When you begin to employ torture in order to get information, you cannot say: ‘This bit of torturing is legitimate and not too serious, but I will go no further.” The man who starts torturing necessarily goes to the limit; for if he decides to torture in order to get information, that information is very important; and if, having used a “reasonable” kind of torture, he does not get the information he wants, what then? He will use worse torture. The very nature of violence is such that it has no limits. We have seen that it is impossible to set up laws of warfare. Either no war happens to be going on, and then it is easy to make agreements as to the limitations that should be established; or else a war is under way, and all the agreements fall before the imperative of victory.
Violence is hubris, fury, madness. There are no such things as major and minor violence. Violence is a single thing, and it is always the same. In this respect, too, Jesus saw the reality. He declared that there is no difference between murdering a fellow man and being angry with him or insulting him (Matthew 5:21 – 22). This passage is no “evangelical counsel for the converted”; it is, purely and simply, a description of the nature of violence.
Jacques Ellul, Violence. trans. Cecilia Gaul Kings (New York: The Seabury Press, 1969), 98-9.
Violence begets violence — nothing else. This is the fourth law of violence. Violence is par excellence the method of falsehood. “We have in view admirable ends and objectives. Unfortunately, to attain them we have to use a bit of violence. But once we are the government, you will see how society develops, how the living standard rises and cultural values improve. If we revolutionaries are only allowed to use a little violence (you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs), you will see the reign of justice, liberty and equality.” That kind of logic is repeated again and again, and it sounds logical enough. But it is a lie. I am not making a moral judgment here, but a factual experimental judgment based on experience. Whenever a violent movement has seized power, it has made violence the law of power. The only thing that has changed is the person who exercises violence. No government established by violence has given the people either liberty or justice — only a show of liberty (for those who supported the movement) and a show of justice (which consists in plundering the erstwhile “haves”).
Ibid., 100-1.
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