The Violence Imperative
Published on Mar聽8, 2026, filed under philosophy, politics, misc. (Share this post, e.g., on Mastodon.)
Whenever you witness or hear about violence, especially physical violence, you must immediately reject the need for it.
Reject any justification then given for that violence, even your own reasons.
Refuse any such justification outright.
Assume all reasons are lies.
This is the Violence Imperative.
On Waking Up
What it does is re-sensitize us:
It catapults us away from accepting violence as given.
It makes us challenge the reasons given, if only in the most radical form (by rejecting them).
It wakes us up to the violence in our world.
Refuse to believe in any reasons for violence. By anyone.
The Violence Imperative can be reconciled with the Pacifist鈥檚 Dilemma, but I won鈥檛 elaborate here because it would dilute the point. I鈥檒l write about this separately, though in short, it works by learning to transcend contradictions.
About Me
I鈥檓 Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and I鈥檓 an engineering lead, guerrilla philosopher, and indie publisher. I鈥檝e worked as a technical lead and engineering manager at various companies (e.g., Google); I鈥檓 an active web and tool developer (code optimization, digital defense), a contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and a book author (O鈥橰eilly, Frontend Dogma).
I love trying things鈥攊n web development and engineering management, but also in politics and philosophy, where I hold to one idea in particular: that we can only be well if we take good care of everyone. Here on meiert.com I talk about some of my perspectives and experiences. (Please share feedback: Interpret charitably, keep it friendly, but do be critical.)