How to Look Good in a War: Justifying and Challenging State Violence

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Moving media and conflict studies beyond the CNN effect.

Background

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In this case, violence is seen as a natural response when a social heirarchy is threatened.

The Watergate incident and the highly publicized beating of Rodney King brought out viewpoints of this kind; many people did not doubt that official misconduct had occurred, but they considered such tactics as necessary if society was to be defended against internal disruption or external attack. Children must be taught the expectations of their social group and must be helped to acquire the skills and understandings to take their place in the group.

Violence may result when children do not acquire necessary skills to handle interpersonal relationships, to manage their own lives, and to become economically self-sufficient. Effective socialization requires more than just the presence of adults who can teach skills. Farrington , for example, found deficiencies in the parenting experiences of violent adolescents; their childhood was characterized by harsh discipline, lack of nurturance, and poor supervision. Since there can be no such thing as a stress-free society, every social group must manage stress; companionship, play, and sex are among the aspects of social life that can serve a stress management function.

Linsky, Bachman, and Straus documented a connection between stress levels and levels of violence. When stress management fails, either through decreasing effectiveness of familiar approaches or through increases in stress beyond the group's capacity, it seems that violence is among the likely outcomes. Conflict theorists suggest that conflict is a positive force in society and that human groups must handle conflicts in productive ways. Sprey described the informal mechanisms that traditional community and family structures offered for the management of conflict.

Neighborhoods also offered ready access to concerned others who could assist with a family or other dispute. Lacking the support of concerned others, disputants may use violence in an attempt to achieve resolution. Social control is another essential function; a society needs ways to ensure that its members do not harm each other. Violence, from this perspective, demonstrates failures in the control process.

Social Realities

Research supports this theory: Shaw and McKay identified a high correlation between ethnic heterogeneity, low socioeconomic status, residential mobility, and delinquency. They theorized that neighborhoods lacking stable, cohesive networks of informal social control experience more problems with youth gangs and violence. Formal social control also is associated with violence; Wilson has pointed out that law enforcement is inconsistent in "ecological niches" characterized by drug sales and high crime.

Functional analysis has identified many factors that may help to explain contemporary violence. Many people consider violence to be a necessity that comes into play when the various mechanisms of society do not address social needs. High stress levels, rapid technological, social, and economic change, and conflict between social groups make sense as contributors to violence. These understandings of violence have the advantage of leading directly to action; if a society knows what is broken, it can organize attempts to fix it.

On the other hand, a functionalist approach can point to so many possible areas of change that the result is essentially a "laundry list" of problems and proposed solutions.

The theory does not explain how to set priorities or coordinate interventions. An increasingly popular approach to violence views human interaction through language, a primary symbolic tool through which people share their experiences see Sarbin and Kitsuse, Constructionist theories of violence focus on discourse themes—shared meanings—that either justify violent acts or else redefine violence so that it is acceptable behavior.

Three such discourse themes will be examined here. Gender and family violence. Violence is strongly associated with gender; males not only commit more violent acts, they also are the primary consumers of entertainment with violent themes Kruttschnitt, Anecdotal evidence seems to support this idea. Boys differentiate themselves from girls with shared play themes of fighting monsters and evildoers. Elementary school boys make threats, deride weaker boys, and encourage aggressors. In this male social reality, the person who can be victimized deserves it; being dominated in any way is a source of humiliation.

For the young male, winning is the only thing that is important. Young men's stories revolve around potential if not actual violence, and violent episodes are a necessity if one is to really validate one's masculinity. Young men also typically become interested in girls and sex; sexual success is valued by the male peer group. But girls, despite their presumed inferiority, control access to this valued activity and the young male is in danger of being dominated.

The male solution to this dilemma is coercion. Women, according to the male myth, don't even know how much they like sex; the male believes that he must introduce the reluctant female to this activity, and assumes that she will be eternally loyal to the man who first gives her sexual fulfillment. Caring, on the other hand, is a job to be left to the specialists: Love is seen as a sign of weakness, a sure way of being distracted from the fight. Bull Meachum, the Marine fighter pilot depicted in the film The Great Santini , gradually taught his son that no matter how much it hurts, he must become tough and distant so that he can take over the role of protecting his loved ones.

Meachum also told a colleague of his discomfort being "a warrior without a war. It was not fair, he said, to expect people to be trained killers six days a week and Sunday-school teachers the seventh. The power of this male discourse is supported by research. Linsky, Bachman, and Straus found that rape was a more likely response to stress when cultural norms favored violence, women's status was low, and men viewed women primarily as sex objects.

Graham argued that the American tradition is one in which violence is a constant theme. The preferred version of history emphasizes the rule of law, the development of effective political mechanisms, and cooperative efforts. But folklore Lynn, and official histories feature a series of violent conflicts and the exploits of violent heroes. Hopalong Cassidy, the U. Carrie Nation is remembered because she was violent, and most Americans feel some personal pride in winning two world wars.

The American fascination with violence is not only focused on violent heroes, however. Victims of violence, displayed in newspapers and on television news, bring to life another part of the discourse: Fear of an enemy helps to justify more violence. An armed citizenry stands ready to attack, but cannot agree on the identity of the enemy. In contemporary society the young are still being trained to be killers; video games have enabled the child in the s to develop perceptual skills and eye-hand coordination in preparation for space wars as well as street warfare.

But these young people are also growing up in a world where cooperative efforts are increasingly valued and violence is increasingly punished. As the number of arrests for violence is increasing, the number of individuals imprisoned for violence also increases. But the ideal remains the same; toughness is valued, and the young know what really matters.

The societal response—meeting violence with violence—does nothing to alter the theme. Economic and racial segregation. A constructionist theory of such marginalization calls attention to differing views of opportunity and success. Among those who see themselves excluded from well-paying employment, success through nonviolent means seems to be based on luck. Stories told in the economically deprived underclass are more likely to describe the folk hero who "got over" on the wealthy than the person who succeeded through hard work, study, and consistency.

On the other hand, violent means to success are portrayed as highly effective and have the additional advantage that violent acts bring social recognition. This violence-supporting discourse is promoted by the fact that members of marginalized groups are unlikely to be exposed to mainstream society where success and opportunity are described in other terms. Role models are likely to validate a belief in discrimination and limited opportunity, just as they are likely to demonstrate the success that can be achieved through violent means.

Young people may grow up with detailed knowledge of guns, but lacking equivalent knowledge of appropriate behavior. Social constructionism focuses not on the objective social system but rather on the ways in which it is understood by its members. Whereas functionalist approaches to violence call for changing the situation, constructionist approaches call for changing socially constructed views of the situation.

The advantage of such an approach lies in its ability to identify and describe many different discourse themes that contribute to violence. The theory also suggests a strategy for change: This approach empowers every person to be an agent of change even as it focuses attention on the mass communicators whose messages reach large numbers of people. The theory does not, however, describe what changes should take place to produce a discourse that does not support or encourage violence.

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Finally, in the most integrative of the efforts to understand human behavior, systems theories have both philosophical and pragmatic roots. The term "system" is one that may be used in many ways. In simple usage it refers only to the fact that separate elements are connected in some way.