W5 – Violence and emotions

• Is aggression and violence an expression of rational

choice or emotions?
 Learning Targets
1. To identify different types of violence.

2. To be aware of the definitions of violence.

3. To examine different motives for violence.

4. To understand the gendered nature of violence.

 1. What is violence?
Problematic – some defined as a legal and others as an
illegal act. How do we examine it? How do we explain
it?
 What is violence?

Private interpersonal violence

 What is violence?

23-year-old Erwiana Sulistyaningsih – Indonesian domestic helper

in HK who was physically and emotionally abused by her employer.
1/2014
What is violence?

Interpersonal street violence

What is violence?
What is violence?

Collective violence – religious

What is violence?

Collective violence – political

 What is violence?

Criminology generally differentiates interpersonal

violence from collective and state violence.

Distinction between “legitimate force” &

“homicide”
Intent is part of legal tests in homicide but
resides in grey area in hazardous working
conditions
 2. Defining violence

Intentional but unwanted infliction of physical harm on others.

Intentional threat or actual physical harm and associated with

emotional, psychological, sexual, physical and/or material damage.

Physical, psychological and emotional harm and linked to abuse of

power.

(Ray 2009; Eisner 2009)

 Violence defined

Bullying Stalking Intimidation Assault Killing

Continuum of threatening & harmful behaviors

 What is violence?

Are there features common to war, protest,

domestic violence, robbery, murder, assault, etc.?

Is there a way to define violence that

encompasses and accommodates these different
types of violence?
 What is violence? Defining features
 Organized • Disorganized
 Collective • Individual
 Rational • Irrational
 Instrumental
• Expressive

Both ends of the spectrum involve:

Personally experienced
Evokes emotions
Embedded in social relations
Involves some purpose, not meaningless
 Types of violence
(Eisner 2009, Uses of Violence, IJVC, Table 1, p. 43)

Childhood aggression Punishments

Bullying, fights Parental corporal punishment,
State capital punishment, flogging
Violence in non-state societies
Ritualized fights Organized Private Violence
Revenge killings, feuds Hitting, beating, killing subordinates
Violent self help Organized piracy and robbery
Torture Assassinations
Human Sacrifice
Legitimate & Illegitimate State Violence
Interpersonal Violence Torture, War, Massacres, Executions,
Assault Concentration Camps, Police use of force
Rape
Robbery Organized Political violence
Homicide Civil war, extortion of protection rents,
Child Abuse terrorism, riots, vigilante violence
Domestic Violence
 What is violence?
Do these commonalities mean its possible to explain all these
types of violence with one theory/perspective?

Can we explain macro level changes over time,

cultural differences across societies and take into
account micro-level and situational causes of crime?
Ideas and Practices
In • Violence is seen as part of
everyday life
Traditional Society
• Public Celebration of violence
inflicted on others
• Why?
Quartering
For treason hanged, drawn and quartered

1. Dragged on a hurdle (a wooden frame) to the place of

execution.

2. Hanged by the neck for a short time or until almost dead

3. Disembowelled and the genitalia and entrails burned before

the condemned’s eyes

4. The body divided into four parts, then beheaded (quartered).

The five parts put on public display in different parts of the city,
to deter would-be traitors who had not seen the execution.

After 1814, the convict would be hanged until dead and the
mutilation would be performed post-mortem. Gibbeting was later
abolished in England in 1843, while drawing and quartering was
abolished in 1870.
 Torture: Public Spectacle

Why a theatre?
Reflect the violence of
the crime onto the
body for all to witness.

State takes vengeance

•Hong Kong
Executions started in 1879 – 1937 (sent to Stanley thereafter), last
execution in 1966 but repealed in 1993.
From quartering to hanging to firing squad to gas chamber to electrocution to
lethal injection
From public to private
 The Civilizing
Process - Elias

Examined materials on
• Stricter control over
etiquette from middle ages to impulses and emotions in
1930s - changes in the
habitus (personal habits
public and private life
eating, sleeping, sex)
 The Civilizing
Process - Elias

Examined materials on
etiquette from middle ages to
1930s - changes in the
habitus (personal habits
eating, sleeping, sex)
 The Civilizing
Process - Elias

Examined materials on
etiquette from middle ages to
1930s - changes in the
habitus (personal habits
eating, sleeping, sex)
 Emotions, Violence & Modernity –
Civilizing process has led to a decrease in
interpersonal violence (Norbert Elias)

As civilization advances, we have witnessed stricter control

over natural impulses, drives and emotions

Shame and embarrassment over our animalistic nature (body,

elimination, sexuality)

Find ways to hide or control or animalistic activities in social

life

Including controlling one’s emotions & violent outbursts

 Emotions, Violence & Modernity –
Civilizing process has led to a decrease in
interpersonal violence (Norbert Elias)

Traditional Society Modern Society

• Celebration of violence • Public intolerance and
inflicted on others revulsion to violence and
• Public acts related to the cruelty
body are culturally • Shame and embarrassment
acceptable (sex, defecate) around acts involving the
• As war is ongoing, pleasure body, become private.
in destruction and • State assumes control &
execution of others. regulation of violence.
 Violence & Modernity – Civilizing Process
(Norbert Elias)
The road to modernity involves different types of
interpersonal relations, based on a different type
of cooperation, not tied to land but to capitalism.

Networks of interdependence mean that people

must be in tune with others - gradual evolution
of a “civil society.”
 Steven Pinker (2012)
Following Elias, Pinker (psychologist)
argues that the civilizing process emerged
with the age of science, reason and
enlightenment. The decline in violence
went in tandem as reason and self control
came to dominate modern life.
 Historian’s Critic
• Linear view of history not born out by the evidence, assumption
that European elites, where age of enlightenment emerged, were
key to the spread of a civilizing process.
• Colonialism seen as way to introduce self control and civilizing
culture to Asia, Africa, etc.
• Yet evidence suggests that emotions are central to violence and
culturally articulated.
• Why do we still have the death penalty if society has become
civilized?
 3. Motives explaining violence

Why did Cain kill his

brother Abel?

1.Satan made him do it.

 The Motive for Violence – one view
2. Psychological disorder or
individual pathology
 Genetic
 Neurobiological
 Environmental risks
 Family risks

How to explain other types of violence that are collective or organized?

Another view - Instrumental Motives
for Violence (EMOTIONS)
3. Normal person who was in
competition for a valued good –

Universal problem across time &

culture – unequal access to valued
goods

People’s reaction – seek revenge

(for justice) through trickery and
physical force.

Thus, violence is a tool to achieve

certain goals.
 Violence as an instrument - features

• Serves to manage, control and eliminate the competitor

• Person uses rather than possess violence.

• Appears to hold true over time in range of cultures and contexts.

• Violence is means for getting access to valued goods –

its not the only way but is one way!
 Violence as an instrument - features

• Advantage: coercive so it doesn’t require consent or cooperation

with others (bypassing the civility of social interaction)

• Disadvantage: high risks of injury, incurs material and emotional

resources
 Violence as an instrument - features
Involves emotions & context

Internal Trigger

External Trigger Personality

Traits --
Situational Cognitive
Context Abilities,
Ability and
rapidity of interpreting
situation & response

People have preferences but make judgments about ability to achieve goal.
Have ability to make rational choices.
 Violence as an instrument
(Eisner, 2009)

Evolution Culture
• The brain has become, over • Social institutions teach us
time, hard wired to find about our personal scripts
solutions to adapt to (and this helps us to obey
problems in the and follow rules, norms),
environment. reducing our need to make
• Brain organized with decisions in different
“regulatory circuits” to help situations.
us interpret our experiences • Social institutions also
and reinforce particular regulate access to valued
motives and behaviors. goods.
 Violence as an instrument – Motives
Revenge

1) Right a perceived wrong

a. Retaliation
b. Reactive aggression (i.e. retaliatory violence, self help, punishment)
c. Involves emotional mechanism- anger
 Violence as an instrument – Motives

Revenge - 2) Maintain Social Order

Example: Preservation of cultural codes
Culture of honor that prizes masculine courage, physical prowess,
fear of loss of face).
Herding economies – resort to violence if cattle is threatened or
stolen and law enforcement inadequate. Not simply threat to
property but threat to honor – avenge to preserve honor.
Violence as an instrument – Motives
Revenge -
Example: Preservation of cultural codes

Code of the street – state does not intervene or illegal market requires
“private protection” – Rationalize violence as way of resolution and
preservation of face/status
 Violence as an instrument – Motives

Revenge – maintain social order

Example: Protection

Advanced societies, protection of kin by kin replaced by

“protection entrepreneurs” – exists where there is demand for
trained retaliators.
Paradox:
Violence is instrument for
causing harm to others

Violence is instrument for

protecting self and others
 Violence as an instrument - Motives
2. Intrinsic Rewards – Emotional excitement
a. Traditional societies – public inflictions of pain excited the crowd, excitement at
others suffering.
 Violence as an instrument - Motives

2. Intrinsic Rewards – Emotional excitement & pleasure

b. Contemporary times - Katz’s badass
Sense of power and others humiliation from homicide and armed
robbery – exciting, thrilling… Rewarding… why?

1) Possibly pleasure from others’ suffering (sense of power)

2) Risks from violence invokes excitement and escape from mundane
3) Affirmation of self when masculinity or injustice is felt.
4. Is aggression & violence a male thing?
1) Males commit more crime, esp. violent ones than females.
2) Higher proportion of males - working class, poor and
minorities in cjs.
4. Is aggression & violence a male thing?

• Classical, psychological, early sociological -tendency to naturalize

male offending (inherent), defect of body or identity

• Masculinity theory – arising out of feminist concerns with family

violence where the relationship between offending and everyday life
is legitimated by constructions and pursuit of manhood.
 Hegemonic masculinities
• Is there only one type of masculinity? Do men, irrespective of class
and ethnicity, all aspire to the societal norm of being a man?

Hegemonic Masculinity – the practices associated w/ dominant

values of being a man – tough, brave, breadwinner

Few men can completely practice hegemonic masculinities

but can gain benefits from aspiring – power over others
more subordinate & over women. Serves as benchmark for
positioning the self.

Relations embedded in gender regime

Subordinated masculinities – gay, metro-sexual…
 Seductions of Crime – J. Katz

• Background variables continue to fail to account for crime – is

being a male the direct cause of committing crime?

• Phenomenological standpoint on men’s involvement in crime.

• What are the motivational dynamics of individuals who commit
crime?
• What meaning does committing the crime have for the individual?
• What are the feelings and emotions in committing the crime for self
and others?
 Seductions of Crime – J. Katz

• Desire to feel worthy

• Personal worth felt in the context of a higher meaning (how do
you fit into the bigger picture of life).

• Search for self worth – create magical environment where crime

provides means for individual to transcend to higher level.

• Examples: shoplifters, youthful bad asses, gang banging street

elites, hardman robbers, righteous killers, and cold-blooded killers.
 Seductions of Crime – J. Katz
The Badass – Process of Becoming
• Appear tough, unwilling to be • Accomplished through dress,
dominated by others, in command of language, body gestures
others

• Tattoos, graffiti – demonstrates

• Appear alien, not part of “normal alien being. Presence makes
society” others feel uncomfortable.

• Appear mean, willingness to use • Exude appearance of being so

violence. irrational as to resort to violence.
• Paraphernalia of purposiveness
(weapons)
• Mind-fuck: use of “fuck you,” the
bump, and whachulookinat (invasion
of space is reason for retaliation).