tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post5393693801584786336..comments2024-03-20T01:04:27.846-05:00Comments on Permanent Crisis: Facing the Killer: On Murderous, Suicidal Rampages in the U.S.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-88671763561640676722013-02-25T09:02:16.374-06:002013-02-25T09:02:16.374-06:00So to take a slightly different tack here, what if...So to take a slightly different tack here, what if we consider the trajectory of political violence during the post war period as a trend that eventually transitions into the current form of seemingly inexplicable mass killing? Political violence in the post war period was plausibly connected to the real possibilities of changing society, as we can see from the number of successful revolutions in this period.<br /><br />But it also seems that as those real political possibilities diminished as we moved into the nightmare of empiricism that is neo-liberalism, the violence became more and more irrational. We go from anti-colonial revolutions in Asia (beginning before the war, of course) and Africa to political terrorism in the west (Weather Underground, SLA, Red Army Faction) and increasingly horrific forms of Communist revolution (The Shining Path.)<br /><br />Of course, this is a very sketchy analysis. To forestall any misunderstanding, I'm certainly not pining after the days of 'effective' political violence, which seem in any case unlikely to return. But rather than seeing a sharp divergence between the Fordist and Neo-liberal eras, we can rather see a longer-term inflection.<br /><br />This also isn't to say that current mass killings are really inexplicable or meaningless, I think that it's at least potentially useful to see them as attempts to achieve social change in a time when that change seems impossible, in other word a sort of tiger's leap beyond the horizon of our age. And of course, this was more or less how I read Paul's point in the first place<br /><br />It's interesting to consider whether that inflection looks anything like this chart that Walker shared with me:<br />http://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/20/america-is-a-violent-country/<br /><br />The data certainly has problems (what is the effect of increasingly effective trauma care on assault deaths?) that are addressed in the comments, but it is nonetheless interesting to look at.Deckardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06918939582411126943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-23027787773849599322013-02-25T00:57:10.828-06:002013-02-25T00:57:10.828-06:00As to the incompleteness of Pinker's descripti...As to the incompleteness of Pinker's description of the decline of violence, I can definitely agree.brisante Thesenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10375306132342609002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-85457467039330294602013-02-24T17:24:57.044-06:002013-02-24T17:24:57.044-06:00Right, so this issue of Enlightenment ideology per...Right, so this issue of Enlightenment ideology perfectly illustrates the problems we have with Pinker. He simply has no way to explain why the completely unprecedented ideas that characterized Enlightenment thought suddenly came into being and soon became hegemonic in Europe at the moment they did. And he has no way to explain why such an unusual group of ideas became compelling to a larger and larger number of people around the world in the three centuries since.<br /><br />Leaving aside the complex and varied ways that Enlightenment thought has come under attack since the Depression, and leaving aside the crude correlation-mongering that characterizes Pinker's attempt to explain social life, I certainly agree that Enlightenment thought is involved in the decline of violence in important ways. But if you can't identify the reasons that human consciousness has changes so radically in the last several hundred years, then your explanation is incomplete at best.Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06912406198051338502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-55490275508697286572013-02-21T13:03:27.740-06:002013-02-21T13:03:27.740-06:00I realize that I'm not in disagreement with ev...I realize that I'm not in disagreement with everything that's written here. I'm not arguing that this blog is nonsense.<br /><br />But I do think that I may have taken the argument in an unexpected direction. The tendency to lash out alone among the "criminally insane" may be a sign that there are no longer criminally insane mass movements to latch onto, like say gangs of brown shirts. So how is this a sign of "increasingly unmediated barbarism" in our time? Not saying we don't have problems, and that I'm not sympathetic to some of your arguments, but I wanted to bring this up.<br /><br />I agree that the point that states are not separate from human nature is an important one, and so does Pinker. From the book: "When it came to violence, then, the first Leviathans solved one problem but created another. People were less likely to becomes victims of homicide or casualties of war, but they were now under the thumbs of tyrants, clerics, and kleptocrats"(58).<br /><br />Still, the claim that state societies are less violent than non-state societies is mainly an empirical one, not merely philosophical. He draws on evidence from hundreds of scholars, but I'll give one example. In a forensic study of dead bodies from before the Columbian contact, it was found that 13.2% of hunter-gatherers died with signs of violent trauma, while only 2% of those who died in Central Mexico had signs of trauma. Central Mexico was of course the site of the brutal Aztec state.<br /><br />However, the decline of violence since about 1600 is actually a different story from the one about transitions away from non-state societies, which were mainly hunter-gatherer societies. It's the Humanitarian Revolution, basically Enlightenment ideology, that tackled the problem of state violence.brisante Thesenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10375306132342609002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-70181579303808423922013-02-21T10:17:30.513-06:002013-02-21T10:17:30.513-06:00B.T.: "Just as plausibly, though, it may be t...B.T.: "Just as plausibly, though, it may be that a tendency toward individual rampages could actually be related to an overall, long-term decline in violence. In the past, one could participate in mass movements that had a tendency toward violence, whether communist parties, fascist parties, or even smaller scale terrorist groups like the Red Army Faction. Today, these options are not nearly as viable. Thus the tendency to lash out alone."<br /><br />In fact, if you read carefully Walker's "quasi-Marxist" argument, you will see that what you wrote here is substantially in agreement with the position that has been developed on this blog. You might refer to this post: http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/08/apprehensions-of-social-aggregate.html<br />and this one:<br />http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2010/12/no-way-out-of-crisis.html<br /><br />As I understand Paul's argument, he is trying to examine the connections between neo-liberal forms of subjectivity, created in and through the current forms of social relations, and the particular phenomenon of mass killings. This argument isn't merely "just as plausibl[e]" as Walker's argument, it's actually related to it in that it examines social phenomena as arising from temporally specific constellations of social relations, or, in other words, regimes of accumulation.<br /><br />You've also attributed my comment to Paul. I quoted Pinker's arguments about the state and commerce. I don't know what he wrote in his book, but he wrote the article that I quoted, and that Paul had linked to, so presumably it's fair game. Pinker does go on to add a third reason for declining violence in addition to the state and commerce, though he doesn't suggest that there is any hierarchy of importance among them:<br /><br />Pinker: "A third peacemaker has been cosmopolitanism—the expansion of people's parochial little worlds through literacy, mobility, education, science, history, journalism and mass media. These forms of virtual reality can prompt people to take the perspective of people unlike themselves and to expand their circle of sympathy to embrace them."<br /><br />I might well have quoted this section instead, because if anything it's far more absurd that human beings are participating in "virtual realities" that are nonetheless entirely distinct from their human nature. Pinker goes on to say of the historic trend of declining violence, "And a better understanding of what drove the numbers down can steer us toward doing things that make people better off rather than congratulating ourselves on how moral we are." If we can agree with Pinker that a better understanding of society is necessary to effectively confronting social problems, then we will have to reject Pinker's incoherent framework and seek out one that is adequate to really getting to grips with the vicissitudes of human history.Deckardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06918939582411126943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-81188377845336017012013-02-21T00:17:45.547-06:002013-02-21T00:17:45.547-06:00Paul did actually distort Pinker's thesis, I s...Paul did actually distort Pinker's thesis, I should add. Having read much of Pinker's (very long) book, the existence of powerful states is not the main driver of violence's decline in recent centuries. Neither is commerce.<br /><br />The most important factor is actually the spread of Enlightenment ideals, i.e. the propagation of new social norms. So regarding the fall of domestic violence rates in recent decades, he cites the social effects of feminist movements, which are more important than state legislation.brisante Thesenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10375306132342609002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-20882926646495922682013-02-20T23:46:24.543-06:002013-02-20T23:46:24.543-06:00Well, is it so inconceivable that I would find som...Well, is it so inconceivable that I would find something valuable in both Pinker's arguments and the ones given here?<br /><br />As you say, there are slightly different questions being asked by Paul vs. Pinker. I do think it's possible that there is a tendency toward individual lashing-out today, rather than mass violence. At the same time, there is a longstanding trend toward reduced levels of violence throughout the world. Yes, short term spikes could be possibly explained with reference to the quasi-Marxist argument that Walker advanced here, referring to "crises of accumulation."<br /><br />Just as plausibly, though, it may be that a tendency toward individual rampages could actually be related to an overall, long-term decline in violence. In the past, one could participate in mass movements that had a tendency toward violence, whether communist parties, fascist parties, or even smaller scale terrorist groups like the Red Army Faction. Today, these options are not nearly as viable. Thus the tendency to lash out alone.brisante Thesenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10375306132342609002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-73044091205119244412013-02-19T09:35:12.559-06:002013-02-19T09:35:12.559-06:00It does matter that violence has fallen overall, b...It <i>does</i> matter that violence has fallen overall, but that wasn't the question Paul was trying to answer. And though the post wasn't about Pinker, I think we did a pretty good job in the comments pointing out huge problems with his arguments and offering at least the beginnings of a different and far more satisfying explanation for his empirical findings. If you think otherwise, go ahead and raise the issue.Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06912406198051338502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-81947443624891245482013-02-19T02:39:04.607-06:002013-02-19T02:39:04.607-06:00I think that blogs like this one would benefit fro...I think that blogs like this one would benefit from a less flippant approach to their ideological adversaries.<br /><br />I see that you now cite some data to back up your assertion that murderous rampages are now more common, although I'm still a bit skeptical. If it is indeed the case that a certain kind of murderousness is on the rise, it must still matter that murder on the whole is on the decline. Even a basic look at the numbers in places like Chicago will show that murder is not at an all-time high, and is actually closer to a historic low.<br /><br />Of course, since he is an ex-anarchist who writes in part to counter many leftist arguments, I don't expect Pinker to get a warm welcome here. But a serious account of arguments like his would be quite interesting to see in a place like this.brisante Thesenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10375306132342609002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-31356451995661522762013-02-18T16:07:10.067-06:002013-02-18T16:07:10.067-06:00Well, that pretty much summed up the fundamental i...Well, that pretty much summed up the fundamental issues, so as the OP I only have a couple of clarifications. In the post I'm not talking about the level of overall social violence, which has indeed gone down over the long arc of history; the thing I'm trying to account for is a specific social phenomenon, which are the raging homicidal frenzies that have indeed become a more common feature of U.S. life in recent years. This is evidenced by the fact, among other things, that 10 of the 12 worst mass-killings in U.S. history as listed in the Washington Post article above have all happened since the 1980s. We could dismiss this as coincidence, or we could try to socially explain it. So it is this increase in a very specific type of extreme violence, not violence as such, that I am concerned with and that I'm trying to at least lay the groundwork for socially explaining.<br /><br />I was probably too excessive in my dismissal of Pinker and his ilk as being quietist, but, that said, his conception of the relationship between human nature and society is really problematic. If, following Pinker, one presupposes as a point of departure a basically Hobbesian view of human nature that posits humans as naturally antisocial, vicious, violent, and so on, then of course it makes sense to see the pacifying influence of state, commerce, etc. as good things. But it would be only a short step from this assumption about human nature (already deeply problematic for the reasons Deckard mentions) to the perverse conclusion that Dorner, Loughner, and other mass-murderers are merely expressing the anti-social "essence" that lies dormant within all people. If this kind of behavior is always a potentiality, then it follows that one could not ever really be totally rid of it. I think that would be an atrocious position to hold, but I don't know if Pinker has any other option, given his views.<br /><br />Rather than arguing endlessly about substantial definitions of human nature, which has gone on forever and will continue to do so, Permanent Crisis is trying to understand social phenomena in a way that connects human subjective attitudes, ideas, values, etc. to the historical, structural forms taken by society as a whole, and the ways that they historically shape and reciprocally influence one another. This kind of analysis is much stronger, I think, than any explanation that would try to explain social phenomena through a recourse to the "natural," apparently eternal properties of human nature. Jamie https://www.blogger.com/profile/18363083808445009325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-19208553208834920112013-02-18T15:59:10.108-06:002013-02-18T15:59:10.108-06:00The kind of spectacular, highly individualized mas...The kind of spectacular, highly individualized mass killings that Paul is talking about actually are happening much more frequently in recent years. Not just in the US, either - China has seen a number of similar attacks. In addition to the more fundamental issues that Deckard brought up, this is also something that Pinker has no way to explain. I think that was Paul's point.<br /><br />The problem with Pinker is that he, like most social scientists, can't appreciate history as anything other than a different configuration of independent and dependent variables. His clumsy and mechanistic explanation for the overall decline of social violence shows this clearly enough. But beyond the inadequacy of the explanation, this also means he can't conceive of a reversal to the current trend. Like most social scientists, his expectations for the future consist of an indefinite projection of current trends forward in time.<br /><br />But if we look at his graph of war dead, we can see the hints of a more dialectical explanation. The two huge upticks in mass death coincide suspiciously with the collapse of what we've been analyzing as regimes of <a href="http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/03/glossary-accumulation-of-capital.html" rel="nofollow">accumulation</a>. The lowest levels of violence coincide with those periods in which a given regime of accumulation (<a href="http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/06/glossary-fordism.html" rel="nofollow">Fordism</a> in the 1950s and 1960s, <a href="http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/01/glossary-neoliberalism.html" rel="nofollow">neoliberalism</a> in the 1990s and twenty-oughts) had consolidated itself, integrating people into its self-reproduction by offering them forms of life and of consciousness that reinforced each other.<br /><br />As contradictions within a regime of accumulation build up, the process of integration starts to work in reverse, and social life begins to seem more and more absurd, meaningless, or intolerable to more and more people. Since we now seem to be in the midst of the protracted collapse of neoliberalism, we shouldn't be taking satisfaction in the decline of mass violence, we should be terrified that it will stage a dramatic comeback.Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06912406198051338502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-50722843953297200182013-02-18T15:11:30.798-06:002013-02-18T15:11:30.798-06:00"Why has violence declined so dramatically fo..."Why has violence declined so dramatically for so long? Is it because violence has literally been bred out of us, leaving us more peaceful by nature?" "This seems unlikely." "Violence has declined because historical circumstances have increasingly favored our better angels."<br /><br />"The most obvious of these pacifying forces has been the state, with its monopoly on the legitimate use of force."<br /><br />"Another pacifying force has been commerce, a game in which everybody can win."<br /><br />(quotes from Pinker's WSJ opinion piece linked above)<br /><br />B.T., it is indeed legitimate to note that violence has, on the whole, declined. But how does Pinker show an understanding of the problems that we face at this historical moment. I would argue that not only does he not show a good understanding of these problems, but that he cannot understand the present, because his conception of society is inadequate.<br /><br />Pinker's understanding of "historical circumstances" is deeply incoherent. What is the state if not the creation of human beings? How can the state exist above and beyond the reach of human nature when humans have brought it into being and continue to perpetuate its existence? We can say the same thing for commerce, except that it's even more absurd for Pinker to suggest that commerce exists above actual individual human interactions since in some respects it is a far more decentralized process than that of state power.<br /><br />It is of course very perplexing that society can contain such seemingly contradictory tendencies as mass killings and impulses towards peaceful coexistence and a greater good. Pinker's notion of human nature is so conservative that he is forced to suggest a state or processes of commerce separate from human nature that can nonetheless be brought into being by and through human actions to temper the evil tendencies inherent in human nature. To my mind this is a contradiction internal to his notion of human nature that is not resolvable.<br /><br />Rather, the idea that we are trying to promote on this blog, following the critical social theory of Marx and others, is that these contradictory tendencies are explained by an imminent logic of society itself, that the structure of social relations themselves contain contradictions that surface in the types of phenomena discussed above. Therefore we don't have to reduce human actions to a set of rules called 'human nature,' but rather we can begin to understand how, caught between contradictory forces, humans, whether individually or through cooperation with other, try to attain the freedom promised by society while just as often having their freedom taken away by the selfsame society.<br /><br />Most importantly, we gain a perspective from which we can adequately deal with the _fundamental_ contradictions of modern society, such as the fact that, in a time of absolutely unprecedented productive powers and ability to satisfy human needs, the lack of work is still a crisis.<br /><br />Obviously this isn't meant to be a full defense or explanation of our approach, but I hope that through our posts we will continue to show the utility and plausibility of such a form of analysis.Deckardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06918939582411126943noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-21969299464906204962013-02-18T12:09:15.945-06:002013-02-18T12:09:15.945-06:00i agree with a lot of your points, but your flippa...i agree with a lot of your points, but your flippant response to pinker is off base. he's not arguing that we should do nothing, he's just making a factual claim. you say that gun violence "seems to be more common", but when you crunch the numbers, that turns out to be not necessarily true. why just go off of what "seems" to be true?brisante Thesenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10375306132342609002noreply@blogger.com