About "Violence today"

Sobre "Violência hoje"

DISCUSSANTS DEBATEDORES

About "Violence today"

Sobre "Violência hoje"

Luiz Antonio Machado da Silva

Iuperj/UCAM e IFCS/UFRJ. [e-mail]

The theory

Right in the opening of his article, Wieviorka demarcates the terrain for developing his argument by affirming that "the phenomenon violence changes and with it its representations". Although the term used is "representation", I suppose the author means that an adequate understanding of violence in its objectivity cannot transform it into a mere act of force, it must also consider the sense given by the actors to their conducts (I use the expression – act of force – in a loose way, only to indicate the individual or collective conduct interrupting the relation of alterity, or arising from its lack. In other words, it indicates the exterior, objective dimension of violence, to which the sense given to it by the actors must be aggregated). It is in this sense I understand the link between the theory presented after the brief indication of the forms of violence before and after the fall of the Berlin Wall (taken as a "comfortable" time mark) and the typology of "subjects of violence" presented at the end of the article. It could be useful to add here that this approach, while reinforcing the relevance of the symbolic dimension – the sense – does not situate the discussion in the general-abstract context of culture but in the context of an action being constructed by competent agents – the subjects – no matter how symbolically and materially deprived.

After a number of comments about the changes in the forms of violence following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wieviorka presents his general theory: The less society is structured throught a conflict providing ways for handling demands, the more violence find its ways. He continues: Violence is the opposite of an institucionalized conflict, it indicates the existence of societal problems that are not the subjects of open disputes. If I understand correctly, the theory does not attempt to affirm that, when a conflict can be institutionalized violence does not exist or that there is an "inaugural moment" of violence corresponding to the lacking space for the expression of demands. It seems to me that what is being suggested is that the possibility of institutionalization is keeping the acts of force within certain limits, by concentrating them in a more or less univocal direction (I believe that it is this way the examples referring to the period of the Cold War should be understood).

In other words, the theory is that violence changes because it disconcentrates, looses its focus and that this multifaceted aspect characterizes it in today's world. It is however important to explain that we are not dealing with an application of the Weberian concept on the State monopoly violence (that is, we are not talking about problems of legitimacy). On the contrary, the theory criticizes this line of analysis: what concentrates and canalizes violence is the possibility of being institutionalized only inscribed in the practice per se. Let's put it this way, the analytic interest rests in the conflict and not in the institutions. In a certain way, the emphasis given to the action as such corresponds to a hyper-Weberian criticism to Weber's political theory.

Still with respect to the theory proposed by Wieviorka, I would like to make one more comment. To the extent the current forms of violence are the result of absence or obstruction of the expression of demands possible to be institutionalized, they represent a "return of what was repressed". Insofar we are dealing with a disconcentration, a loss of focus, the repressed returns in different ways. This, in my understanding, is what justifies the typology of subjects of violence, worked out on the basis of the senses they produce for their acts of violence.

The general theory and Brazil

The article is extremely rich in suggestions for the understanding of violence in Brazil in our days. To this purpose, however, I think that some nothing trivial adaptations are necessary, and I will make my comments to this respect.

Before that however, we should remember that: 1) violence is taking its present "disconcentrated" form in our country in parallel to the consolidation of the democratization process (although obviously the political opening in itself does not grant the expression of repressed demands and although the correlation of forces on international and national level is frankly unfavorable for the lower classes); 2) the principal form of crime in Brazil is related to common crime, forming a species of cloud with drug dealing in its nucleus (although considering that drug dealing is linked to arms smuggling and that both are composing an enormous global chain of production, the acts of force are mostly originated in the sphere of the end consumer – and this is the way violence is made such an important item in the public agenda). Finally, one must admit that very little is known about how sense is constructed by the agents of violence in Brazil (generally one works on the basis of fragmented, indirect information or, even more commonly, by speculating about the sense produced by the actors much of it clearly deformed by plain ethnocentrism).

After this brief comment, let us go back to Wieviorka's article.

In my opinion, there are two possible keys for reading this article. The first would be to consider the developed reasoning as a general historical interpretation of the analyzed phenomena. In this case, the typology of subjects of violence would correspond to a rough design of concrete individualities, their diversity joint by the theory of disconcentration (I am leaving open another discussion I consider less relevant, that would be about to which point it is possible to totalize orders of sense as disparate as those presented in the typology, putting into question the implicit conjecture of the unity of social life). The second key would be considering the developed reasoning as a general theory of violence. In this case, the presented theory would correspond to a concept of violence, presented in its heuristic function, and the typology would represent ideal-typical characters and not concrete individualities like in the case of the first alternative.

On presenting two alternatives for understanding the article, obviously I am not sure about the author's expectations to this regard. A symptomatic reading makes me inclined to believe, however, that the article was conceived as a historical interpretation and not as a theory. In that case, the formation of criminal conducts common in Brazil – the subjects of violence – unfortunately does not fit very well into the types sketched at the end of the article, at least from the basis of the poor knowledge we have to this respect.

On the other hand, taking it as a design for a theory, the elaborated typology shows extremely useful for understanding the specificity of the Brazilian case by avoiding monographic particularism, which would isolate the country from the rest of the world. Evidently, this is the perspective I prefer, even if violating the intentions of the author. From this perspective I risk suggesting, even without having the space to make my point in this short comment, that a combination of the "fluctuating" subject, the "anti-subject" and the "surviving" subject would grasp the singularity of the subject of violence in Brazil. I believe that following this line of interpretation, the work would not offend the point of view defending the construction of public expression of demands, at the same time it would avoid the trap of proposing an understanding of a course of action by means of an absence (the lack of sense).

Concluding, I still risk making a last comment with respect to Wieviorka's affirmatives in the presentation of the "fluctuating subject", probably much more difficult to be accepted than the previous observations: Violence can involve aspects that suggest the idea of a loss of sense: the actor is expressing a loss of sense, a perverted or impossible sense, he is violent as a result of being unable to construct the conflicting action which would allow him to put forward his social, cultural or political demands or expectations because there is no political treatment for these demands or expectations.

This is a counterfactual construction based on how the actor would orientate his conduct in case certain lacking conditions were provided (Such a construction is very different from affirming, for example, that the actor does not produce sense – or reducing him to the strictly technical-instrumental aspects of a relation with a world only composed of objects, the actors included here – because he does not intend to justify his acts to himself and/or to other actors).

This implies taking a position in relation to the nature of the observer, who would be able to produce a knowledge, more comprehensive and not only different from the knowledge informing the action of the subjects. Only this more comprehensive knowledge would explain a course of action beyond the cognitive-moral horizon (or the "aura" as some prefer calling it) of the actor.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  10 Aug 2006
• Date of issue
  June 2006