Ultraviolence and Its Essence
1/26/2021
Authored by Ouro Boros
Violence was, is, and will be ever present as long as human consciousness will exist. It is one of the most significant culminations of our sapience, the capacity for violence in the hands of an individual or a collective. Violence is something that exists outside of human consciousness, it has existed in biology since long before the dawn of Metazoan life. It is everywhere, but its manifestations in the sapient species that is Homo sapiens is something of particular note and study.
Over the years I have come to view, experience, and desire violence enough times to have come to the conclusion that human violence can be separated into three different categories, and these belong to a higher, more general concept I have taken to calling “Ultraviolence”. Ultraviolence covers all violence humans experience, inflict, and observe. It is a direct consequence of our sapience and it is a major guiding factor of many human beings.
The three categories are as listed below.
Category I, Violence as Necessity: Violence used in order to help in self-preservation of the self, or of a group of people. Violence manifesting in a way that can be categorized as helpful to an individual or collective. For example, self-defense from an intruder, theft of food to feed oneself, political violence used to instigate change that is seen as beneficial.
Category II, Violence as Culture: Violence used as part of human cultural/subcultural practices. Violence manifesting as a means of expression of culture. For example, wrestling, martial arts, gun culture, weaponsmithing, and various forms of media portraying violence in any capacity.
Category III, Violence as Fetishism: Violence used for pleasure and power, of sexual and non-sexual nature. Violence manifesting as desire and desire alone. For example, BDSM, revenge fantasies, infatuation with violence on a mechanical level, obsession with committing acts of violence, and going through with desires to commit violence with no other cause than the desire of the self.
To enunciate and make more clear, I will provide analogies based on a common theme of breaking a glass pane. Category one violence would be breaking a window to steal money to pay bills. Category two violence would be breaking a glass pane to test strength and endurance as part of a competition. Category three violence would be breaking glass just for the fuck of it.
These three categories are in my eyes, the essence of Ultraviolence, and as you increase in the higher number categories, the more deranged, powerful, and unpredictable the violence will get. However it should be noted that these categories are not all encompassing and do not intertwine with the other categories, one category can lead to another, and some actions can fall under multiple categories, on rare occasions, all three.
Ultraviolence to me is a guiding principle of human existence and I think that many individuals and groups could make use of a categorization system like this. Are your planned actions ones of fetish-violence? Necessity-violence? Culture-violence? Going off the categorization system above, I think it will be useful in future revolutionary and insurrectionary events, as a means of power regulation (as a means to perhaps reduce risk of atrocity) and as a means of quantifying actions via an individual or groups own word and self-evaluation.
On a final note, as someone who has experienced and observed that without a doubt the third category is the most powerful and unpredictable. There lies a lot behind minds whose desire for violence extends beyond culture and necessity, and that makes the capacity for power in their violent actions extremely high. Thankfully most of the time it is in harmless and consensual sexual acts, but the few times its in something like murder or rampages of destruction, it reveals the true power of category three violence, and I suppose the extent that human sexuality may factor in to how we spend our energy.
Ultraviolence is a tool, god forbid we use it unwisely.
