Reflections on the Guillotine (1957)

catapart•about 1 hour ago

Thought this might be something of a treatise on steeling oneself for the weight of unpleasant but necessary acts of violence against degenerates, due to the soft type of degeneracy that we are now in the throes of. Instead, it's a concern about capital punishment for crime, rather than a reflection on the famed use of the guillotine - the class war that was started by the decadent and resulted in their blood in the streets.

With respect to Camus, I don't find anything particularly disagreeable about the points he made, but it is wholly irrelevant to my interest in the device, or its modern metaphorical relevance. Put simply: one's thoughts on capital punishment are distinct from one's thoughts on asymmetrical warfare, and that is where my mind goes to, and is preoccupied with, when discussing guillotines. If a class response to political binding is to purchase more and more political control, what option do we have that is not violence? And why should we prefer it? If the upper class doesn't care how their comfort causes lower class death, why should the lower class concern itself with how their response causes upper class death? Raise all boats with the tide or drown in the blood you're using to selectively raise your own boats. Seems straightforward to me. Not sure what's so hard for the stockholders to understand, here.

Anyway, yeah, your dad had a weak stomach and an imagination weak enough to not picture you as the kids that dude murdered (or didn't care enough about his future kids to develop bloodlust for the monster who did it). He's weak? He's a saint? We can give the government a monopoly on violence, but we can never give them the ability to execute its most permanent form, on account of the errors and prejudices of the humans whom make it up? Thoughtful. But I am distracted.

JKCalhoun•3 minutes ago

"Anyway, yeah, your dad had a weak stomach…"

Yeah, no we can still want justice and not want to be horrified by the act of execution for the rest of our lives.

(And never mind that if The State could, even once, execute someone who is innocent, it renders capital punishment instantly null and void in my mind.)

iwantitez•35 minutes ago

> If the upper class doesn't care how their comfort causes lower class death, why should the lower class concern itself with how their response causes upper class death? Raise all boats with the tide or drown in the blood you're using to selectively raise your own boats. Seems straightforward to me. Not sure what's so hard for the stockholders to understand, here.

I’ve always thought this too. I saw a question once on Quora asking why the poor don’t rip the wealthy out of their houses and the top reply was “Nazi!” with hundreds of upvotes.

Just hilariously oblivious and completely out of reality - slinging high level politics insults while the hungry guy is sharpening his knife.

I think the relative rich have no clue what is coming.

PS you have a great writing style IMO

randallsquared•15 minutes ago

> I saw a question once on Quora asking why the poor don’t rip the wealthy out of their houses and the top reply was “Nazi!” with hundreds of upvotes.

This seems odd because it usually goes the other way: people complaining about the rich typically tar them as the "Nazis". For people against destroying the rich, the usual epithet for those who want to do so would be "commies"...

senordevnyc•28 minutes ago

This sounds like something I might have written at 15. Only fools who have never known the horrors of war or indiscriminate violence would wish for the world you’re fantasizing about.

catapart•15 minutes ago

This sounds like something my illiterate classmates might have written at 15. Point to where you see a wish or a fantasy in what I wrote. Actions have consequences and those that refuse to learn from history are likely to cause it to repeat. If you're seeing a different world than I'm writing about, you're welcome to describe it. But ignorant assumptions about the shit I've seen aren't the slam dunk your smugness assures you they are.

winter_blue•about 2 hours ago

There's a summary of this essay on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflections_on_the_Guillotine

This is a 1957 essay by Algerian-French philosopher Albert Camus.

quantummagic•about 1 hour ago

> it is obviously no less repulsive than the crime,

Hard disagree. There are people who deserve death, and it is a good thing when it happens. It's just really dangerous to give the state such a power.

aejm•26 minutes ago

I wonder if you would feel different after witnessing an execution (by guillotine)? I believe Camus is arguing that you would, giving his father as example of someone who similarly changed his mind.

LNSY•about 2 hours ago

Modern problems require modern solutions. Get yourselves a sawz-awl. https://amzn.to/4grxOUN , then you can operate in Natakomi Space: https://www.bldgblog.com/2010/01/nakatomi-space/

Reflections on the Guillotine (1957)

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