Let me explain one more thing before I return to the original question of revolutionary violence.
The story of the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ in Christian mythology is very peculiar if one looks at it very closely. I am not referring merely to the claim that someone actually rose from the dead. It goes beyond that. Please look at this with me.
The mythology claims that Jesus rose from the dead physically and showed himself to his disciples who saw and heard and touched him physically. It was a physical body addressing them. Then this physical body began to do things that physical bodies can't ordinarily do. It moved through physical walls without doing any damage to itself or the wall. Then it finally ascended. That is, it disappeared leaving absolutely nothing physical behind. The ordinary explanation for this in Christian teaching is that the body of Christ was spiritualized. But if that is the correct explanation then why was it ever physical or material to begin with? Why did Jesus bother to rise from the grave physically at all if he was only going to spiritualize in the end? For that matter, what was the point of 'imperfect' material creation at all if its destiny is only to return into pure spirit in the end? It's not only senseless, it is downright perverse. It's a grotesquerie that has no point. The material world has a point in itself or it doesn't and if it doesn't then why is it even here? And if it does then we need to become conscious of what its point is. The frequently expressed opinion that we are really spiritual beings who are just here in the material world to learn is nonsense to which I say, "Learn what? How to be spiritual? If we are meant to be learning how to be spiritual then we should have stayed spiritual. And if we are learning how to be material then material existence has a meaning in itself that is not just spiritual. And if material existence has meaning in itself then we need to learn how to guard the sanctity of material existence, which means that it is not acceptable that people force other people into poverty or into war or into any form of material deprivation or abuse. We material revolutionaries fight for the sanctity of material existence. To fight for this means to stand up physically and if standing up physically leads to violence then that is the price we pay for doing what is right. And to deny the sanctity of the material world is to render it absurd and therefore to render reality absurd."
I do not advocate any initiation of violence. But if violence comes to us for standing up for human material dignity then we accept it and we persist until we triumph or until death lays us down.
"To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs deeper than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory" --Prometheus Unbound, P. Shelley
Prometheus' Empire is the Empire of Love and Freedom. Prometheus brought fire to mankind for the building of this Empire. Prometheus endured the eons of torment for the sake of this Empire. Unspeakable the shame if we fail to build it. Being spiritual or transcendent does not remove our guilt.
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