If it harms my existence

Judith beheading Holofernes, by Artemisia Gentileschi

I don't want to diminish the struggle of those who simply want to live peacefully and are constantly massacred by brainless troglodytes who would like to live in a fake Temu theocracy. Slogans are important in propaganda, including political propaganda. Furthermore, when it comes to taking a political stance, I side with those who commonly use the slogan “if it harms my existence, I will be resistance.” Therefore, from the outset, I want to make it very clear that I have no problem whatsoever with the phrase or with those who use it in political contexts fighting against racism, xenophobia, homophobia, among other things. What I want to do is offer a brief reflection on the slogan, which is not linked to political philosophy, but rather to existential philosophy and, therefore, to metaphysics.

Still within the political context, there are those who use the modified phrase as follows: “if it harms any existence, I will be resistance.” I understand and don't want to destroy the sentiment behind this type of use, but even in a strictly political context, contradictions can arise, especially when there is bad faith. Ultimately, reactionaries exist, and I highly doubt that whoever uses this slogan wants to guarantee the existence and flourishing of reactionaries. Even if they don't want to kill them, but transform them, the fact is that the existence of these ways of being is not defended by those who normally use the slogan. Would the defense of the existence and integrity of animals also be contemplated by those who use this slogan? Or would that be a ridiculous causa imported from first world countries? One must be careful.

However, when thought about more deeply, beyond politics—but which can also include politics, of course—the phrase “if it harms my existence, I will be resistance” awakens something strange, at least in me. The strangeness stems from the fact that existence harms all sentient beings. Existence, in fact, kills all living beings in the end, even those supposedly immortal organisms, such as members of the jellyfish species Turritopsis dohrnii and trees that live for tens of thousands of years. Apart from a few elementary particles, nothing in existence escapes friction, as the philosopher Julio Cabrera says. Not even minerals are free from friction. But when we deal with living beings, this friction causes wounds, and to make matters worse, wounds are felt as pain in certain types of living beings, i.e. animals.

It was among these specific types of living beings, animals, that a being emerged capable of formulating the phrase “if it harms my existence, I will be resistance" and its variants. I agree even more than is considered normal with the idea of ​​being resistance to that which harms existence. That is why I think that creating new beings capable of feeling pain and dying is morally problematic, since friction is inevitable for any being. Friction would be inevitable even in a wonderful, egalitarian, non-monogamous, losurdist political utopia, or any other fantasy one believes in. First, because they are not utopias. Secondly, because even in almost perfect societies, pain, decay, and death would remain basic frictions that could never be overcome.

We know what happens when a person is conceived and born. It's not a mystery. Only someone deceitful would say that one cannot know what happens throughout a life. What occurs is the manifestation of an insatiable will that, at best, can live very comfortably and pleasurably, but will never be able to completely shield itself from friction, boredom, and pain, because the definition of an insatiable will is always wanting more than can be satisfied. There is no end, only a repetition of fleeting happiness that exist between lack and boredom, like in Schopenhauer's pendulum. Pain, desires, and wants are at one extreme, while post-satiety ennui is at the other. Pleasure, satiety, and happiness exist fleetingly during the brief swing of the pendulum between these two extremes.

Even the most sublime and seemingly indestructible happiness, the deep and genuine love between two people, be they husband and wife, mother and child, true friendship, etc, is subject to this somber reality, because although the death of one may not destroy the love of the one who remains alive, the pain of loss will come. There will be no post-satiety nor boredom, but the eternal desire to be with the other that will never again be satisfied. I don't mean to say that the memory that brings solace to those who remain alive has no value, but rather I want to accuse existence. It is existence that is insidious, that destroys, hurts, wounds. There is no escape other than not participating in it, not playing its game and, better yet, not having come into the world in the first place, not possessing a being that can be hurt.

There will never be a dialectical unravel that will make everything alright in the lives of sentient beings. Believing this is the same as believing that, in real life, there is an ending like the one that exists in many films and books, a satisfying, if not happy ending following the last scene or page. I can confidently say that this doesn't exist because I don't believe in magic. So, in a broader sense, this slogan can only be sincerely affirmed, especially in its expanded version encompassing resistance against all being harmed, if we are willing to go against being itself. Otherwise, we must add several modifiers to the slogan or, better yet, always limit it to the sphere of contemporary political rhetoric of this first half of the 21st century. In a way, I defend this limitation, but not uncritically.

It's better to specify, saying: “if any human harms the existence of another human, I will be resistance.” But this doesn't sound as good, nor is it as impactful, although it's what is really meant. Certainly, apart from a few people, it's unlikely that anyone thinks of this slogan in a way that includes the reality that existence itself is the very cause of all harm. But, without that specification that makes it clear that it's only talking about harms caused by other humans, the phrase strikes me as odd.

It strikes me as odd because we were all mortally harmed from the moment we were conceived and brought into existence as profoundly conscious beings by the will of others. We had no choice, even though humans at various points in history have invented metaphysical myths that point to a primordial guilt within ourselves, whether passed down to us by our ancestors, as in Abrahamic mythology, or our own guilt, as in the case of metempsychosis or transmigration of the soul. Generational guilt is an absurdly archaic and illogical idea from the Bronze Age that would clearly point to a satanic creator if it were true. As for transmigration, in a scenario of complete amnesia of past lives, it's the same as saying that there was no transmigration in the first place, because affirming the continuity of an identity without any mnemonic connection is arbitrary and absurd.

Without any conclusive proof beyond supposed arguments that only make sense if we buy into magical premises that are impossible to be demonstrated, we are left with what is blatantly obvious to anyone: each new life generated and born is a new conscious being that emerges for friction and death without any possibility of choice; it is a new disposable puppet in the hands of the will that permeates absolutely the entire world of becoming. The primordial harm has already occurred. It is true that we should not worsen it by being horrible to one another, yes, but let us not be naive enough to believe that it is possible to exist without being harmed, nor let us feign ignorance about what brought us here, the chain of generation of new lives that perpetuates this open wound, which never closes.

The wound will only truly close on the day when the last sentience ceases to feel and decays after death. Only then, in the extinguishing of the lights of all consciousness, even the most primordial ones, will the harm truly come to an end. It will be the end of all possibilities of pleasure and contentment, yes, but it will also be the end of all the atrocities that have happened and continue to happen every day under the sun. Atrocities such as flaying, fractures, dismemberment, burns, grotesque accidents, degrading diseases, exploitation, rape, widespread violence from other living beings besides humans, among countless other misfortunes, in addition to the combination of all of these.

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A small addendum.

When I write these things, it all seems very abstract and generic, but concrete examples abound. In fact, they are produced almost infinitely in a single day on this miserable planet where life had the misfortune to sprout and evolve. Many are even documented. While writing this text, some of them wouldn't leave my mind. The first example, all too human, is that of a poor wretch whose scalp and face skin were ripped off with a knife—while he was still alive—by the Cártel del Noreste in Mexico in June 2023. After having the skin of his head and face removed, leaving him looking like a blood-soaked skeleton with exposed muscles, the butcher cut the flesh under his jaw and pulled out his tongue. The victim also had his torso cut vertically and his heart ripped out, still beating frantically.

The other example—more innocent, let's say—is that of a pride of lions killing a warthog that was about to give birth. A live warthog cub is left on the ground for a few moments after being ripped from the belly of its recently deceased and partially devoured mother, but soon a lioness grabs it by the mouth and it begins to scream, to the despair of the humans witnessing the atrocity. These and other absurd harms are only possible because we exist in the first place. And, in the case of “natural” harms, such as those caused by lions devouring newborn warthog pups, we are still obliged to accept them, since nature always ends up finding a balance and it does not operate under human moral order. Nature's highest law, which is above all else, is that of survival at any cost. In the natural world, the friction of existence is not mitigated by constructs such as ethics and law.

In other words: with regard to pain and chaos, it could be worse. In this case, we have the advantage over our animal brothers. Their great advantage is precisely that they live in the present and do not absorb all this misfortune with profound individual lucidity, a curse that nature has reserved only for Homo sapiens.

by Fernando Olszewski