Violence - initial questions

                       During this week I had the opportunity to read and analyze a text entitled "Violence and its sociological critique."

                Inserted in the theme of Globalization, Social Justice and Human Rights, the text is essentially looking at violence in a scientific manner.

                According to the author, violence exists, it is present in societies and should be studied so that it does not become excessive or inappropriate. We should study it as a whole  , without underestimating any part of it and this in itself reminds us of Durkheim and the study of social facts because it advocated the study of social phenomena as a whole. Violence as social fact , that it is, should thus be understood as a whole, because ignoring parts of it , we will never come to an objective  study  adequated to reality.

                Violence can then be regarded as an object of study and therefore can be classified and typified in many ways, so we have: political violence, economic, social or even cultural. The author moves in the text with empirical examples of all these kind of violence, but I will go straight to the main point that is,all types of violence are connected, related and can influence one another or even originate a new one, a new type. 

                Continuing the analysis of the text, after these introductory remarks about violence as an object of study, the author proceeds to analyze this issue sociologically.

                It starts by addressing the vision of Giddens (1985) on violence related to sociology, referring and summarizing in essence a study that itself argues that sociology has a problem of lack of adherence to social realities, which leads to replace traditional social dimensions used by sociologists (political, economic, social and cultural) to others as capitalism, industrialism, social control and militarization, however, these had no  followers, and here the author of the text proposes a name for these new categories that is, contributing to the modernization process. These contributes have associated manifested social contradictions such as labor movements and workers, peace movements and anti-war movements, environmentalists, etc..

                Studying violence through the prism of Giddens puts a question ; studying violence, or  violence processes, as something separated from everything that is, not studying violence as a whole inserted in a and in a context but apart from that, or studying violence as something inserted in a context, in a society, produced and reproduced in the same and constructor of the modern society. The latter will thus have to take into account a reorganization between various disciplines (criminology, sociology, engineering work, ...) to study violence.

                The author concludes that Giddens's view on violence is dysfunctional and demonstrates this by declaring its most obvious malfunction, the exclusion of the female world, one of the first and most important social differentiations. Giddens in his conception of violence does not understand that the evolution of society has been given, considerating the evolution of simpler societies and, by this logic the issues of women's empowerment and gender studies, among other issues that Giddens does not study, would be unsolved and  that in his theory he neglects ,which leaves several questions open, to be solved. .

                The text in question ends with an exhibition about violence in sociology by pointing out that there are parts or fractions of violence that are neglected by sociology (Giddens this view), such as violence against women, children, the elderly, and other marginalized groups of people.

                As a way of conclusion, the author develops a new concept called "states of mind" to make us see that violence can be understood as a soul, as a state of mind that incorporates suddenly, for whatever reason, a man or woman and / makes the act a certain way. According to this definition of violence, to avoid it one just needs to have self-control that can be able to resist  the entrance of this spirit.

                The classification of violence must also take into account the social values ​​of the society where it occurs so that you can understand the violence integrated into the dynamics and social processes.

                Violence can also be understood as a set of procedures particularly social and coercive energy, which if used properly may be used for useful work. Viewed this way, violence will not be a harmful thing but a constant risk of misuse of social activities and the associated energy, controlled by habitus, institutions, education, etc..

                Thus, in fair measure, violence can be seen as a good thing if it is properly channeled and dispensed in the same energies serve to provide play and the common good in society and their populations and with this, the company evolve and become more just and humane for all citizens.

                We can conclude with this text that violence can and should be understood as an object of study that can and need to be studied because violence  is present in societies and is a social fact. This should be studied as a whole, taking into account their various dimensions or classifying.

                The violence is intertwined with sociology and can only be studied in view of its positive and negative aspects and all its dimensions. This way you can devise a scheme which could be useful for future studies in this area:

Violence - sociology - social services - political (state)

                However, the important thing is not to finish with all opposing forces and the struggles for better conditions or to reach consensus (which can lead to violence, without it being inappropriate or harm someone) but to find a balance so that cohesion and social life develops and evolves by meeting the common good for society, even if all this seems utopic now, hopefully that's what  we should  work to.

Margarida Piçarra Navalhinhas