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)
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
