Violence in Society

Violence in society* Violencia y Sociedad António Pedro de Andrade Dores** Universidad ISCTE-Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, Portugal Abstract The recent interest in the sociology of violence has arisen at the same time that western societies are being urged to consider the profound social crisis provoked by global financial turmoil. Social changes demand the evolution of sociological practices. The analysis herein proposed, based on the studies of M. Wieviorka, La Violence (2005), and of R. Collins, Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory (2008), concludes that violence is subject to sociological treatments centered on the aggressors, on the struggles for power and on male gender. There is a lack of connection between practical proposals for violence prevention and the sociology of violence. It is accepted that violence as a subject of study has the potential, as well as the theoretical and social centrality, to promote the debate necessary to bring social theory up to date. This process is more likely to occur in periods of social transformation, when sociology is open to considering subjects that are still taboo in its study of violence, such as the female gender and the state. The rise of the sociology of violence confronts us with a dilemma. We can either collaborate with the construction of a sub discipline that reproduces the limitations and taboos of current social theory, or we can use the fact that violence has become a “hot topic” as an opportunity to open sociology to themes that are taboo in social theory (such as the vital and harmonious character of the biological aspects of social mechanisms or the normative aspects of social settings). Keywords: Social theory, Violence, Women’s movements, Taboo, Society, State. Resumen El interés reciente en la sociología de la violencia ha surgido al mismo tiempo que las sociedades occidentales están requiriendo considerar la profunda crisis social provocada por la agitación financiera global. Los cambios sociales demandan la evolución de las prácticas sociológicas. El análisis aquí expuesto, basado en los estudios de M. Wieviorka, La Violence (2005), and of R. Collins, Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory (2008), concluye que la violencia es objeto de tratamientos sociológicos centrados en los agresores, en las luchas por el poder y en el género masculino. Hay una falta de conexión entre las propuestas prácticas para la prevención de la violencia y la sociología de la violencia. Es aceptado que la violencia como objeto de estudio, tiene el potencial, además de la centralidad teórica y social, para actualizar la teoría social. Este proceso ocurre más comúnmente en períodos de transformación social, cuando la sociología está abierta a considerar objetos de estudio que aún son tabúes en su estudio de la violencia, tales como el género femenino y el Estado. El ascenso de la teoría de la violencia nos confronta con un dilema. Tenemos la posibilidad de colaborar con la construcción de una subdisciplina que reproduce las limitaciones y los tabúes de la actual teoría social, o podemos usar el hecho de que la violencia se ha convertido en un “tema candente” como una oportunidad de abrir la sociología a temas que son tabúes en la teoría social (tales como el vital y armonioso carácter de los aspectos biológicos de los mecanismos sociales o los aspectos normativos de los escenarios sociales. Palabras clave: Teoría social, Violencia, Movimientos feministas, Tabú, Sociedad, Estado. Cómo referenciar este artículo: AUTOR (2014). Violence in society. Pensamiento Americano, 7(13), 144-162. Recibido: 24 de julio de 2014 • Aceptado: 20 de septiembre de 2014 * Este artículo es publicado como resultado de una investigación titulada: Sociologia da Violência. ** Profesor del Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, Portugal (ISCTE-IUL). Doctor en Sociología. Investigador del Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios en Sociología, CIES/ISCTE. Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 145 António Pedro de Andrade Dores In the past few decades the study of violence as a social phenomenon has become From where will hope and confidence come in the society in flux (Reemtsma, 2011)? taboo (Wieviorka, 2005, pp. 68, 143). Getting back to its study requires grappling with the Studying violence in society reasons for that marginalization. This paper Defining what is meant by “violence” in will pursue the idea that, rather than violence society is as difficult as pinning down exactly not being an integral aspect of what is society, what we mean by “society”. Each time we ob- it is the concept of society that we have become serve and study violence in society it will be accustomed to that is incomplete and obscures necessary to explain what society we are look- violence in society. ing at-i.e. what concept of society is being applied. The idea of society –here intended as Western society– is a moral reference point and Michel Wieviorka refers to the decline of legitimizing concept. This legitimization has the classical intellectual, politically involved, been weakened both at the level of sovereign- bearer of paradigm shifting revolutionary ty and of democratic expectations. At the root proposals: “There haven’t been any important of this weakening lies, at one end, the creation thinkers, in the social sciences and in politi- of regional super bureaucracies (e.g. Europe- cal philosophy, who haven’t, in a way or other, an Union), and at the other the fragmentation expressed a view about violence (…)” (Wiev- and isolation of communities, be it by actual iorka, 2005, p. 143). According to the author physical barriers (e.g. gated communities), or violence as a subject of study became taboo by political labels (e.g. problem areas). At the once more since the 1980s (Wieviorka, 2005, same time, the idea of violence, previously as- p. 68). As Hirschman (1997) also argues, re- sociated with emancipation and progress –in ferring to the transition from the eighteenth that it legitimized nationalisms, the weapons to the nineteenth century, the bourgeois cri- race, the colonial liberation struggles, and the tique of the use of violence by the aristocracy revolutionary experiences in various parts of became taboo once the bourgeoisie achieved the world, such as the USSR, Cuba and China– political dominance (see also Reemtsma, 2011, now suggests more a scenario of social and en- pp. 206-226). Similarly, over the last decades, vironmental decay, frightening and hopeless: the reaffirmation of capitalism in the era of the so often cited risk society of Ulrich Beck globalization seems to have split into different (1992). Various social currents offer innovative emotional camps what people consider as good answers to these problems, such as permacul- violence – generally with institutional or dom- ture, rights of nature, transformative justice inant class origins – and as bad violence, that and unconditional basic income for example. which deserves to be called violence – gener- Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 146 Violence in society ally originating among less privileged classes. rare effort towards defining what can or should This ideological regime hides, as well as avoids be understood as “society”, in its various di- the debate about violence in society, making a mensions, in sociology. Citing him, even if at clear definition of what constitutes it impossi- length, is useful: ble. [Parsonsian sociology] concentrated The discussion about what constitutes society is no less complex, temperamental and conditioned by the successive historical eras than the discussion of violence. Sociologists’ attacks on Talcott Parsons’ structural functionalism – the most successful attempt at giving theoretical consistency to a definition of society– come on “society” as an autonomous, all-embracing, homeostatic self-equilibrating system, whereas Soviet Marxism left no space for “society” in its theoretical scheme of base and superstructure (op. cit., 195). to coincide with the neoliberal politics marked by Mrs. Thatcher’s murderous phrase, “There is In Marxist hands society is not a general no such thing as society”, descriptor of a whole notion that applies transhistorically to political program bent on discrediting and de- ancient and medieval worlds, tribal and stroying the social forces that have engaged complex systems, traditional and mo- with social issues since the nineteenth century dern orders, embracing all the separate (Castel, 1998). and functionally independent institutions that together form a coherent and Michel Burawoy (2004) reclaimed Marxism bounded whole. Rather, Gramsci and as an epistemic platform from which to estab- Polanyi endow their notions of society lish a definition of society that can be adapted to with historical specificity (op. cit., 198). the current historical circumstances. He based himself on the ideas of Gramsci and Polanyi –two neo-Marxist authors with very different but consistent perspectives– to propose a new sociological framework: “Public Sociology”. In short, Burawoy’s thesis is that, as it happened For Gramsci, society is civil society, which is always understood in its contradictory connection to the state. Civil society refers to the growth of trade after the 1929 crisis, sociologists must know unions, political parties, mass education, how to make themselves heard alongside econ- and other voluntary associations and in- omists, political pundits, and the voices of the terest groups, all of which proliferated in markets and the state. Europe and the United States toward the end of the nineteenth century (op. cit., Burawoy (2004) makes a commendable and 198). Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 147 António Pedro de Andrade Dores For Polanyi society is what I call active workers and bosses) in Europe are appeased by society, which is always understood in the politics of the social welfare state. Such pol- its contradictory tension with the mar- itics were built on the nuclear threat of the Cold ket (op. cit., 198). War and policies aimed at social wellbeing. Social democracy becomes a global political Polanyi often refers to society as having reference; sociology flourishes professionally, a reality of its own, acting on its own be- serving that political project. A new problem half, whereas Gramsci understands civil presents itself when social democracy reveals society as a terrain of struggle. For both, itself impotent in the face of a world controlled however, “society” occupies a specific by a single superpower. institutional space within capitalism between economy and the state, but where The notion (suggested by Max Weber and “civil society” spills into the state, “active worked by Parsons) that society can be differ- society” interpenetrates the market. For entiated into dimensions of politics, economy, both, socialism is the subordination of social status and culture, each to be given in- market and state to the self-regulating dividual attention by the social sciences, has society, what Gramsci calls the regulated become, over the last few decades, a centripetal society (op.cit:198). process of hyper-specialization into sub-disciplines (Lahire, 2012, pp. 347-351). Intra The author continues a sociological tenden- and interdisciplinary collaborations became a cy, developed since the 1980s, of reconciling stated but almost always frustrated objective. two contradictory epistemologies: the Marxist, Global discussions about what society might centered on material production and the prin- be have become rare and strangely irrelevant cipal social struggles (around the economy among sociologists. and technology), and the Weberian, centered on symbolic distribution, the markets and the The 1960s and 70 saw the development of possible harmonization of opposing interests new social movements: non-labor movements, arising from the erratic history of subjectivities with no institutional representation, but pro- (Weber, 2005; Touraine, 1984). posing alternative lifestyles, communitarian, solidary, liberal, profoundly cognitive and crit- This reconciliation occurs at the same time ical, drawing similarities with what the labor that the thematization of violence becomes movement had done in the nineteenth century, taboo, as noted by Wieviorka, and the fights under very different circumstances and condi- between the superpowers as well as between tions. These movements became radical cul- the predominant social classes (the industrial tural and intellectual references for resistance Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 148 Violence in society to, and against the legitimization of the neo- play against the middle classes in the devel- liberal inspired powers of the 1980s (Sennett, oped nations, a fact particularly evident in the 2006, confesses in the first page of the intro- politically peripheral territories of the West, duction, that, in the 70, outside of America, the also known as South of the North. new left imagined that the debureaucratization would cause communities to emerge; instead, Resuming the study of violence Sennett now recognizes, what emerged was an In breaking with the taboo of social studies individualizing fragmentation and less free- about violence, what do Michel Wieviorka and doms). Regularly predicted but not actually Randall Collins tell us? materializing resurgences of transformative social movements such as those of the 60 and Michel Wieviorka’s, La violence (2005) is di- 70s, began to finally come to life in a variety vided in three parts. The first part describes the of new forms in 2010: first in North Africa, then in Southern Europe, USA, Iran, Turkey, and Brazil. These modern social movements are characterized by the use of cyber networks and communication technologies (not available in the 70) and by an inherently anarchic organizational format (Castels, 2012). The social base of “students”, who were at the center of the revolutionary youth movement of the 60s and 70s, is now an expanded “new petty bourgeoisie” (Poulantzas, 1978) with two or three new paradigm of international and social relations that has been framing violence since the 1980s. The second presents the different theoretical approaches to violence. The third part introduces a perspective on violence based on Touraine’s “subject” theory. By “subject” this theory means a constructed social entity, such as a person, a group, an institution, a social movement. The author emphasizes the distinction between constructive violence and destructive, generations of history behind it, but, due to an antisocial violence. The former is useful for the inhospitable employment landscape, presently emergence of future societies. The latter is an- with no prospects of a future. tithetic to historical evolution. The perfecting of new technologies, the In a typology with these two kinds of vio- competition presented by emerging societ- lence (of the “hyper-subjects” and “anti-sub- ies, the greed of the speculative production of jects”) at opposite ends, Wieviorka theorizes profits, the capacity of advanced capitalism to other agents of violence: a) that of the “floating recreate consumer societies in any part of the subject” driven by a sense of injustice, b) that world, the necessity to reduce salaries in order of the “non-subject” that acts mechanically, to maintain the capitalist system of production and c) that of the “survivor subject” that fights in global competition, among other factors, against its own social negation. Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 149 António Pedro de Andrade Dores The first part of the book presents argu- the routines, traditions and logic of continuity. ments in favor of the idea that historically there This way of thinking about violence, the author has been a reduction of opportunities to devel- argues, allows for an analysis of cruelty. op conflicts. Conflicts which substituted and prevented violence as diplomacy can do with This position raises problems: a) is it true war. The past few decades have been character- that the collective consciousness and ideology ized by: a) the development of two new spheres indispensable to making sense of violence can of the state: the “infra-sate” as a consequence of only be studied outside of the framework of so- policies of privatization, and the “meta-state” cial theory? (Was it not Durkheim who defined as a consequence of the fight for access to pow- sociology as the study of social morality, of the er between religious and ideological groupings; collective conscience?) b) Who is in a position b) an emphasis on victims’ rights; and c) glob- to identify a constructive purpose for violence, al, instant media coverage and uncontrolled in practical and intellectual terms? Should it be use of new media. historians, politicians, psychologists, the state? And should they be contemporaries of the vio- The second part of the book offers analyses of violence from three different perspectives: lence being studied or be sufficiently removed to be objective? psycho-political, economics, and cultural. The violence of the masses and of social move- Randall Collins, in Violence: A Micro-so- ments, syndical violence, and violence due to ciological Theory (2008), defines violence as lack of education, all have explanations distinct the act of physically assaulting another person. from cruelty, genocide and gratuitous violence. Collins studies violence, thus defined, looking Sociology knows well the difference between to distance himself from moral questions. He “expressive” and “hot” violence (emotional), provides answers for how we fight and for why on the one side, and “instrumental” and “cold” we fight. Such answers are arrived at by reduc- violence (practical) on the other, but it does not ing the analysis to patterns of interaction only. deal with “senseless cold” violence (cruelty). (Collins promises to look at violence from a macro perspective in a future work). In order to include this hidden violence, cruelty, into analytical frameworks one needs, A constant in the 30 or so types of violence according to Wieviorka, to force the analysis to identified by Collins is “tension/fear” which, move beyond the social sphere. Subject theo- when it does not impede violent action, dis- ry does this by considering the subject as an turbs it in such a way that being incompetent historical agent, a protagonist for the purpose at it is very common. The emotional barrier of constructing new types of societies, against constituted by tension or fear can be overcome Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 150 Violence in society by a situation of social panic or moral holiday. dination through emotional resonance; attun- In such instances, violence tends to be direct- ing with peaks (momentum/adrenaline); mind ed at weak or defenseless individuals (as in games for control of the limited social attention genocides or episodes of war). Caught up in available; harmony v. opposition (emotional these moral holidays, and the impunity that turning point), and collective effervescence, they bring, some actors can engage in violent all as causes of violence. Therefore, physical action free of bad conscience or guilt. Mean- violence is, above all, a mental question: “Vio- while, the majority of those around them limit lent interaction is all the more difficult because themselves to supporting the violence, spur- winning a fight depends on upsetting the ene- ring it on and clamoring for its consummation, my’s rhythms (…)” (op. cit., 80). “[Moral hol- without themselves being able to overcome the iday] is like an altered state of consciousness “tension/fear” that stops them from engaging (…)” (op. cit., 100). This is not a problem which in direct violence. The first part of the book civilization tends to stamp out: “(…) violence deals with the “dirty secrets” (worriers who re- is not primordial, and civilization does not fuse to fight, panicking individuals who com- tame it; the opposite is much near the truth” mit acts of heroism, tough guys who seek out (op. cit., 29). weak targets for their violence, etc.) of professional associations or other forms of grouping. Collins’ explanation, centered on a morality The more “civilized” classes, as a means of so- particular to interactive contexts, is inconsis- cial distinction, organize methods of moraliz- tent: he suggests that human nature is, above ing the exercise of violence. They seek to con- all, anti-violent, yet, at the same time, affirms trol violence through rituals, rules, etiquette, that “Eradicating violence entirely is unrealis- clear separation between the agents of violence tic” (op. cit., 466). What might prevent a realis- and the public, segregation by status, as in du- tic prospect of an end to violence? If he did not els, entertainment and sports, for example (op. study the movements against violence, why did cit., 4-5). Ultimately, the consequences of vio- Collins draw the conclusion that eradicating it lence depend more on the ability of one party is “unrealistic”? to impose its emotional control than on their material and technical resources. Emotional energy defines the likelihood of engaging in violent action and of victory; it is reinforced by victory; goes into decline in defeat. Theoretical limits of the sociology of violence First, both Wieviorka and Collins study the perpetrators of violent actions and the social forces that support them in those actions, with- The dynamics of interaction are what trig- out giving the same importance to the victims ger violence (op. cit., 148). Collins cites coor- and to those who organize resistance to that Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 151 António Pedro de Andrade Dores violence; therefore, they do not consider the emancipatory aspirations in the fight against acts of violence in their entirety. Is there not a violence (Wolfe, Wekerle and Scott, 1997; pushing away of the more socially isolated, less AAVV, 2013).) visible victims in this theoretical blindness? Is this not a reinforcement of silencing the de- Third, as it happens with sociology in gen- feated? The ancestral culture of blaming the eral (Therborn, 2006a:3), the authors do not victims has permanent consequences which give much attention to the vital nor existential affect, above all, stigmatized social groups such dimensions of individuals, groups and societ- as women. These groups are deprived of re- ies. Wieviorka and Collins concentrate their sources with which to protect themselves and attention on power relations, which are often of an active voice (which sociology can help to violent. Paradoxically, they exclude the State actuate, if sociologists are willing to assume the from the power equation. Excluded is also any costs of association with the defeated). consideration of historical power relations and of non-modern societies. (Wieviorka is explicit Second, the authors do not study institu- in this respect, in using the first chapter to sit- tional violence, as if it were distinctive in nature uate the type of violence he wants to address: from all other types of violence. ”The subject of the violence specific to the era that starts in the this book is not state violence” says Wieviorka 1980s) To Wieviorka the power that matters is (2005:281), despite including an entire chapter that which is constituted into Touraine’s sub- on the subject (op. cit., 47-80). Collins, in turn, ject; to Collins it is the power of overcoming opted for starting his study of violence with a the emotional barrier of “tension/fear” con- study of social interactions, telling us that civi- nected to potential violence. With this, prob- lization –and the state– seems to have increased ably unconsciously, they naturalize the social the likelihood of an individual experiencing vi- differences between the most powerful social olence. To know more we will have to wait for entities, those in a position to constitute them- his macro-sociological analysis. Meanwhile, he selves as historical actors, those who may be ca- recognizes that, in certain circumstances, the pable to accumulate sufficient emotional ener- victims play an important role in the process of gy to be agents/authors of violent acts, and the violence, when they attune with the aggressor less powerful social entities. Social differences in a subordinate manner (Collins, 2008, p. 8, fixed as if cultural heritage, competencies, ca- 26, 281; Dores, 2009, pp. 302-303). (As shown pabilities and dispositions were not a social below, a better understanding of the implica- constructs resulting from the conditions of tions of this failure to address institutional vi- birth, life experiences and social circumstanc- olence can be had by contrasting sociological es of each individual; neutralized as if each one theories to frameworks with liberating and were not required to conform to social roles Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 152 Violence in society of gender, ethnicity, class, nationality. Pre-es- protagonists (Collins, 2008:20). Based on their tablished roles through which are produced inquiries, both authors recommend particular expectations of behavior in violent situations, forms of social control to be employed by the against which the person is measured as a man state against violence (Wieviorka, 2005:314-5; or a woman, as strong and courageous or weak Collins, 2008:21), having excluded institution- and cowardly, as one who credibly threatens al violence from their observational horizons. retaliation or one who cannot do it. Fifth, for both authors, each in its own way, Fourth, in spite of recognizing the extreme violence is not natural in society. For Wievior- variety of violent phenomena and their impor- ka, society results, at each moment, from the tance, as well as the absence of a sociological actions of the subjects (historical actors) and debate proportionate to these factors, neither is destroyed by the violence of the anti-sub- of the authors preoccupies himself with under- jects: “the notion of the subject includes or, standing and explaining the collaboration of at the very least, implies its opposite, (…) the social theory with the construction of “social anti-subject (…)” (Wieviorka, 2005:287). Al- secrets” (see Dores and Preto, 2013:116-121), though there is to take into consideration, as in this case, the taboo hanging over violence. the author does in his typology (ibid: 293-301), Wieviorka affirms the necessity to come out the intermediate subject types. In his view there of the restricted field of social theory, to the are two types of socially regulated conflicts: historical and psychosocial “difficulties of con- the constructive violence of new, progressive structing the self as subject” (2005:67), in or- social relations, and merely destructive, an- der to undertake a (normative) study of and tisocial violence. For Collins, the core of the intervention on the subject (which can be ei- interpretation of violence is the negation of its ther individual, collective, communitarian or being natural. His principal conclusion is that social). That is to say, “exploring the processes violence is not easy; it results from an uncom- and mechanisms whereby the subject of vio- mon, not spontaneous effort: “Not violent in- lence, be it individual or collective, is formed dividuals, but violent situations (…) situations and acts; considering it as subject, even if vir- which shape the emotions and acts of individu- tual, in order to understand as much as one can als who step inside them” (Collins 2008:1). An the work that such a subject does on itself (…)” individual’s natural and spontaneous tendency (Wieviorka, 2005:218). In turn, Collins’ pro- is to avoid violence, not to provoke it. What is posal is hyper specialized in interactive pro- artificial is the construction of circumstances cesses, without considering the symbolic part which entail the violent action of individuals: of violence and with less attention to the social “(…) most of the time quarrelling is normal, contexts than to the interaction between the regularized, limited. (…) what are the special Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 153 António Pedro de Andrade Dores circumstances that take some of them over the The issue of violence provokes strong emo- ultimate limit into actual violence?” (Collins tions (taboos, fears, mystifications, accumula- 2008:338). Wieviorka sees modes of “organiz- tions of emotional energy, traumas) associated ing” conflict as the way to maintain the soli- with processes of personal and social trans- darity indispensable to the endurance of a soci- formation. Social theory does not marshal ety. Collins sees the costs of releasing violence, the conditions to treat this issue in a scientific the costs of overcoming the tension/fear that manner. Among the reasons for this is its dif- the prospect of violence elicits in each human ficulty in establishing some type of reasonably being, as being the greatest potential source of complete object of study, as seen above. Anoth- violence control. They are divided by human er problem is the difficulty social theory has in nature’s dilemma which perennially opposes exposing how violence is used by patriarchal Hobbes to Rousseau. and state powers. So different from each other, what do the In matters of violence, women tend to be approaches to violence by Collins and Wiev- victims. They have, however, been protago- iorka have in common? The analysis shows, nists of unique social transformations (Ther- a) the difficulty in finding a consensus among born, 2006b), a definitive force in modern civ- sociologists as to a definition of “society”; b) a ilization. Therefore, the in-depth study of the synthesis of the work of both sociologists on women’s movement is fundamental not only to the state of the sociology of violence; c) an understanding the legacy of Western moderni- evaluation of the limitations common to both ty to humanity, but also to how those who are approaches; d) the distance between proposals most afflicted by the pains of violence may be for violence prevention and sociological theo- a transformative force in the quest to compre- ries; e) the profound relationship between vio- hend and move toward the prevention of vio- lence and collective consciousness; f) the ob- lence. stacles that inhibit current social theories; and g) the potential of the sociology of violence to More so than others, the women’s is a social serve as catalyst for updating the whole of so- movement centered on what Therborn saw as cial theory. “three fundamental dimensions of inequality, vital, existential, and resources inequality” The prevention of violence (2006a:3). Central to the processes of physical Organizing violence prevention without an and mental reproduction of people and soci- in depth discussion of the roles of gender and eties, the women represented in this move- state security forces in the construction of vio- ment include innumerable victims of local and lence is impracticable. global, family and institutional violence. This Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 154 Violence in society is a perspective that could inspire new socio- above became evident in any analysis of vio- logical approaches to violence, perhaps capa- lence prevention work, for example: ble of placing the ideas of society, women and violence, at the top of agendas, including those “The expression of violence is most com- of social theory. monly seen in the context of relationships” (Wolfe, Wekerle and Scott, 1997: The American family and the Ameri- x). “Current policies to address personal can home are perhaps as or more violent violence are outdated and superficial (…) than any other single American institu- Violence does not affect everybody equa- tion or setting (with the exception of the lly – it is ingrained in cultural expressions military, and only in time of war). [Ad- of power and inequality, and affects wo- ding, based on official statistics:] Ame- men, children, and minorities most signi- ricans run the greatest risk of physical ficantly” (ibid: xi, italics in original). injury in their own homes and by members of their own families (M. Strauss, R. From this perspective we are immediate- Gelles and S. Steinmetz, Behind Closed ly in another, very distinct world. We passed Doors — Violence in the American Fa- from the current public world – where, effec- mily, London, Sage Publications, 1988, tively, violence is not easy, as Collins notes, and p. 4). is above all a problem for the enforcement authorities who must contain the aggressors, as Yet women have been left out of the terms Wieviorka points out – to a private world, in of reference in dominant social theory, even which the victims seem defenseless and with where authors such as Giddens made an effort little possibility of recurring to the forces of to give epistemological and analytical empha- order in any meaningful way. By comparison sis to the study and observation of violence in to social theory, the work of violence preven- society (“There is a conspicuous absence (….): tion also has another ambition and depth: the feminists movements” Giddens, 1991:143). “Prevention of violence entails building on the Burawoy (2004:249) notes how attacks on the positive (through empowerment) in the context politics of social wellbeing, via “re-privatiza- of relationships, not just focusing on individual tion”, validate the social conditions for wom- weakness or deviance. (…) Youth are important en’s subordination to the demands of childcare resources and are part of the solution” (Wolfe, and dependence on someone else (generally a Wekerle and Scott, 1997: xii, italics in origi- man). nal). After all, aggressors and victims tend to know each other well, often being close family Both the potentials and problems described members. They are also both potential resourc- Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 155 António Pedro de Andrade Dores es for the prevention of violence, in different isolating one’s self or partner; limiting self or ways and capacities, obviously. It is not from partner’s gender roles (…) as well as physical the institutions, in practice little interested, or (…) and sexual abuse (…)” (Wolfe, Wekerle even complicit in the violence thus described, and Scott, 1997:9, italics in original). It is not that innovations and more efficiency in this only power and access to resources (reason, in- domain are likely to come. Despite it being terest, solidarity, identity) that cause violence. from them that the specialists expect the en- Even the least institutionalized levels of social ergy for violence prevention to originate, in life are densely permeated with violence. Both reality institutions generally serve to support intimate relations and any of the phases of so- the defensive strategies of specialists and insti- cialization and personality development know tutions pressured by the status quo. The people violence, independently of power games. From who live the processes of socialization are the the day-to-day emerge practices that either en- most interested in overcoming the situations of able or disable violence, however manifested. violence in which they are involved, they need This violence arises not only as aggression or but to feel free and supported to move in that defense, but also as forms of relating – as cases direction. of domestic and institutional violence demonstrate. By contrast to Wieviorka, who does not contest the popular conception of violence, For the victims it may be less dangerous to those who work directly in the field of violence let the opponent in a violent dispute win than prevention do not share the common under- to instigate their hatred through the humilia- standing of what constitutes it. Frequently, both tion of a defeat. It is also on this logic that the aggressors and victims develop a sense of lack efficiency of repression is based. Therefore, to of any responsibility for the violence; a sense what point is the transformation of aggressors that is altered only in the face of an external into victims of the state, or of the victims into authority, typically of the state. Further, victims avengers, efficient in the prevention of vio- often are participants of a game in which they lence? recurrently assume a cooperative role with the violent, be it by assuming a position against the “Rather than focusing on efficiency, cost, intervention and repression of the state by sid- safety, protection, or deviance, this perspec- ing with the aggressor, or by demanding that tive places a high emphasis on health promo- the state impose a sentence on the aggressor tion and empowerment (…) the importance (the collaboration being with state violence, in of attaining a balance between the abilities of this case). (…) violence is any attempt to con- the individual (or groups of individuals) and trol or dominate another person (…) such as the challenges and risks of the environment” Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 156 Violence in society (Wolfe, Wekerle and Scott, 1997:47). From this Reemtsma (2011:227-239) asks, how it is point of view, therefore, violence is not primar- possible to maintain confidence in those in- ily a struggle between parties. Rather, it is the stitutions after such traumatizing historical socially labored choice to valorize the dispute experiences, especially those in the first half of between distinctive forms of identity construc- the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st. tion, in the physical and political (or mental) And how to deal with inexplicable, magnetic, senses. exciting, contagious violence, as in moral holidays or riots? Will it be enough to develop our Strategies with which to confront the con- understanding of it to one day be possible to tradictions between social theory and the abolish violence, or will it always be necessary technicians of violence prevention, as well as to employ violence to avoid violence as is done the emerging problems of violence and how by the state? to avoid it fall into two main groups: violence or bargaining, war or diplomacy, force or cre- Is violence natural? ativity, imposition or liberation, conservatism Violence is not typical of male youths, Col- or emancipation. The problem for civiliza- lins notes. Violence is prevalent in domestic tion, in the sense prescribed by Norbert Elias settings and mainly practiced by children, he (1990) and further developed by Reemtsma writes. What happens is that force and the ca- (2011:408-415) is how to promote the second pacity for violence are among the few assets option and devalue the first. This is something available to youths without status (Collins, that cannot be done through the criminal jus- 2008:25-6). According to this author’s devel- tice method, that is, by isolating a specific sit- opmental psychology argument, genetic pre- uation involving an individual accused of, and disposition, which attributes to young males potential scapegoat for codified crimes, and greater likelihood of engaging in violence, ignoring all else: the victim and the social con- overlooks situational contexts (Collins, ibid: ditions that establish the contexts conducive 25). “(…) foundations for (…) violence are or- to the proliferation of violence in public, and ganized in childhood but are often activated in especially in private spaces. This type of judi- adolescence (…)” (Wolfe, Wekerle and Scott, cial process makes the state protagonist of a 1997:74, italics in original). That is, in appro- considered, retaliatory violent solution to the priate contexts, the bio-genetic potentialities violence allegedly perpetrated by the aggressor are molded in each person and in each inter- (not legitimized). In this way, the judicial, po- active group in function of values and past ex- lice and prison authorities have a monopoly on periences. Therefore, social contexts influence aggression, shielded by a repressive legitimacy, those potentialities, either by stimulating and as noted by Max Weber. affirming them or by negating them. For exam- Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 157 António Pedro de Andrade Dores ple, alienation and stigmatization can provoke tained in the form of social syndromes, such aggressive behaviors. as poverty traps (Torry, 2013:161-168), stigmatization (Goffman 2004:20-30), or the “revolv- “Youth must be supported with the informa- ing door” of prisons (Agency, n.d.). They are tion and skills needed to be actively involved in chains of social processes of mimetic aggres- working toward prosocial change in the youth sion/victimization (Collins 2005), sustained subculture and in their broader environment” by culturally constructed inequalities imposed (Wolfe, Wekerle and Scott, 1997:64). In reality, through security institutions (law enforcement not only the youths, but also children are edu- and social). The victims of these syndromes cated to understand society as a source of op- are produced from an early age and crave har- portunities or as a source of oppression. “(…) monization – attuning – with those who might recent research suggests that abuse behavior is recognize and accept them in their tacit inferi- primarily learned through the same-sex par- ority. They may look to harmonize with chari- ent (…), identifying that males would be most table people and institutions, the social sector detrimentally affected by being victimized by or the punitive state – there are even prisoners their father figure(s) and witnessing male as- who refuse to leave prison and ask to stay after saults of their mothers” (Wolfe, Wekerle and completing the sentence. Scott, 1997:109). Through their educators and the experiences they share with them, children Social workers regularly refer to the ma- learn what to see as benefits and drawbacks of nipulative character of those on assistance or violence. incarcerated: they resist occupational and social integration programs offered by the insti- If nature is understood as merely an indi- tutions. This distrust of the people overseen by vidual’s genetic predisposition, it is difficult to the state justifies the harshness of the correc- see how it would explain the common need to tive approaches adopted by the professionals validate masculinity through violence. Cultur- dealing with, and the entire social administra- al traits explain a great deal of the violence in tion of the poor - for their own good, of course. any society (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009:132). However, in many cases, “nothing works” Traits acquired not only through family and (Martinson, 1974) peers, but also through institutions, where it might be easier to ensure the transmission of Social syndromes are difficult to recognize values more conducive to violence prevention. by those involved. Even extremely qualified and distant observers can fail to recognize There are practices of social isolation, of them. António José Saraiva (1994:211-292) violence, of incarceration, that are self-sus- points out that failing in the work of a French Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 158 Violence in society historian who took the accounts of crimes in is affected by the balance that each institution Inquisition records for credible descriptions finds between the interests that colonize it and of social life. Saraiva points out that the Court its function of representing social values. of the Holy Office was, among other things, a source of prestige and income for its officials With field work on violence prevention, and collaborators, to the point that they in- “long-term follow-up (…) indicated that only vented crimes where there were none - using the normative beliefs approach consistently the famous torture techniques to obtain con- predicts future drug and alcohol abuse. Nei- fessions, as well as rewarding denunciation and ther resistance skills nor knowledge alone were prosecution witnesses. This means that the ac- significant predictors (…) of substance use” counts about the criminal events in the Inqui- (Wolfe, Wekerle and Scott, 1997:125). There- sition records should not be taken as actually fore, education, that is, the example of signif- reflecting facts. They might be examples of the icant people and institutions, is predictive of social imagination of the era, produced for the behavior. This imbues sociologists with a great purpose of domination, but cannot be reliable responsibility, as they have a function in the testimony of the social practices condemned field of violence prevention that they are not by the tribunal. All the more so given that once exercising. the Inquisition was abolished and the acts under its jurisdiction stopped being persecuted Abolishing violence is unrealistic, because it and criminalized, the formerly condemned is an integral part of life. However, the mobiliz- practices were never heard of again. With the ing and demobilizing of personal, institutional end of the prosecutions, the condemned Jew- and social violence is a function of values, ed- ish rituals were never again mentioned, prob- ucational methods, institutional involvements ably for already not being practiced for many and particularly tense historical contexts in years prior. which fear either spreads or is defeated, as processes of liberation and emancipation either do Institutional autonomy is built on the pro- or do not take place. cesses of resisting social interference with its own interests. What happens is a privatization, What is going on with social theory? to a greater or lesser extent, of certain sectors This is the question, presented by Mouzelis (often transformed into labyrinthine struc- (1995), who recognizes the distance between tures, facilitating the defensive stance of the sociological thought and the realities to which functionaries and, perhaps, rendering them it pertains. How is it possible to begin to theo- more vulnerable to interests that come to con- rize violence starting from conceptualizations, trol the directorship). But the whole of society such as those of Wieviorka or Collins, so dis- Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 159 António Pedro de Andrade Dores tant from the conceptualizations informing theory is caught in a centripetal process of hy- how the social services understand the vio- per-specialization around an object of study lence they work to prevent? –society– the definition of which ends up, as seen above, not being quite clear. To synthesize, Mouzelis identifies a continuity of the principal epistemological prob- Nevertheless, there are interesting and chal- lems between the hegemonic phase of Par- lenging proposals to deal with violence, to pre- sons’ structural-functionalism and the current vent it, at the level of socialization and develop- phase of post-modern challenge to that para- ment processes, as well as everyday life. Start- digm: in spite of the general criticism of Tal- ing from cases of child sexual abuse, an analysis cott Parsons’ contributions to social theory, the by activists in the field set out a period of five most referenced sociologists, Elias, Bourdieu, generations to achieve the objective of prevent- Giddens, says Mouzelis, were unable to over- ing intimate, personal, family and community come the combination of reductionism and violence (AAVV, 2013). The authoring collec- reification as an epistemological problem. To tive concluded that the principle obstacles to the identification of this problem are added the violence prevention are rooted and hidden in contributions of Lahire (2003, 2012), namely everyday, personal relationships. To attain suf- in denouncing the false oneness of people and ficient awareness of these obstacles to permit the world preconceived by Bourdieu’s theories, overcoming them is a long-term project. All as one of the most qualified representatives of the more so because the methods of state in- contemporary social theory. Bourdieu’s theo- tervention, in the context of social and crime retical “oneness” preconception arises primar- policies, are not efficient and can be counter- ily as a consequence of an overvaluing of the productive to the prevention of violence. dimensions of power (which in practice subordinate dimensions of gender, ethnicity, class, Elsewhere, starting from a reflection on the culture and age to power). This assessment is current socialization and development pro- also made by Therborn in his study of social cesses, Acosta (2013) argues that those pro- inequality (2006:3). cesses are the cause of violence against the environment and populations. He calls our atten- According to this diagnosis, social theory, tion to the rights of nature: giving priority to although drawing from very diverse traditions, harmonizing the interests of people, animals, ended up closing in on itself. With the alien- plants and the environment rather than to the ation of the social sciences from other scienc- struggle for control over the exploitation of es on one side, and the alienation between the non-renewable (mineral, livestock, agricultur- social sciences themselves on the other, social al, biodiversity and workforce) resources. To Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 160 Violence in society Acosta, an economist, the centuries of struggle Social theory’s centripetal strategy results against colonial oppression by the indigenous in an academic space defended by increasing- people of the Andes to preserve a philosophy ly more specialized theories. Theories that are of life centered on harmony within society and very detailed but more and more disconnected with the planet, points out a possible path to- from each other, as well as from practical work, wards a peaceful humanity (Santos, 2014). both professional and of activism. By contrast to theoretical work, in the practice of social in- All of which is to say: the seeds that may tervention, looking at real life situations, it is come to germinate in the turned soil of the much more difficult to extract and separate so- current Western financial crisis (in the short ciological/analytical dimensions. term, but also by the civilizational crisis in the long term) were sown many years ago and face a long and laborious course of many decades or even centuries to bear fruit. How can a temporally limited perspective (one would say reductionist and reified) such as a social theory concentrated on the modern era, which at best reaches back to the origins of modernity (only 200 years old), encompass the social nature of violence, both present and ancestral? All of sociology’s disciplines and sub-disciplines need to collaborate with each other and with professionals in the fields they address. The conditions for the social sciences to open up to each other must be pursued, developing a centrifugal epistemological process also capable of letting in other experiences and knowledge – both scientific and normative (Santos, 1989; Dores, 2013) What the sociology of violence needs to In the short term, however, violence is not do As pointed out by Wieviorka (2005: 217- a minor question. Taboo that it is, it must be 221), the sociology of violence requires think- tackled if sociology is to understand what di- ing outside of the safety boundaries sociology rection societies, institutions and peoples are as set for itself. It is especially necessary to rec- likely to take. Why did Bouthoul’s impressive ognize the rootedness of human violence and sociological treatise on war (1991) not elicit modernity’s incapacity to contain it within engagement or further discussion? The lack satisfactory parameters. The growing repug- of apparent impact of his proposals for the re- nance towards violence (Elias, 1990) has not form of social theory could be due to sociolo- been enough to prevent it. For example, the gy’s short-sighted perspective. As Hirschmann increasing intolerance for gender violence has (1997) argues, sociology supports ideologically resulted in more prison sentences, but has not dated social and political interests that make enabled us to satisfactorily prevent sexual or violence a secret, masking the drives (e.g. domestic violence. greed, ambition) involved in allegedly rational Pensamiento Americano Vol. 7 - No. 13 • Julio-Diciembre 2014 • Corporación Universitaria Americana • Barranquilla, Colombia • ISSN: 2027-2448 • pp. 144-163 http://coruniamericana.edu.co/publicaciones/ojs/index.php/pensamientoamericano 161 António Pedro de Andrade Dores capitalist interests. Such a social theory is cen- ural to the human species, as made evident by tered on a present which is isolated from the observations of child behavior. Being natural historical flux, and therefore reductionist and is not the same thing as being commonplace, reifying. It is a social theory focused on ques- easy or spontaneous, for the simple reason that tions of power yet neglecting the processes that the human species is by nature highly depen- sustain that power (at the vital and existential dent on socialization and sociability, even (or sociological levels). It is a pre-scientific theory, especially) in violent contexts: “Violent inter- pre-paradigmatic and subordinate to conjec- action is all the more difficult because win- ture (Nunes, 1973). ning a fight depends on upsetting the enemy´s rhythms (…)” (Collins, ibid: 80) “the basic ten- In the long term, the five generations envisaged by Generation Five (AAVV, 2013) to es- sion can be called non-solidarity entrainment” (ibid: 82). tablish practices for the prevention of violence is a period of time similar to the historical life Identifying and overcoming the taboo that of social theory. Such a timespan would allow inhibits the development the sociology of vio- for the establishment and development of a lence is an ideological task. Its potential cog- policy of openness to science, ideology and nitive value can open new opportunities to history within social theory. imagine a better way out of the civilizational crisis that we are living through. 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