Almond Raca

It would be a bad idea to continue driving in a particular direction if you knew it was not the way you should be going- an especially bad reason to do it would be in "honor" of all the miles you'd already driven. That probably doesn't have anything to do with anything.

Anyway, I was about eight years old the first time I took a beating. I went to a private school that had kids from first to eighth grade sharing a campus. I had been in fights before and since then. These were mostly squabbles with family or friends over toys, but on a playground, in second grade, I knew for the first time a relative stranger’s desire that pain be felt. I remember after it was over, struggling to breathe, with grass sticking to the blood on my face and wondering how I would get my backpack off of the school roof that this was different from a struggle over who got to use the hinged Lego piece, but I didn't know why. I couldn't understand why someone would want to hurt me- I mean, I'm great.

So at the VA hospital in Durham, NC there is a robot that dispenses medication for patients. I learned of it while I was there visiting a school that rejected me. Its name is Tobor, the robot not the school. It’s plain and sterile, about the size of a washing machine, and warns you when it’s going to move. This last fact about Tobor is interesting to me because I don’t think we are at the point yet when robots are aware of anything enough to require the Asimovian directive of not harming humans, yet there is the possibility of Tobor harming someone. Because Tobor knows no better, it might, in fact, run you over. If you are not careful, if you ignore its warnings, Tobor could bump into you at a very low speed. I suppose there is also the possibility, despite the best human efforts, Tobor could deliver the wrong medication. But that wouldn't be Tobor's fault.

I also found out Tobor is frequently the recipient of a beating. Patients will go to Tobor and give it what for. It doesn’t know. It could be beaten into a pile of sparking and whirring metal and plastic without any sense that anything has changed. It would know as much as a light switched off. Whatever anyone’s reasons for beating Tobor are, Tobor knows nothing. If you assault Tobor in a rage-filled Luddite protest, Tobor doesn’t know. If you are not receiving the health care you feel you deserve, Tobor cannot be strong-armed into treating you like a human. Tobor can't know what anyone wants or deserves. Tobor cannot be reasoned with, petitioned, or threatened into submission. Still, patients come upon Tobor and beat him. They will beat him complaining. They will beat him silently. They will beat him even to their own harm. It doesn't take much to learn that Tobor's shell is stronger than the bones of your hand or foot, but that knowledge generally comes too late and the pain someone wanted to inflict comes right back to them.

I think that's generally the nature of violence. Not conflict- those fights over Legos, or the last Otter Pop, or eons old compressed organic matter are because "[we] covet and cannot obtain; so [we] fight and wage war." That's not a good thing, but it is different than that spirit that seeks destruction or pain. I tend to err on the side of pacifism- not as a principle but because of a unique understanding of "sacramentalism"- but still, I do not identify every act of physical coercion as violence. Violence is different. Violence as I'm thinking of it is more about a spirit that seeks pain. Okay more later...