What are the main points of the theory of criticism of violence?

Philosophy has unsolved and possibly unsolvable problems within its disciplinary framework. The central issue is violence. We are referring to the metaphysical problem of violence, and not just the everyday domestic violence that we face on an hourly basis and constantly practice ourselves. We are talking about the conceptual level of the problem, based on the assumption that violence sets almost the rules of our thinking and determines our very existence. But if reason is violent, then we have no means of getting out of the circle that has been outlined here. The paradox is that philosophers and scientists in general, on the one hand, claim the transcendental, universal or objective character of their judgments, and on the other hand, they are often forced to recognize the order of forced existence that determines scientific truth, in relation to which thinking appears only as a legitimizing and even reinforcing function. In this sense, a kind of (psycho)analysis is an analytical study of the main scientific and philosophical discourses, which would allow us to get to the nature of violence, to the meaning of its concept and to assess the possibilities of its nonviolent modification and fundamental elimination in scientific thought and public life.

Accordingly, the conceptual critique of violence is not limited to legal prosecution or moral condemnation of specific violent acts, but is aimed at identifying the transcendental conditions for the possibility of this phenomenon, or rather its “impossibility” in the context of anthropological, epistemological and ontological philosophical theories. In other words, criticism of violence in such a quasi-Kantian way is not satisfied with the violent response of the state to cases of its unjustified use by supposedly unrighted subjects, or by considering it as a justified means of achieving pseudo-legitimate goals, but rather asks about the origin and status of the right to violence itself at the level of its means and conditions for its legitimization in history and current political and legal practice.

The tradition of critical analysis of the concept of violence is opened by a number of authors from the beginning of the XX century. These are, first of all, Georges Sorel (Reflections on Violence, 1908), Erns Bloch (Geist der Utopie, 1918), and Walter Benjamin (Towards a Critique of Violence, 1921). Within the framework of this tradition, the concept of interest to us was considered in the context of the differences between provoking and legal-supporting violence, bourgeois political and general proletarian strikes, predatory (military) violence and nonviolent means of settling social conflicts, pure (“divine”) and mythical violence, etc.

Critical mode philosophy, as understood by the authors listed above, does not accept violence as a neutral subject of knowledge, which remains only to be explained in some way. It tries to conceptually substantiate an alternative option-the hypothesis of a” different”, distinguishing nature of consciousness and language, which has a magical-mimetic character, in comparison with which the other two options are reduced to attempts to establish power over a person's consciousness and his bodily nature in their endless subordination. Thus, the problem of violence appears as speculative, but in contrast to metaphysical statements of questions about origin, foundation, being and origin, it is formulated as a political-aesthetic problem of difference (Heidegger-Deleuze), and its solution turns out to be both speculative and existential, philosophical and political, collective and private-individual (Arendt-Levinas-Derrida-Agamben).

The common idea of violence as a manifestation of the “evil nature” of a person, fixed in the framework of a religious-idealistic picture of the world in the images of the personification of evil or the idea of free choice, justifies any of its manifestations, which are mainly theological and legal in nature. On the other hand, its vulgar-materialistic formulation, while also supporting the thesis of “evil nature”, links violence to the animal origin of man, in relation to whom consciousness or reason plays the role of legislator, judge or overseer. These two are (weakly)philosophical ideas about the nature of violence converge in the idea of re-education or gradual humanization of a person in history by state institutions.

Posing the question of violence as a critical-cognitive, i.e. quasi-transcendental problem, initially faces unsolvable difficulties, because any attempt to understand violence at the level of the conditions of its possibility borders on its moral justification and acceptance as a condition of the very ability to think, write and speak. Therefore, for Levinas, for example, the solution of the problem of violence could only be discursive, and the ethos of non-violence was assigned to the sphere of the divine. Benjamin's approach assumed the status of “divine” violence itself, accompanied by a materialistic reinterpretation of theology. This meant, in particular, that God, within the framework of the political-theological system of coordinates, that is, the self-description of human society in the language of the Judeo-Christian tradition and historical materialism, can be interpreted as violence in the exact sense of divine, that is, irreducible to the natural substance or abilities of the subject. Violence appears in Benjamin as a correlative, mediated concept that requires criticism from a moral point of view (the concept of justice) and a principled conceptual side as a “pure” nonviolent means of resolving social conflicts.

Modern philosophers (A. Badiou, Ethics. St. Petersburg, 2006; Sl. Zizek, O nasilenie. M., 2010; Dzh. Agamben, Homo Sacer. Sovereign power and Naked Life (Moscow, 2011) attempts are being made to move away from the exclusively negative consideration of violence, and to look at this very concept as the result of a kind of social exclusion-prohibition. In this connection, Zizek speaks about the complex interaction of subjective, symbolic and objective (systemic) violence, contrasting the latter with revolutionary violence that does not use the state apparatus for its own purposes. Agamben focuses on understanding violence as a means that is not so much “pure” as purifying. Both authors recognize the inheritance of Benjamin, who was the first to point out something suspicious, “rotten” in law, something that leads it out of non – law-arbitrariness, and which ultimately destroys both law and the state, supporting the cycle of violence in nature and history. He contrasted it with the esoteric concept of pure “divine” violence and the analysis of pure nonviolent means of conflict resolution, carried out in the concept of the technique of conversation (words), and the general proletarian strike, turning into a revolution or apocalypse.

One Answer

igor_chubarov says:

2022-09-19 at 2:12 am

Philosophy has unsolved and possibly unsolvable problems within its disciplinary framework. The central issue is violence. We are referring to the metaphysical problem of violence, and not just the everyday domestic violence that we face on an hourly basis and constantly practice ourselves. We are talking about the conceptual level of the problem, based on the assumption that violence sets almost the rules of our thinking and determines our very existence. But if reason is violent, then we have no means of getting out of the circle that has been outlined here. The paradox is that philosophers and scientists in general, on the one hand, claim the transcendental, universal or objective character of their judgments, and on the other hand, they are often forced to recognize the order of forced existence that determines scientific truth, in relation to which thinking appears only as a legitimizing and even reinforcing function. In this sense, a kind of (psycho)analysis is an analytical study of the main scientific and philosophical discourses, which would allow us to get to the nature of violence, to the meaning of its concept and to assess the possibilities of its nonviolent modification and fundamental elimination in scientific thought and public life.

Accordingly, the conceptual critique of violence is not limited to legal prosecution or moral condemnation of specific violent acts, but is aimed at identifying the transcendental conditions for the possibility of this phenomenon, or rather its “impossibility” in the context of anthropological, epistemological and ontological philosophical theories. In other words, criticism of violence in such a quasi-Kantian way is not satisfied with the violent response of the state to cases of its unjustified use by supposedly unrighted subjects, or by considering it as a justified means of achieving pseudo-legitimate goals, but rather asks about the origin and status of the right to violence itself at the level of its means and conditions for its legitimization in history and current political and legal practice.

The tradition of critical analysis of the concept of violence is opened by a number of authors from the beginning of the XX century. These are, first of all, Georges Sorel (Reflections on Violence, 1908), Erns Bloch (Geist der Utopie, 1918), and Walter Benjamin (Towards a Critique of Violence, 1921). Within the framework of this tradition, the concept of interest to us was considered in the context of the differences between provoking and legal-supporting violence, bourgeois political and general proletarian strikes, predatory (military) violence and nonviolent means of settling social conflicts, pure (“divine”) and mythical violence, etc.

Critical mode philosophy, as understood by the authors listed above, does not accept violence as a neutral subject of knowledge, which remains only to be explained in some way. It tries to conceptually substantiate an alternative option-the hypothesis of a” different”, distinguishing nature of consciousness and language, which has a magical-mimetic character, in comparison with which the other two options are reduced to attempts to establish power over a person's consciousness and his bodily nature in their endless subordination. Thus, the problem of violence appears as speculative, but in contrast to metaphysical statements of questions about origin, foundation, being and origin, it is formulated as a political-aesthetic problem of difference (Heidegger-Deleuze), and its solution turns out to be both speculative and existential, philosophical and political, collective and private-individual (Arendt-Levinas-Derrida-Agamben).

The common idea of violence as a manifestation of the “evil nature” of a person, fixed in the framework of a religious-idealistic picture of the world in the images of the personification of evil or the idea of free choice, justifies any of its manifestations, which are mainly theological and legal in nature. On the other hand, its vulgar-materialistic formulation, while also supporting the thesis of “evil nature”, links violence to the animal origin of man, in relation to whom consciousness or reason plays the role of legislator, judge or overseer. These two are (weakly)philosophical ideas about the nature of violence converge in the idea of re-education or gradual humanization of a person in history by state institutions.

Posing the question of violence as a critical-cognitive, i.e. quasi-transcendental problem, initially faces unsolvable difficulties, because any attempt to understand violence at the level of the conditions of its possibility borders on its moral justification and acceptance as a condition of the very ability to think, write and speak. Therefore, for Levinas, for example, the solution of the problem of violence could only be discursive, and the ethos of non-violence was assigned to the sphere of the divine. Benjamin's approach assumed the status of “divine” violence itself, accompanied by a materialistic reinterpretation of theology. This meant, in particular, that God, within the framework of the political-theological system of coordinates, that is, the self-description of human society in the language of the Judeo-Christian tradition and historical materialism, can be interpreted as violence in the exact sense of divine, that is, irreducible to the natural substance or abilities of the subject. Violence appears in Benjamin as a correlative, mediated concept that requires criticism from a moral point of view (the concept of justice) and a principled conceptual side as a “pure” nonviolent means of resolving social conflicts.

Modern philosophers (A. Badiou, Ethics. St. Petersburg, 2006; Sl. Zizek, O nasilenie. M., 2010; Dzh. Agamben, Homo Sacer. Sovereign power and Naked Life (Moscow, 2011) attempts are being made to move away from the exclusively negative consideration of violence, and to look at this very concept as the result of a kind of social exclusion-prohibition. In this connection, Zizek speaks about the complex interaction of subjective, symbolic and objective (systemic) violence, contrasting the latter with revolutionary violence that does not use the state apparatus for its own purposes. Agamben focuses on understanding violence as a means that is not so much “pure” as purifying. Both authors recognize the inheritance of Benjamin, who was the first to point out something suspicious, “rotten” in law, something that leads it out of non – law-arbitrariness, and which ultimately destroys both law and the state, supporting the cycle of violence in nature and history. He contrasted it with the esoteric concept of pure “divine” violence and the analysis of pure nonviolent means of conflict resolution, carried out in the concept of the technique of conversation (words), and the general proletarian strike, turning into a revolution or apocalypse.

Log in to Reply

What are the main points of the theory of criticism of violence?

One Answer

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Categories

Recent Questions

Recent Answers