Where exactly would the difference between the "positive" picture and the defining negatives be when we are talking about conscious processes? You can not think a "citizen" without a "state", but behaving like a citizen where there is no state might be possible. That is for the negation of the negation. But when we are talking about the "state" symbol there is the notion of "souvereignity" and we know the authority, although it is referred as a symbol and (hopefully or not) never realized. — Heiko

Thank you for the excellent point! Indeed, we could think that there is no violence when one behaves as a good citizen in the absence of the apparent state's exercise of coercive or violent ways of power. For Deleuze and Guattari, there is no citizen (or subject) before the synthesis of the unconscious. There is not a conscious I that produces, but a process of production of which the I is a kind of product. The aim of psychoanalysis is to aid the repression of the drives and strengthen the ego's adaptation to reality.
On the contrary, according to Anti-Oedipus, such a 'reality' has no ontological status: it is merely an effect of oedipalized consciousness. The signifying structures that shape thought and an ordinary consciousness of an oedipal, average, or standard 'citizen' are effectively produced by machinic processes in society. This production is not directly violent. Yet, it effectively blocks and averts the development of alternate subjectivities and ways of thinking.

Brutal and visible repression is no longer exercised
— David Mo

Be patient. When the State and it's corporate stockholders feel sufficiently threatened, brutal and visible repression will be very hard to escape. — Bitter Crank

To protect their 'license to brutalize & kill', the police are rioting against peaceful 'anti-killer police' protesters while corporations and the investor class are wantonly looting government treasuries & public-private pension funds. Legacy of slaver capitalism: this neoliberal 'sugar daddy' plutonomy. The Counterrevolution Is Being Televised.

I would not be too ethusiastic though. I guess, the turn from subconscious negation to production means that any "damages" are far more serious.

It is not a matter of enthusiasm. It is the matter of the state of things.

I didn't intend to evaluate the violence. The first step is to define violence. The second step is to identify it. The third is to assess it.
I don't think it's possible to override violence in general. Therefore, only two criteria seem possible:
- Is it fair the end of this violence?
- Are the violent means proportional to the end?

Nullifying a child does not seem to be a valid end in any case. For moral reasons and because of its consequences. But verbal or controlling violence seems unavoidable in bringing up children. The less the better. Persuasion is preferable in almost all cases. — David Mo

I see. Your definition of violence is definitely much broader than mine. As far as I'm concerned, you've figured out the truth of this unpleasant side of human nature, if there's such a thing. Nevertheless, you will agree that the general opinion on violence seems to be restricted to bodily harm - a kick in the rear, a punch in the face, that sort of thing.

Sports is just war without the killing — Ted Turner

What do you think of Ted Turner's statement. If you ask me, it seems to fit somewhat loosely with your beliefs on violence.

I think that Foucault's view of discipline allows to consider seemingly non-violent methods of control - — Number2018

more saturated within wide domains of social practice. — Number2018

When the mass media shows a series of particular images for 24/7, so that a specific narrative and agenda should become dominating, one could consider symbolic violence as the leading one. — Number2018

I find Foucault's last five years confusing, inconclusive and full of holes. I prefer his classical phase even if it was also debatable. But at least it was coherent.

Anyway, what I find compelling in Foucault is the theory of power as a network of mini-powers. I think this explains very well the apparent withdrawal from institutional violence that is replaced by a softer but omnipresent tension over civil society. This tension can often be called violence.

But the disciplinary society has not disappeared. (Even the late Foucault acknowledges this). ) When the powers of domination feel threatened the old violent-disciplinary society emerges and we can see in the media the hidden face of repressive institutions in action. The US has received a good dose in recent days.

I think we agree on basic points, including the symbolic violence that is constantly present in the media, parliaments, etc. They live on these things. So we feed on violence every day. Symbolic or physical.

I agree.

Baurdieu concieved it as the way to impose not just a set of discriminatory or coersive positions. — Number2018

I said it encouraged forms of coercion, not that it was that.

Nevertheless, you will agree that the general opinion on violence seems to be restricted to bodily harm — TheMadFool

If general means popular, I agree. If general includes experts, I disagree.

What do you think of Ted Turner's statement. If you ask me, it seems to fit somewhat loosely with your beliefs on violence. — TheMadFool

The emphasis on personal violence and the neglect of institutional violence would be a very frequent case of symbolic violence. It is very widespread in the mainstream media and among politicians... institutional.

Indeed. Most show-sports are usually quite violent. Even if they don't - always - kill.
It seems that in their origins these sports were a way to channel social violence. But today it is not very clear whether they channel it or encourage it through initiation rites.

Thank you for an excellent post. What are your opinions on violence as discussed in earlier Western empiricism, such as by Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau with respect to the social contract? Do these fit in the categories you provide, and how do you consider their views fitting with Foucault, Marx, and Sartre?

If general means popular, I agree. If general includes experts, I disagree. — David Mo

Are there experts in violence?

It is the matter of the state of things. — Number2018

Don't you think that this is actually part of the problem?

Are there experts in violence? — TheMadFool

Sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and some philosopher. I don't know if politicians should be considered experts or part of the problem.

It's a question that demands a long answer. I will think about it to see if I can give a condensed answer within my limited knowledge: I know little about Hobbes and less about Locke. I have read something about the others.

I will think about it to see if I can give a condensed answer within my limited knowledge: — David Mo

I go there: If we divide a problem between diagnosis and prescription, modern positions owe a lot to Hobbes and Rousseau, even if it is to grumble against the theory of contract, like Foucault.
The Hobbesian diagnosis appears in Sartre as violence inseparable from the human condition, but it is rejected by Marx, who considers the origin of violence in relation to private property, in a similar way to Rousseau.
The Hobbesian prescription has been classically interpreted as a defense of absolutism and that does not please anyone today, except the Fascists. But there are more recent interpretations that believe it is possible to read Hobbes as a defender of absolute sovereignty... of the people. That would be more in line with the idea of sovereignty of the last Foucault. Naturally, Marx and Sartre differ from all this, because they do not believe that the solution lies in a people divided into classes, however controlled private property may be, as in the Rousseaunian model. But if you look, neither Marx nor Sartre says that the end of violence, or at least the conflict, comes in a classless society. Sartre says it expressly in the Critique of Dialectical Reason and Marx was never anything precise about the classless society. He is more a theorist of the end of capitalism than of the prediction of socialism. The end of history would be the classless society, but how post-history would be is an enigma.

I hope this will give you an answer. I don't like this jumble I've written at all. But, unlike Groucho Marx, I don't have another one.

Of course, the similarities I have pointed out are only similarities. The differences are also many.

Sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists and some philosopher. I don't know if politicians should be considered experts or part of the problem. — David Mo

I see. I want to ask you a simple question and this will probably sound very naive. Anyway...when people talk of violence what do they actually mean and when an "expert" does a study on violence what are the various human actions that fall under the category of violence?

well I wouldnt have thought of violence in a classless socieity, so you certainly given me something to think abut a few days.

Locke says personal defense is necessary to protect property. Would that be considered institutional violence, because it protects a system, or personal violence because it protects an individual too?

what are the various human actions that fall under the category of violence? — TheMadFool

It's not a naive question. It is easy to distinguish many violent behaviors at both the act and language levels. The violence of a defender at a football match, the violence of a lover having sex, the violence of a political discourse. I don't think there is such a big difference between common language and experts. Some points are more debatable, especially when the expert analyses some supposed scientific or objective discourse. The violence in the speeches of Jesus Christ, the patriotic emotion, the scientific studies or the paternalistic sermons are more difficult to accept. Violence in ratings, irony, jokes... with our wife, children or my best friend. In the end everyone is violent... more or less. The problem is with those who can't control it or use violence for their own benefit.

Locke says personal defense is necessary to protect property. Would that be considered institutional violence, because it protects a system, or personal violence because it protects an individual too? — ernestm

I would say that the institutions in charge of defending private property through violence are the legal ones, state or private. But personal violence against a banker who has stolen your savings, as they usually do, cannot be considered institutional. Although it may be more than understandable. Keep in mind that not all personal violence is reprehensible.

Right. The issue of the relationship between social classes and violence is not easy. Even if property is thought of as theft, our society is complex enough not to believe in simple recipes. If you are able to eliminate poverty and inequality you will probably have eliminated two major causes of violence. Foucault himself, who was an anti-Marxist, recognized that exploitation provides a good framework for explaining most of the violence that capitalism generates. But it is not clear that the framework explains everything.

In the end everyone is violent... more or less — David Mo

Now you've lost me. I don't know the exact reason why but some here are of the opinion that when one assigns a quality to everything it becomes meaningless. A couple of months ago I tried this on someone by asserting that all value is hedonistic and a member responded that claiming so makes hedonism meaningless. What are your views on this matter?

The problem is with those who can't control it or use violence for their own benefit. — David Mo

Ah! So, you feel that the ends justify the means but what if the means, as is the case with violence, is in direct contradiction to the ends?

It is the matter of the state of things.
— Number2018
Don't you think that this is actually part of the problem? — Heiko

Yes, I think so. If you read Weibel’s essay, mentioned in OP, you could find that there is the evolution of perspectives on violence, starting from Benjamin and Schmitt to Derrida and Agamben. The simple view on violence considers it as the direct and primary device of the state’s domination. On the contrary, their thought is based on the assumption of the negation of the negation. The primary domain of violence has gradually become hidden and indiscernible. Thus, for Agamben, the dialectics of inclusion/exclusion leads to conclude that “human life…included in the juridical order solely in the form of its exclusion (that is, of its capacity to be killed)” (Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer).
Agamben goes as far as to propose that fascist concentration camps constitute the
paradigmatic model for the contemporary political body. Yet, for sure, the Nazi concentration camp doesn’t comprise a privileged figure of reflection on violence. Nowadays, totalization or ham-fisted determination is not a result of centralized, discernible, and coercive modes of power. Even fascism, the most violent political regime, should be explained as an effect of founding productive processes. For Deleuze and Guattari, beyond ideology or repression, there is the more fundamental level of power that should be conceptualized in terms of desire: “the masses, at a certain point and under a certain set of conditions, wanted fascism, and it is this perversion of the desire of the masses that need to be accounted for.” The problem of ‘how can power be desired?’, (‘how can the subjugated group support domination?’) has allowed to develop the conceptual framework, explaining fascism as well as the contemporary capitalist production of our subjectivities. Our lives are not shaped by the model of bare life that submits to sovereign power. They are constituted by capital's grasp on our psyches, in particular through the control which it exercises over the media, advertising, opinion polls, the flow of deformable and transformable coded figures.

I don't know the exact reason why but some here are of the opinion that when one assigns a quality to everything it becomes meaningless. — TheMadFool

They're two different things. If you say that all x is y (all pain is pleasure) and you are identifying x and y (x=y) you are making a tautology that means nothing. Something like "men do what they are inclined to do".

This is not my case. I'm not identifying all men with violence. I admit that men do violent and non-violent actions. "Every man is violent" is a way of saying that there is a duality in men. It doesn't mean that being a man is the same as being violent.

I hope I've explained myself.

So, you feel that the ends justify the means but what if the means, as is the case with violence, is in direct contradiction to the ends? — TheMadFool

I think the relationship between means and end is complicated.
In principle, it is the end that justifies the means. When we say that the end does not justify the means, it is for two reasons:
- Because it's not evident that these means actually produce this end.
- Because some of the means are more or equally relevant than the end and may negate its value.

In the first scenario, we have the case of Kautsky vs. Lenin. In the second, we have the case of Ivan Karamazov vs. God.
Kautsky believed that revolution was not an effective path to socialism.
Ivan Karamazov believed that the death of children on Earth invalidated the happiness of Heaven.

The problem of ‘how can power be desired?’, (‘how can the subjugated group support domination?’) has allowed to develop the conceptual framework, explaining fascism as well as the contemporary capitalist production of our subjectivities. — Number2018

Sure. It's popularly known as the carrot and stick policy. If the carrot doesn't work to get the donkey to walk, the stick is used. The problem is that at the end you don't know if people are because of the carrot or because they are afraid of the stick. Within human psychology there is a reluctance to recognize that if you do something it is because you are a coward. Then you become a fanatic of the tyrant and hate those who draw attention to your cowardice and immorality. This is a classic of all cultures and submissions.
The coward who is caught hitting the weakest one with the herd, instead of stopping, he will intensify the blows to show that he does it this way because he is very macho.

"Every man is violent" is a way of saying that there is a duality in men. — David Mo

What is duality? Do you mean that it (duality) explains your position on violence? How?

I think the relationship between means and end is complicated. — David Mo

Agreed. Thanks

The problem of ‘how can power be desired?’, (‘how can the subjugated group support domination?’) has allowed to develop the conceptual framework, explaining fascism as well as the contemporary capitalist production of our subjectivities.
— Number2018

Sure. It's popularly known as the carrot and stick policy. If the carrot doesn't work to get the donkey to walk, the stick is used. The problem is that at the end you don't know if people are because of the carrot or because they are afraid of the stick. Within human psychology there is a reluctance to recognize that if you do something it is because you are a coward. Then you become a fanatic of the tyrant and hate those who draw attention to your cowardice and immorality. This is a classic of all cultures and submissions.
The coward who is caught hitting the weakest one with the herd, instead of stopping, he will intensify the blows to show that he does it this way because he is very macho. — David Mo

It is correct in general. But it does not explain how fascism was possible. Beyond ideology, the certain leadership, the economic, political, and social crisis, the masses wanted fascism
and desired their own repression. Therefore, in the end, the masses are responsible for the crimes of the Nazi regime.

What is duality? Do you mean that it (duality) explains your position on violence? How? — TheMadFool

Humans are violent and compassionate, or cooperative, if you like. There is a predisposition to one thing or another that society reinforces or represses. This duality may explain how basically peaceful men can react in an aggressive sublimated or non-sublimated way.

Well I have to say, until recently I would have agreed with you. It was watching wild males fight in David Attenborough's excellent nature TV shows that I started to realize that a large number of men still behave like they are wild animals and are unaware of it. Since then Ive tried holding conversations with them, but its pointless, because they start ridiculing me and attacking my points as soon as they realize I am not a subservient creature in their herd. And 'creature' is the right word, because once they decide I am their inferior, they no longer can speak with any compassion to my perspective at all.

I am not the first to have observed, this is far more frequent behavior in the USA and middle east than anywhere else. The British upper classes regard the USA as having rampant animals running all over it, and were extremely critical of my decision to move back, instead of staying after Oxford. Since about 2015 I have to say the rampant animals have increasingly been taking over.

I used to have all kinds of ideas about the human spirit being capable of more than apparent, but after continued efforts in the last five years to inform various peoiple in this country that their opinions were complicit to murder, it has had no effect at all, and I no longer beleive all human beings are capable of genrealized altruism, and a sizable number may look like human beings, but are incapable of acting with genuine humanity at all. The problem is, there is no reliable external indication, besides behavior, so there is no way to isolate them and leave them to their own devices. The USA has had some success capturing them and training them to be soldiers, and putting them in prisons, but the nation has no effective competitor to justify a larger army, and the prison population is already higher than for any nation ever. Bush Junior had a very good idea to get alot of people working in 'security' which temporarily forestalled the problem.

Most recently, no USA paper has had the courage to report that the dead guy killed by the police was on a lethal combination of meth and fentanyl, as well has having several pre-existing heart conditions. This means he could have died without being placed in a nech hold at all. As the policeman cannot be proven guilty beyond doubt, he will be acquitted of at least murder charges. Ive even heard 'Black Lives Matter' leasers state on TV that they will raze the country to the ground if one more event happens that they dont approve of, and quite a large percentage of people, at least over half speaking on the subject, have declared similar intents.

so it seems they will all be killing each other very soon now. I had thought it was going to be a world war, but frankly, not even Iran has gone as insane as the USA, because its political leaders dont benefit from violence. The democrats are currently delighted, but if the democrats had been in power, the republicans would have been delighted. the animalistic violence in this country is now endorsed by its own leadership against itself, from one side or the other, it makes no difference, and the end result it, well I am emigrating, personally. I had enough of it.

That is to say, I wish violence could be rationally explained and categorized, and sometimes its useful to think that way. On the other hand, we are one of the few species which consistently kills its own, and we just seem to have been getting very enthusiastic about that, overall, in the USA over the last five years for some reason.

Therefore, in the end, the masses are responsible for the crimes of the Nazi regime. — Number2018

Whatever the explanation for the formation of a fascist personality, a large majority of the population in Europe (not only in Germany, nor possibly even this one was the worst, speaking of masses) was actively responsible for the crimes of Nazism. The extent of collaborationism was such that a detailed repression of those crimes was impossible. Nor was it in the interest of the leaders of the "regeneration" of Europe, because its aim was "recuperate" all forces against communism. There is a great film about this: Judgment at Nuremberg, by Stanley Kramer.

The height of cynicism: the current Polish government which has forbidden by law to talk about the crimes committed by the Poles against the Jews. A great mini-series exposes it: Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter, Without hiding the German responsibility.

I think we're going off topic. But it's a very tough subject that can't be avoided in a thread about violence.

Humans are violent and compassionate, or cooperative, if you like. There is a predisposition to one thing or another that society reinforces or represses. This duality may explain how basically peaceful men can react in an aggressive sublimated or non-sublimated way. — David Mo

Can you formulate a theory of violence, one that explains the origin of, perpetuation of, and end to, violence with duality? Am I to believe that, adopting a black & white thinking process, violence exists because of peace? Then I suppose you'd have to explain why nobody is in favor of violence and everybody can't seem to get enough of peace. If violence is a necessary counterweight to peace then this shouldn't be the case, right?

I think we're going off topic. But it's a very tough subject that can't be avoided in a thread about violence. — David Mo

Can you formulate a theory of violence, one that explains the origin of, perpetuation of, and end to, violence with duality? — TheMadFool

Yes. All in all, violence (negatively understood) is not determined through theories and definitions.
It is about the set of political decisions and social practices, approved by a broad communal support. In Germany, there was not public consensus of Final Solution, since it was never publicly discussed there. Yet, the majority of population approved the complex of gradual steps, depriving
jews of their civil and political rights. For most Germans it was quite natural. Agamben as well as Deleuze and Guattari tried to explain how it was possible.