Reviews

Stephen King and Philosophy by Jacob M. Held

stacie_w_books's review

3.0

Actual rating 3.5 stars. Review to come.

scherzo's review

4.0

Some essays were very good, a couple didn't say much repeatedly.

Chapter 10 Broadcast Dystopia (Power and Violence in The Running Mile and The Long Walk)
- Joseph J. Foy & Timothy M. Dale

"It is true that storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it."
-Hannah Arendt

In her "Reflections on Violence," Hannah Arendt describes the way in which violence--not power or force or strength--has, through technological development and historical evolution, become a means confused with its end. Rather than violence being the way in which regimes pursue goals that they deem necessary, violence itself becomes one of the purposes of society. The existence of war in this context becomes a pervasive condition of society instead of a limited activity of necessity. The people who live in such a society must accept that human life is expendable, and willingly accept that violence is to be preferred over connection to others. ....

The violence gets more and more extreme and pervasive, as does the structural violence within the system designed to maintain the extreme gaps between the wealthiest and the poor. As is postulated by Arendt when describing the divergence of power and violence, the more violence that is applied, the more resources and efforts the state must dedicate to that violence, further diminishing its ability to meet the needs of governance. ....