A system psychological analysis
Anytime you tell a man to turn the other cheek or to be nonviolent in the face of a violent enemy, you're making that man defenseless. You're robbing him of his God-given right to defend himself. - Malcolm X
A Dysfunctional Relationship with Violence
The Jungian psychologist Wolfgang Giegerich wrote in 1991, following the Gulf War, that Westerners have a distorted relationship with violence. He illustrated this with an anecdote: a churchgoer told his wife, who had not attended Mass, that the priest had preached about sin. When she asked what he had said, he replied: “He was against it.”
Posters on Dutch windows with “Stop the war,” or the more recent Dutch Randstad elite’s campaign against Isreal’s actions “Not in my name” reaffirm Giegerich’s thesis. We are against war, against colonialism and imperialism, against torture, terrorism, rape, corporal punishment, and all forms of structural violence.
But what does this rejection indeed mean? To say that Westerners have a distorted relationship with violence does not imply that they should, therefore, be in favor of it. The problem lies elsewhere: in the abstraction of this rejection. Simply being against violence is neither particularly intelligent nor particularly interesting. It is as banal as declaring oneself against sin—it appears to be a moral stance but remains empty and meaningless. It is a platitude, theatrically repeated for effect.
Why do we feel the need to force open an already open door? What psychological necessity drives this demonstrative rejection of violence?
It cannot be the intention to effect real change in the world. History shows that preaching against sin, issuing prohibitions, and criminal prosecution do not eradicate violence. Protests against war—whether in Ukraine, Gaza, or elsewhere—do not end the fighting. It is as futile as a pope preaching against extramarital sex. In reality, these protesters speak helplessly and self-righteously past the reality of violence. Violence persists, indifferent to their indignation.
The Illusion of Authority
Consider the language used in Dutch protests: “No more war,” “Not in my city,” and, most tellingly, “Not in my name.” These phrases carry an imperative tone, as if the speaker possesses some authoritative power. But such claims only make sense when spoken by someone who actually has authority: a father correcting his child, a ruler governing his subjects, an employer addressing his staff. When an ordinary citizen proclaims, “No more war!” they implicitly claim influence they simply do not possess. It becomes a delusional statement, as absurd as saying, “The volcano Lewotobi on Flores must not erupt!”
The paradox of moral preaching and demonstrations is that, despite their outward focus on the world, they actually serve an internal function. Those who speak out against violence—against, for example, the conflict in Gaza—believe they are addressing the world, confronting perpetrators and injustice. But in truth, they are speaking primarily to themselves, to soothe their own conscience. Their declarations, seemingly acts of engagement, are in essence rituals of moral self-confirmation.
This is not an innocent observation. The protest against violence, distilled into slogans like “Stop the war” and “Not in my name,” serves above all a narcissistic purpose: the purification of one’s own consciousness. The demonstrator wants to show, and prove to themselves, that they are on the right side. The protest is less an act of resistance than a ceremony of self-justification.
Violence as a Blind Spot
Giegerich’s article appeared in 1991, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was the peak of Western triumph on social, economic, and cultural levels. The political scientist Francis Fukuyama even declared that history had ended, asserting in 1992 that liberal democracy was the ultimate form of governance after the collapse of communism and nationalism.
At the time, Giegerich’s analysis was largely ignored outside the small circle of scholars of depth psychologists. If it was noticed at all, mainstream opinion likely found it eccentric—this idea of a “distorted relationship with violence.” A superior culture, after all, can afford a few exotic traits. Around the same time, a popular saying emerged: “Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore.” The true intellectual makes violence disappear by ignoring it. This phrase, falsely attributed to Einstein to lend it an aura of unassailable rationality, perfectly encapsulates the mindset Giegerich described.
But now, more than thirty years later, violence has not disappeared—on the contrary, it is more diverse and visible than ever. In addition to direct and physical masculine violence, we have seen the rise of relational and indirect feminine violence in the public sphere, such as cancel culture, censorship, and manipulation. Tribal violence has surged in England, Sweden, and Germany, as has terrorism since 9/11. Political discourse and social media interactions have become openly aggressive. Our institutions, too, have exhibited unprecedented levels of institutional violence, as seen in scandals such as the Dutch childcare benefits affair and the Groningen gas extraction disaster. Reality forces us to acknowledge that violence is an unavoidable phenomenon. Besides, when talking about the West, Giegerich referred in 1991 to Europe and America and its cultural sphere of influence. We have recently learned that the sociocultural differences between America and Western Europe have become so enormous that they can hardly be lumped together anymore.
Has all this violence led to a reality check? No. We not only reject aggression but even find microaggressions intolerable. In anticipation, we are suspicious of any force used by police to maintain order. We prefer a cosy atmosphere on a battlefield, sending unarmed soldiers to war zones (as in Srebrenica) and clinging to the illusion that we do not cause civilian casualties (as in Hawija). The Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant recently ran a woolly front-page article extolling “the power of softness,” symptomatic of a society stubbornly refusing to face reality. Our delusional understanding of violence persists as something “unnecessary,” devoid of objective power or reality, something that should be easily eradicated if only we collectively decide to do so.
Meanwhile, political leaders and administrators downplay violence, repeatedly using empty phrases like “unacceptable” with an embarrassing frequency. They grandstand over minor offenses, engage in symbolic politics, or even recast perpetrators as victims—anything to avoid staring the monster in the eye. Meanwhile, violence has not lost an ounce of its reality.
Fukuyama was wrong; history did not end with the triumph of the liberal democratic state. That system is now eroding rapidly. What Otto Scharmer, the founder of Theory U, calls “massive institutional failure” is visible everywhere. Polarization is alarmingly high. All indicators suggest that our once high-trust societies are shifting toward low-trust societies. Trust in government, once a hallmark of stable democracies, is in freefall. The West’s dysfunctional relationship with violence is no longer a quaint quirk of a dominant civilisation—it has become a symptom of profound vulnerability in an increasingly hostile world.
“All that is valuable is defenseless“ – Lucebert (Dutch poet)
An example of a defining trait of our rational era is that many Western individuals obsess over the presence or absence of a virus, the severity of an epidemic, or the effectiveness of a vaccine, while missing the essential point: a body without resistance will ultimately succumb, regardless of the virus or bacteria it encounters.
The same applies to society. Our defenseless civilization loses itself in rational and moralistic debates over its decline—is it caused by migration, climate change, right-wing extremism, or discrimination? It does not matter. Just as a body without immunity is doomed, a society without resilience will inevitably collapse. Our analytical obsession with identifying causes blinds us to our own vulnerability.
Defenselessness, as the condition of a fragile body or society, has vanished from our awareness. Eighty years of post-war prosperity have made us naive, blind to the dutch poet Lucebert’s insight that all that is valuable is defenseless. He emphasized the vulnerability of an open, democratic society that is not built on power and violence.
As long as we fail to recognize violence as a real and concrete aspect of human behavior, we will remain defenseless against those who wield it without hesitation. Anyone who truly seeks to counter violence cannot afford to simply be against it. To combat violence, we must first understand and acknowledge it as a fundamental, inextinguishable force in human reality. Only those who recognize violence as an existential phenomenon can effectively resist it.
Vulnerability may be a virtue of a self-aware civilisation. Defencelessness, however, is a fatal delusion.