The Sociology of War and Violence

Описание

Introduction: war, violence and the social
The human relationship with violence and war is complex and paradoxical.
On the one hand there is near universal condemnation of violent acts, which
is reflected in the strong normative prohibitions against the physical harm of
fellow humans and, as such, is underpinned by legal systems all around the
world. On the other hand, our popular culture, novels, history textbooks,
mass media, art, games, children’s toys and many other everyday outlets are
saturated with images and instruments of violence. Although no sound person would openly advocate organised killing of other human beings, there
is a palpable and widespread fascination and even obsession with violence
and warfare. Just skimming the popular bestsellers of the last several decades it becomes obvious that there is an almost inexhaustible hunger for
books, documentaries and motion picture portrayals of violent movements
and warmongering individuals.1
Whereas it seems there can never be enough
books and films on Hitler and the Nazis, the works and deeds of Gandhi and
Mother Theresa draw very modest audiences. While peace and brotherly love
might be the proclaimed ideals, it is war and violence that attract popular
attention and fascination.
All of this could suggest that a human being is a hypocritical creature
and that below the surface of civilised manners and altruistic ethics lays a
dormant beast that awaits the first opportunity to inflict injury on its fellow
humans. Such a view, in one or another form, has dominated much of social
and political thought from the early works of Machiavelli and Hobbes to
the contemporary realist and the neo-Darwinian interpretations of ‘human
nature’. In Machiavelli’s (1997 [1532]: 65) own words: ‘it may be said of men
in general that they are ungrateful and fickle, dissemblers, avoiders of danger,
and greedy of gain’. In a similar way, for Hobbes (1998 [1651]) our original
‘state of nature’ was characterised by endemic violence involving ferocious
1 For example Gardner and Resnick’s research (1996) on the 2,000 programmes broadcasted on the
major US television networks between 1973 and 1993 shows that over 60 per cent featured violent
action and more than 50 per cent of the programmes’ leading characters were involved in violence.

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