Conclusion

Hannah Arendt argued that violence was the 20th century’s ‘common denominator.’ This was due to the threat of absolute destruction posed by nuclear weaponry —an extension of Eisenhower’s argument about the military-industrial complex referred to earlier. This chapter discusses the scarred and scarring nature of violence, the strange, ongoing dialectic of states that are either too present or too absent—able to coerce/unable to serve—and prevailing religious and sexual dogmas. In violent countries, the state is laden with violence and corruption. In violent homes, men are driven by anger, frustration, and entitlement against others in their lives, notably women. The tendency towards violence is never far from the surface, but nor are alternatives. That renewed solidarity, however compromised by religion, gender, beliefs, borders, financial interest, media bloviation, or anything else, is crucial in the attempt to diminish violence, both collectively and inter-personally.