Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
– Salvor Hardin
This sentence has always struck me as a bit off. I see two ways to interpret it:
- If violence is your last option, you are incompetent. (rephrased in terms of competent people: The competent always have another option beyond violence.)
- If violence isn't your first option, you are incompetent. (rephrased in terms of competent people: Violence is the first refuge of the competent.) Here, the usage of last is similar to that in it's in the last place you look: once you reach this option, you won't have to fall back to another. Therefore, this should the first option.
The author obviously meant the first. But, somehow, I can't shake off the feeling that the latter is also a valid interpretation. Is it? Or am I missing something?
Best Answer
My understanding of this line is:
Incompetent individuals, by definition, do not possess skills and wisdom. Therefore when they have (quickly) exhausted their small arsenal of half-cocked and ill-fated techniques to solve the extant problem, they invariably fall upon violence as their last hope.
The implied corollary is that anyone using violence to solve a problem must therefore be incompetent. Indeed that is the point of this statement- it is an insult.