[Hong Wu]

I've seen a lot of communists and far-leftists claim that practically everything, or in some cases that literally everything is a weapon.

Examples: art is a weapon because it can influence people, your social symbols (such as nice cars or nice clothes) are weapons because they demean others, education can be a weapon, jobs and money and so-on are weapons. Reproduction is a weapon because people can fight, which essentially means that people might be considered weapons too. Words are routinely treated as violence or weapons and this is used to argue that there should be no freedom of speech, the logic being similar to how guns and other weapons are controlled.

A question I was asking myself recently is this: if everything is a weapon, doesn't this mean that the term "weapon" has become redundant and no longer serves an important function as a descriptor?

I personally draw a line when it comes to defining weapons as that which can directly physically (not including emotionally) harm people. This kind of phrasing is apparently necessary in a time when words are considered weapons of violence.

If everything is a weapon, it seemingly follows that war is peace and that everything we can do is an act of violence unless it supports the amorphous "party" or whatever it is that western far-leftists believe themselves to be a part of.

Edit: and here is the largest problem with the logic of terming everything to be a "weapon". If everything is a weapon and we are still going to call things weapons instead of taking it as a given, that means that the term "weapon" must be a pejorative. If everything is deserving of a pejorative then this must logically mean that life itself is bad. Sad!

[Godstud]

I've seen a lot of communists and far-leftists claim that practically everything, or in some cases that literally everything is a weapon.

A lot of fascists and right-wingers claim the same thing.

A lot of things can be a weapon, but not everything is designed to be a weapon. It's just that simple.

Not everything is a weapon. This assertion is only made by people who are extremists. It's meaningless, so no need to rant about it.

[Pants-of-dog]

We should move this thread to Conspiracy Theories.

[Patrickov]

IMHO a more accurate statement should be "everything can be weaponized".

An object is only a weapon if a person uses or (unfortunately) receives it as such.

[Hong Wu]

IMHO a more accurate statement should be "everything can be weaponized".

An object is only a weapon if a person uses or (unfortunately) receives it as such.

This is what I'm thinking about lately. To Person A, something is not a weapon but to person B that thing is a weapon because it out-competes them. For this dialogue to be valid, we need to presume that person B's self-promotion is inherently superior to Person A's self-promotion. This principle is probably related to the "white people need to die" meme because there's a misconception that moving down a physical hierarchy leads to peace and improvement. It's not necessarily so; even plants compete with each other for nutrients in the soil, herbivores need to fight each other for available plants in the absence of predators. Getting rid of the top is no guarantor of success. Escaping the "cycle of nature" can only be done internally, it cannot be done through a political ideology that seeks to artificially level everyone out.

[The Goldpill]

Not everything is a weapon, but everything CAN be a weapon. Even a fookin' pencil can be a weapon if you know how to use it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9ClvFNeN-E