On Jul 18, 2010, at 9:28 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> Violence as a category splinters the bones.
[reverent pause]
This is a really beautiful post - unusually poetic for LBO (I mean that in a good way) - but needlessly violated, IMHO, by its own subject line.
It seems to me the main problem that arises in relation to the concept of violence is precisely the disparity between the prevailing-if-unstated *metaphorics* (on the one hand) and the "really real reality" of violence (on the other). Unless I'm badly missing the point of Carrol's post, this is its real import - a fact which Joanna has already pointed out.
The metaphorics of the category-as-used invoke overt physical acts of one or more individuals against another: hitting, stabbing, shooting, bombing. Many of these bruise or draw blood: the metaphorics stab at our very sense of bodily integrity - at that to which, "in the end," we are all reduced - that without which there can be little question of "ideas," of the "life of the mind," of "science." And obviously some of these regularly occur in the context of "enforcing the law": hitting, grappling, tripping, shooting, etc.
But the *real reality* of violence, which Carrol rightly hints at, but oddly timidly it seems, is much more profound: it has to do with the application of differentials of power - differentials of opportunity / credibility / prestige in the broadest sense (a point on which I think Bichler and Nitzen are insightful) - toward compromising, undermining or otherwise hindering the informed self-realisation of another. In this sense, even the most "peaceful" arrest and detention for justifiable (obligatory?) violations of "the law" constitutes violence of the most profound kind. And the "invisibility-as-violence" that such acts enjoy in the popular imagination, simply by virtue of their evasion of the implicit metaphorics, is precisely what makes their violence so insidious.
"Compelled" (or even "strongly advised by your supervisor") relaxation in the workplace would certainly count as an instance: "You seriously need to chill out, 'cause otherwise I'm gonna fire your ass back to the stone age."
Violence as a category does not splinter the bones. Violence *as such* splinters the spirit (understood materialistically, of course). I'm inclined to say, violence *is* the splintering - the betrayal - of spirit in this sense. And it's that fact which the *category* of violence, as such, given its implicit metaphorics, regularly elides, and thus betrays.
Don't hesitate to correct, but I believe something like the above is actually what Carrol is getting at - and if so it's the best thing I've read today.
And, shag, please don't call me Steven van den whoeverthefuck, or I will seriously come over there and hinder your informed self-realisation. ;-}