over hundreds of millions, if not billions of people. The pen cannot be wielded with skill by everyone, and so it does not always work, but when it does, it does so to the nth degree.

Words and logic are, in many situations, much easier, and more effective, than violence. Though violence appears to be very motivational, in practice it does not work as well as expected. While the full power of rhetoric cannot be grasped by everyone, it is very useful, in fact even more useful because of this.

haha I win!!!!!!!! well, it's 16 words over, and could use a little work, but good enough for a draft I think.