Violence and Meaning
Violence and Meaning

Author: Lode Lauwaert

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2019-11-23

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 3030271730

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This edited collection explores the problem of violence from the vantage point of meaning. Taking up the ambiguity of the word ‘meaning’, the chapters analyse the manner in which violence affects and in some cases constitutes the meaningful structure of our lifeworld, on individual, social, religious and conceptual levels. The relationship between violence and meaning is multifaceted, and is thus investigated from a variety of different perspectives within the continental tradition of philosophy, including phenomenology, post-structuralism, critical theory and psychoanalysis. Divided into four parts, the volume explores diverging meanings of the concept of violence, as well as transcendent or religious violence- a form of violence that takes place between humanity and the divine world. Going on to investigate instances of immanent and secular violence, which occur at the level of the group, community or society, the book concludes with an exploration of violence and meaning on the individual level: violence at the level of the self, or between particular persons. With its focus on the manifold of relations between violence and meaning, as well as its four part focus on conceptual, transcendent, immanent and individual violence, the book is both multi-directional and multi-layered.

The Meanings of Violence
The Meanings of Violence

Author: Elizabeth A Stanko

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-08-18

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1134418221

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The media often makes sense of violence in terms of 'randomness' and 'evil'. But the reality, as the contributors to The Meanings of Violence demonstrate, is far more complex. Drawing on the diverse subject matter of the ESRC's Violence Research Programme - from interviews with killers to discussions with children in residential facilities - this volume locates the meaning of violence within social contexts, identities and social divisions. It aims to break open our way of speaking about violence and demonstrate the value in exploring the multiple, contradictory and complex meanings of violence in society. The wide range of topics include: *Prostitute and client violence *Violence amongst young people at school and on the streets *Violence in bars and nightclubs *Violence in prison *Racist and homophobic violence This book will be fascinating reading for students of criminology and academics working in the field of violent crime.

The Concept of Violence
The Concept of Violence

Author: Mark Vorobej

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-26

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1317286030

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This study focuses on conceptual questions that arise when we explore the fundamental aspects of violence. Mark Vorobej teases apart what is meant by the term ‘violence,’ showing that it is a surprisingly complex, unwieldy and highly contested concept. Rather than attempting to develop a fixed definition of violence, Vorobej explores the varied dimensions of the phenomenon of violence and the questions they raise, addressing the criteria of harm, agency, victimhood, instrumentality, and normativity. Vorobej uses this multifaceted understanding of violence to engage with and complicate existing approaches to the essential nature of violence: first, Vorobej explores the liberal tradition that ties violence to the intentional infliction of harm, and that grows out of a concern for protecting individual liberty or autonomy. He goes on to explore a more progressive tradition – one that is usually associated with the political left – that ties violence to the bare occurrence of harm, and that is more concerned with an equitable promotion of human welfare than with the protection of individual liberty. Finally, the book turns to a tradition that operates with a more robust normative characterization of violence as a morally flawed (or forbidden) response to the ontological fact of (human) vulnerability. This nuanced and in-depth study of the nature of violence will be especially relevant to researchers in applied ethics, peace studies and political philosophy.

Histories of Violence
Histories of Violence

Author: Brad Evans

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-01-15

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1783602406

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While there is a tacit appreciation that freedom from violence will lead to more prosperous relations among peoples, violence continues to be deployed for various political and social ends. Yet the problem of violence still defies neat description, subject to many competing interpretations. Histories of Violence offers an accessible yet compelling examination of the problem of violence as it appears in the corpus of canonical figures – from Hannah Arendt to Frantz Fanon, Michel Foucault to Slavoj Žižek – who continue to influence and inform contemporary political, philosophical, sociological, cultural, and anthropological study. Written by a team of internationally renowned experts, this is an essential interrogation of post-war critical thought as it relates to violence.

A Pattern of Violence
A Pattern of Violence

Author: David Alan Sklansky

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2021-03-23

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0674259696

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A law professor and former prosecutor reveals how inconsistent ideas about violence, enshrined in law, are at the root of the problems that plague our entire criminal justice system—from mass incarceration to police brutality. We take for granted that some crimes are violent and others aren’t. But how do we decide what counts as a violent act? David Alan Sklansky argues that legal notions about violence—its definition, causes, and moral significance—are functions of political choices, not eternal truths. And these choices are central to failures of our criminal justice system. The common distinction between violent and nonviolent acts, for example, played virtually no role in criminal law before the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet to this day, with more crimes than ever called “violent,” this distinction determines how we judge the seriousness of an offense, as well as the perpetrator’s debt and danger to society. Similarly, criminal law today treats violence as a pathology of individual character. But in other areas of law, including the procedural law that covers police conduct, the situational context of violence carries more weight. The result of these inconsistencies, and of society’s unique fear of violence since the 1960s, has been an application of law that reinforces inequities of race and class, undermining law’s legitimacy. A Pattern of Violence shows that novel legal philosophies of violence have motivated mass incarceration, blunted efforts to hold police accountable, constrained responses to sexual assault and domestic abuse, pushed juvenile offenders into adult prisons, encouraged toleration of prison violence, and limited responses to mass shootings. Reforming legal notions of violence is therefore an essential step toward justice.

Phenomenological Reflections on Violence
Phenomenological Reflections on Violence

Author: James Dodd

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2017-04-21

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 1351814893

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This book’s six essays are guided by a skeptical philosophical attitude about the meaning of violence that refuses to conform to the exigencies of essence and the stable patterns of lived experience. They are readings as much as they are reflections; attempts at interpretation as much as they are attempts to push concepts of violence to their limits. They draw upon a range of different authors and historical moments, but without any attempt to reduce them into a series of examples elucidating a comprehensive theory. The aim is to follow a path of distinctively episodic and provisional modes of thinking and reflection that offers a potential glimpse at how violence can be understood.

The Value of Violence
The Value of Violence

Author: Benjamin Ginsberg

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Published: 2013-09-17

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1616148322

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This provocative thesis calls violence the driving force not just of war, but of politics and even social stability. Though violence is commonly deplored, political scientist Ginsberg argues that in many ways it is indispensable, unavoidable, and valuable. Ginsberg sees violence manifested in society in many ways. "Law-preserving violence" (using Walter Benjamin's phrase) is the chief means by which society preserves social order. Behind the security of a stable society are the blunt instruments of the police, prisons, and the power of the bureaucratic state to coerce and manipulate. Ginsberg also discusses violence as a tool of social change, whether used in outright revolution or as a means of reform in public protests or the threat of insurrection. He notes that even groups committed to nonviolent tactics rely on the violent reactions of their opponents to achieve their ends. And to avoid the threat of unrest, modern states resort to social welfare systems (a prudent use of the carrot instead of the stick). Emphasizing the unavoidability of violence to create major change, Ginsberg points out that few today would trade our current situation for the alternative had our forefathers not resorted to the violence of the American Revolution and the Civil War.

Violence and Social Justice
Violence and Social Justice

Author: V. Bufacchi

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2007-10-23

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 0230246419

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Violence and injustice are two major political problems facing the world today. Offering a fresh, innovative analysis of the concept of violence, this book presents an original insight into the nature of injustice. Addressing three key questions, it forces us to rethink the scope and aims of a theory of social justice.

Violence
Violence

Author: Michel Wieviorka

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2009-01-28

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 1446249557

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"Violence is sadly central to social life and yet oddly marginal to social theory. It’s there in the background, not least as Weber defines the state by its monopoly of legitimate violence. But as the example suggests, it’s the control of violence that looms large. Michel Wieviorka does a considerable service by calling our attention to violence itself, and to the theories like those of Sorel and Fanon who took it seriously. Wieviorka addresses the state, the media, and social movements. But perhaps his most important contributions come in examination of the ways in which violence informs and is informed by different dimensions of subjectivity. Thoughtfully intertwining classical theory and contemporary observation this is an engaging book, and one that should spark much new thought and research." - Craig Calhoun, London School of Economics and Political Science Violence is an ever-present phenomenon - obstinately resistant to interpretation. This text offers new tools to understand and analyze violence, presenting a new approach based on the subjectivity of the actor, and on the relation between violence and meaning. The first section discusses violence and conflict, violence and the state, and violence and the media. This provides critical context for developing a new paradigm - in the second section - that gives more importance to the concept of the subject than more classical paradigms. The text distinguishes different possible relations between the meaning of action and violence and proposes a new typology of the subjects involved in violence. It gives particular emphasis to discussing cruelty, violence for violence sake, and ′pure′ violence. The relationship between conflict and violence; the place of victims, and the role of the media all shape new forms of violence. This text is an engaged response to these new forms that presents a convincing interpretation and new tools that will be essential for researchers in the social sciences.