There are four major kinds of violence, ordered from most human to least, or in ascending inhumanity.
The first, and most understandable, violence is tragic violence. Tragic violence includes violence on accident, unintentional harm imposed unto others. Children hurting one another in play, a traffic collision, a work accident. It may also be deliberate, as with violence in self defense, or in the defense of others. There is also the violence of the stoic soldier or conscript. There is the dedicated soldier who fights because he truly believes in the ideals he fights for, inflicting restrained violence as a solemn necessity, and there is the conscript who is aware of the suffering imposed through war and detests it, yet has no choice but to participate against his will. In World War I, it was a common occurrence that soldiers, often conscripts, would intentionally miss when firing at their enemies, not willing to kill their fellow man. Tragic violence can be seen as violence performed with tears, or an expression of agony, it is violence which displeases both the perpetrator and the victim. Often, tragic violence is seen by society as outside the scope of criminality, or at least in the realm of criminal negligence rather than outright malice. Tragic violence is seen as benign, a natural cost of living life among others.
Secondly, there is vengeful violence, which is the most classical of violence. Vengeful violence is violence done in retribution, or out of anger. For example, violence done towards one who killed a member of your kin, or slept with your wife, or stole from you, ruined you financially or socially. Vengeful violence is violence done with a frown, the last thing a victim sees is his perpetrator’s scowl. I say this violence is classical violence as it is the romantic ideal of violence. It is the violence of plays and literature, the violence of the Iliad and the Odyssey, it is dramatic violence. It is also a socially common violence, when revealed it inspires no awe or gasps of shock, but nods of understanding. It makes sense that one may harm, or even kill, those who have wronged him. It is present in every culture, not just as incident but as primitive institution. It is at the root of the eternal blood feud, the vendetta, the gjakmarrja, the Hatfields and McCoys, the Montagues and Capulets. Vengeful violence was far more commonplace prior to the widespread imposition of bureaucratic violence, on which will be elaborated later. Before the establishment of municipal courts and police departments, the only recourse for violence imposed on you or your societal unit, traditionally being your tribe or family, would be to perform violence in retribution. If one from another tribe killed your brother, you must in return kill one of theirs. This is the root of the traditional “eye for an eye.” In modernity an analogous social unit may be a gang. In non-state societies deaths due to violence have been found to typically range from 10% to 60%, depending on the society. I would posit that these violent deaths have almost all been of vengeful violence.
Thirdly, there is sadistic violence. Sadistic violence is violence done for violence sake, simply because the perpetrator enjoys committing violence, violence with a smile. It is pathological violence, it does not operate on the social or rational realm, as other forms of violence do, but in the psychological, due to some defect in the mind of the perpetrator. Sadistic violence is the violence of serial killers and senseless violence, violence often described as “pure evil.” Instances of sadistic violence often become the subject of enduring social spectacle, one must only look to the countless books, documentaries, and podcasts which center around the lives and crimes of notable serial killers. A key part in what captivates attention towards these crimes is the senselessness, the lack of reason or cause. People want to find out why, why would these killers commit such horrific violence onto people they did not know, perfect strangers. The truth that some simply commit violence unto others for no reason other than an internal desire to do so is not just scary, but alien to a normal sense of reason. It is entirely unintelligible, and thus fascinates the masses through its morbid novelty. Much of the focus of media attention to these crimes is on a search to find the why, which invariably leads to an analysis of the early life and psychological profile of the killer himself, rather than any action on the part of the victim which may have prompted the violence. Otherwise the focus is on the novel brutality of the crime, the obscene torture and mutilation conducted by the perpetrator. It is a purely unprompted, random violence, born of a psychological defect of the perpetrator.
Lastly, the most inhuman of all, is bureaucratic violence. Bureaucratic violence is the violence of the state, enacted through the judicial system, prisons, education, hospitals, law enforcement, etc. Bureaucratic violence is purely impersonal, where vengeful violence is due to some perceived wrong on the part of the victim, and sadistic violence is due to some psychological defect in the perpetrator, bureaucratic violence is defined by a complete lack of passion or social context. It is violence with a blank expression, the perpetrator feels no pity, anger, or joy towards the misery of the victim, but enacts it simply because it is his job, it is what is demanded by his position within the bureaucratic hierarchy. The perpetration of the violence is unthinking and unconscious, one commits violence as a factory worker on the assembly line tightens a bolt or places a weld. As on the assembly line, one victim faces an uncountable number of perpetrators, who each contribute to the violence he suffers. First one is arrested, facing violence from the officer who places him in bondage and forces him into the back of his vehicle. Then one is booked at the police station and placed into holding, facing violence from dozens of other officers. Then one is brought to court, facing violence from the judge and prosecuting lawyers, who bring him before a crowd to be humiliated through trial. The jury subjects him to violence, with their judging gaze, holding his fate in their hands. They, in concert with the judge, hold the ability to enact a more tangible violence by sentencing him to prison, which then subjects the victim to the violence of the warden and his retinue of correctional officers, as well as the violence of his fellow prisoners. Assuming our subject is guilty, for his singular crime, he may potentially be subject to the violence of hundreds, all of whom have no personal relation to the victim, let alone the crime he may have committed. If innocent, the system is unbothered. Whether it’s a prisoner, patient, pupil, etc., anyone subject to undue violence by the system is simply said to have fallen through the cracks, the callous handwave which may excuse any transgression.
Bureaucratic violence is a tool of the modern state, employed to maintain coercion and obedience. It is the foundation of the state’s monopoly of violence, it is the system asserting itself, establishing a credible threat that, if disobeyed, it can and will punish severely. It is Hobbes’s Leviathan, actualized. Through time under this system, have then become domesticated chattel. Chattel in that we no longer fear the violence of the system, as the violence, in experience, has been conceptually abstracted, made spectral, through labyrinthine procedure, but now we fear the very act of disobedience towards the system in of itself. We have developed an innate nervousness whenever we break the rules, we sweat when attempting to hide a stolen candy bar in our pocket, we stutter when we lie to authority figures, we check our mirrors and swivel our heads compulsively when speeding, or driving with a broken tail light. We may say this is out of awareness of the possibility of punishment, but it is beyond that, it’s unconscious, it’s physiological. We have become sheep in a pen, though our wooden fence manifests in our workplaces, our schools, in lines at the DMV, traffic tickets, curfews, etc. It is violence which has, over time, warped and molded our very nature, what it means to be human. It is often said that life without the bureaucratic state would be far more violent, and it may be true in regards to interpersonal violence, particularly vengeful violence, but it must also be said that life would also likely far more passionate, dynamic, far more human.
P.S. The lapse in posts has been due to some health issues, culminating in a major surgery which I am currently recovering from. God willing, I will be resuming my previous pace of writing.
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