Our last seminar raised a lot of interesting questions on sensitive subjects; paramount among the many were our discussions on the concept of violence as a hereditary trait. The word violence is sometimes used “subjectively” if you’d like. However assuming we all agree that structural violence is a valid concept, and structural violence is defined as a systematic way in which society, government, and institutions deny people from opportunities or basic needs by placing barriers on them, and structural violence is indeed a type of violence, would this make it hereditary in the eyes those following this new school of thought that seems to predominate the social sciences? It is easy as cake to point to brainwaves and say, these ten people have similar patterns, these ten people have a particular genetic alteration, and these ten people are imprisoned for the same violent crime. Assuming that’s somewhat how it goes, do we say these government officials and institutions are filled with people that have a genetic defect which makes them more prone to inflicting evil upon our nations poor, or do we say these people are all a part of a collective environment that induce these practices. No, wait a minute, I’ve narrowed the scope. Maybe the conclusion that needs to be drawn is there is something in the biological make up of some people in American society on a whole. After all we do have the highest incarceration rate per capita? What is wrong with those Americans? The world says forget about the violence being done to women and people in our countries, land of the free. Amanda what do you think?
Violence, where does it come from? Is it hereditary or is it our environment? We always try to find the causes of an issue, like that of violence. Then we knit together our findings to a set definition and place it under a category and pat ourselves on the back for finding the cause. But we our not solving the issue, we are just reporting our findings. I think we should not look for the causes, but try to understand the situation itself and analyze it. What we need to examine are these narratives that we our comparing and if they hold the same values, rights, and views. Is there a such thing as Universal Human Rights, without going in and destroying another nations culture? As Professor Waterston said, Traditions/Culture is not static it changes over time, but is it the right of another nation to bring about that change or does this seem like the Whiteman’s burden? And another thing, we accept the violence in Usha’s case because it was the only way to stop this man. But why is it that when we look at our own society, where a women has been battered and kills their abuser, why is it that they are not seen as their own savior in their story? We can point out the problems of these countries, but heaven forbid we see the log of a splinter in our own eye. So is structural violence something that is universally experienced?
After defining structural violence as placing barriers on people and denying them their basic needs, it is apparent that this theme is found in all three narratives (Willie, Usha, and Molly). In Willie’s narrative, society and his family brought him up to be tough, but no one was there to really be his support system or to guide him to the correct path. I like to believe that our families help support our success and our education supplies opportunities. But if the way we function is to have a vicious circle of abuse and lack of care from the educational system, can we really be surprised when our youth becomes confused and violent. I understand that it all comes down to the individual and how they react to a situation, like the a saying goes it’s not the things that happen to you that count but how you reacted that matters. It is just a complicated mess of how we our mentally to deal with a situation and how society allows us to deal. In the case of female circumcision I believe that it is most definitely a form of structural violence. You can say that it is a tradition, but I firmly believe that is a tradition to oppress women. It is a tradition that markets a women’s value to that of a piece of prized virgin property for a husband. Maybe it my inner feminist that comes out, but it really grinds my gears to be told to be tolerant towards a tradition that masks this form of structural violence as cultural. I believe that if they have to correct support system and our educated on the health risks then they can make their own rational decision, which we saw in Molly’s story that a portion of women stopped this act. So in trying together the two stories we see that the home can allow structural violence and the government places it within our institutions
13 comments:
I still do not think that there can be such a thing as universal human rights simply because cultures are still different, with different beliefs and morals and “ways of doing things” And sure cultures are not stagnant and they are bound to change, but yes Amanda, in my opinion, that change should come about on their own. There is no need to take up that “white man’s burden.” How about we take some responsibility for what’s on our own back yard? That’s truly our burden, to help kids like Willie, and the homeless and the prisoners and the battered women etc… Perhaps if all the efforts overseas where focused right here in the boogie down Bronx, or up in Harlem and Brooklyn we could make a real difference. I think we need the poverty in our home; it deflects competition and makes us feel better about ourselves…
About the female circumcision, I totally agree that we need education and supplies to make the practice safer, but I think it’s still important to be tolerant of that. I just wonder how much of those women who chose not to undergo through the process did it because of the influence of he White woman telling them that’s not the way to do it? American women are paternal figures to foreign women. How much of it was a mob mentality situation? I can see how female circumcision can be viewed as structural violence to oppress women, but that is their culture, and we cannot brain wash the entire country to do things our way. Let’s focus of the structural violence and the pressures oppressing our young girls here. What about the structural violence against young African American males here?
Amanda asks is it the right of another nation to bring about traditions and cultural change on to another or is this the Whiteman’s burden? Personally, I do not feel that it is anyone’s right to impose their believes whether cultural or political and the list goes on, onto another. Is it the Whiteman’s burden? I do not believe so either. Who handed this presumed responsibility to the whiteman, giving them this supposed responsibility of governing and imparting their culture and beliefs onto others in order to help them “advance”. No one did they decided it would be so, whose to know if these people weren’t doing fine already on their own. They were surviving before the white’s arrived and imposed themselves onto them, so why wouldn’t they make it if the whiteman didn’t show up?
In regards to structural violence being universal or not, I definitely believe it is a universal phenomenon and therefore, is universally experienced. It is unfortunate and not uncommon that those whom suffer the most are those who are most impoverished, it is popular belief that poverty influences suffering, and I undoubtedly believe it does. Structural violence is unfortunately and indeed a powerful barrier many people face universally, influenced by social class and status affecting those whom are mostly impoverished and which have limited access or no access to an education.
“It’s not the things that happen to you that count but how you reacted that matters.” I would have to say that people who make that statement have not had really terrible things happen to them. That is not to say that the things that happen to you define who you are, but they certainly influence you and affect your personality and behavior. I think the nature vs. nurture debate is a bit silly—I don’t think it is valid to claim that either of the two is more important or that one is clearly dominant over the other. I think both your genes and your environment affect who you become. With certain mental illnesses, although you may have a genetic predisposition, it may not manifest unless you have a stressful environment that brings out the illness.
If you say that genetics determine who becomes a criminal and who doesn’t and that minority groups are predisposed to criminal tendencies, how about white collar crime? The number of people hurt by corporate crimes is astounding. Harmful medications and products are often sold to hundreds of thousands of people who are severely harmed or sometimes killed—and many times when products are marketed to pregnant women, it affects their offspring too. These products are often sold with knowledge of the side effects and not by minority groups and yet no one labels the middle to upper class corporate workers as genetically predisposed to criminal behavior.
In response to Amanda’s question of interfering in other nations and cultures, I think it is important to interfere when necessary—now of course “when necessary” is objective and can become problematic but taking a neutral stance is perhaps even worse I think. I do believe there is such a thing as universal human rights and I think it is the responsibility of other nations to interfere when human rights are being violated. When people ignore what is going on around the world, dictators and tyrants gain power through the knowledge that there is no one to answer to or no one watching them. I think Hitler would be an obvious example of this. People are quick to stand up (sometimes) and press those in power to interfere when there is an obvious violation occurring, such as a genocide, but they are slow to recognize something like female circumcision as a violation of people’s rights. When interfering of course, we must be careful to be sensitive to another country’s cultures and traditions and to interfere for their benefit and not our own. I think Molly’s success story is a testament to the fine balance between interfering and allowing people to make decisions and changes for themselves. They provided the education and allowed the women and men to decide what would be the best course of action. Parents could take a lesson or two from this model too, I think.
I must confess I found the Vaughn/Amanda blog entry a bit confusing in part because too many issues were raised, I’m afraid, making it difficult to figure out what exactly to address. But I'll try.
I think Vaughn’s ironic comments and facetious question about “America’s biology” makes clear how absurd biological reductionism is, and how it closes off discussing or addressing or fixing what are, in fact, human-made social conditions. For example, how absurd, as Neethu points out, to imagine a biological explanation for white-collar crime!!
Vaughn also invokes “structural violence” and as I read his words, he seemed to move from “structural violence” to “biology” to make that point about how silly biological reductionism actually is--i.e., he used these words as an ironic device.
But I don’t quite know what he means when he writes, “The word violence is sometimes used “subjectively” if you’d like.” Vaughn: can you help me better understand what you mean here?
Amanda brings in so many issues and topics that I found my head spinning.There’s “violence,” “structural violence,” women’s rights, Universal Human Rights, cultural imperialism, “the white man’s burden,” and the idea of cultural relativism. All that in 1-2 paragraphs! So I’ll just make a very few comments in response:
1) “structural violence” is not a thing or an event. It is a theoretical framework for “understanding the situation itself and analyzing it,” to use Amanda’s own words. In class, Marling noted that inner city ghetto dwellers are different than the rest of us. I was very struck by that comment and wonder if the concept of “structural violence” can help us understand how “they” became who “they” now are—seemingly so “different,” but are they really? Also, I’m not sure what Amanda means when she writes, “I think we should not look for the causes, but try to understand the situation itself and analyze it.” Isn’t “looking to understand the situation and analyzing it” a way of looking for causes of phenomena we observe on the ground? Or do you mean we shouldn’t be looking for an ultimate cause of “violence”? (I’m not sure people are doing that so I’m confused by your statement).
2) on universal human rights: In my view, if we conclude that there is no such thing as any “universal human right,” we will fall into a trap that will allow systemic, structural violence to continue. Even if we don’t accept ALL the articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, can’t we still accept SOME? Who says we can’t? Why can’t we be “cultural relativists” on some issues and on other issues assert that there are some things that ought to be “universal”? Take Article 25, for example. What kinds of society would WE live in if we actually accepted, adopted and implemented Article 25: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of him/herself and of his/her family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his/her control.”
And in real life, what actually prevents Article 25 from being met and implemented?
Vaughn says: “It is easy as cake to point to brainwaves and say, these ten people have similar patterns, these ten people have a particular genetic alteration, and these ten people are imprisoned for the same violent crime. Assuming that’s somewhat how it goes, do we say these government officials and institutions are filled with people that have a genetic defect which makes them more prone to inflicting evil upon our nations poor, or do we say these people are all a part of a collective environment that induces these practices?”
I think that is about as eloquent a rebuttal as I have heard to arguments that privilege biology in the causal hierarchy that is asserted for human behaviors. This is not a “new” narrative. It is as old as Lombroso and his turn of the century colleagues (the last century, not this one) who felt that the bumps on someone’s head indicated their particular criminal orientation. The narrative persists because it supports the contention that only others are capable of violence, not us.
Only last week I spoke at an event when it was again asserted that we were only moments away from finding some underlying genetic or biological cause for extreme violence. Through the American lens of criminology, extreme violence is a rare, pathological event. But I can’t be asked to “diagnose” someone like, for example, Phillip Garrido (who kidnapped and held Jaycee Duggard as a sex slave for eighteen years) without also thinking about the 800,000 women being held as sex slaves globally, according to Amnesty International. I can’t call someone at Riker’s a “psychopath” without thinking of Dick Cheney defending the use of torture.
Violence is part of the human fabric, and asserts itself wherever people feel threatened by their environment, whether that is the micro-environment of the home, or the larger milieu of economic and social oppression. Generation after generation is victimized and, in turn, perpetrates atrocities because they never become fully conscious of their own victimization at the hands of larger forces. They dissociate it and blindly repeat it. The larger force can be your own brutal father/mother and the larger “father/mother” of the state. I don’ think they are mutually exclusive, indeed, they are mutually constituted.
Violence, where does it come from? I believe that violence is a social phenomena. Poverty, neglect, illiteracy among many other things contribute to violence. Are there people more prone to violent behavior? Maybe, but I think it is usually their environment which pushes them over the edge. I believe that people are focusing on genetics because it takes responsibility away from society. It's the genes fault not ours. As much as I oppose the view that genetics make certain people more prone to violence, I am afraid pretty soon we won't be able to dismiss these views as preposterous. In many of my classes there is always someone blaming behavior in genes. Perhaps pretty soon people won't even think it's silly to blame violence on genes, and I am afraid that day is very very close. Society today reminds me of the book I read BRAVE NEW WORLD, which takes science to the extreme.
Regarding Amanda's question about not intervening with other cultures, I don't agree. It is a dangerous position to take because we will be giving a green light to genocides and other atrocities. It would be great if cultures could evolve all on their own, but we can not sit around and wait for this 'inner change' while people are being slaughter. I also don't agree with Marling's generalization about American women being paternalistic with women abroad. I believe there are people out there who are genuinely trying to help for the right reason and with the right methods.
A few years ago I was watching Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO and Bill Maher said something that at first struck me as wrong and narrow-minded before I realized that, political-correctness aside, i agreed on a certain level. Bill Maher stated that though it is "the right thing" to say that no culture is "better" than any other culture, we don't mean it. Maher goes on to state that our society may be far from perfect but our culture is certainly better than a culture that degrades women and denies their rights or one that ritually circumcises women due to archaic religious or cultural practices. The word "better" implies arrogance on our part, but what other word could convey the same idea? If you disagree with the word "better", ask yourself where would you rather live and why?
I think that human rights are universal and I do not believe in ethical relativism. Adopting ethical relativism would lead us to tolerate genocide, racism, sexism, etc. under the guise of "culture" and "custom". Structural violence stemming from corrupt institutions is bad enough. Structural violence ingrained in a people's culture or religion strikes me as being far, far worse. I think that it is important to bring awareness to structural violence of this latter sort and to try to create change, however, the phrase "white man's burden" implies an insidious paternalism with exploitation and imperialism as its larger goals. We could bring awareness and advocate for change without such an attitude.
Great post Manny!I still object to the word "better" because I think that ignores the other aspects of a nation's culture that may be wonderful and not archaic or degrading. Of course, we also have to remember that we are looking at this with an American perspective. Some things are not so clear cut as they seem. For example, I am sure that some other cultures would be horrified that we put our parents in old folks homes and may fail to take care of them ourselves. They may ask themselves if they would want to live in a culture that doesn't show as much respect and appreciation for the elderly.
But I will say that I have often been asked by relatives in India if I would rather live in America or India and which I like better, and I usually reply that no matter how much I love Kerala (the state in India where I'm from) and how much I love staying with my family there, I would not live there because of the position that women there hold in society.
Exactly! To follow up on Neethu's comment, I don’t think it's fair to ask where one would rather live or which culture is better. Under whose standards is it better? If an American women feels so strongly about female circumcision and thinks that a culture that practices that is oppressing its women and so takes "the burden" to open these women's eyes to their suffering, isn't that imposing her view and her American culture? It's egotistical to think our society is better and we should impose our beliefs of what's right and wrong on another culture. If I were asked where I rather live, because of what I have been exposed to and my culture, of course I'd stay here, but if I was born into a culture that circumcised women, then I would want to go through that process and get married. I can see the correlation between that and our young African American boys who want to go to prison because they see it a rite of passage into manhood. I think we need to butt out and focus in our youth, and that does not equal genocide.
I think we focus on other’s problems to avert the eye from our own, just like we blame genetics, an uncontrollable factor, and not the environment which we can change.
And for the record, I am all for providing cultures with the knowledge of medical procedures. I think that is very important.
What a wonderful give and take! This is why it is so great to comment early and check back, as Neethu's and Marling's subsequent comments carry the conversation even further.
My instinct is to be right there with Bill Maher (not on all things!). It is disingenuous to say things that we really don't believe in order to pay tribute to tolerance. As a feminist, genital mutilation seems incompatible with women's rights.
However, it is my obligation to work against this instinct in so much as it is possible in order to understand the other culture's perspective. As Neethu said, this is the appeal of Molly's approach (and a shout-out here to midwestern common sense). When Marling talks about how a girl might understand circumcision as the only route to marriage, I immediately think "and kids" and then I can see why that might be worth it. Of course, it would be better (and I use that word deliberately) for those to be disconnected, so that women could marry and have kids if they wanted without having to pay such a price, just as it is a net positive that virginity and marriage have been disconnected in this society so that everyone can make a more informed, personally-approrpiate decision.
Hope your parents aren't reading this blog!
I believe that structural violence is more an environmental phenomenon than hereditary. As I observe my own neighborhood, the youth are always getting into trouble all the time. Most of the time it's because they're fighting over turf or just because they want to get violent towards one another. It's sad to see that it's always the same individuals getting into trouble and continuing down the same path and I truly believe it is due to the environment that is causing the violence.
I agree with Amanda that female circumcision is a form of structural violence. Sure, it is a tradition but it is done to oppress women. As this is very similar to foot binding in China many years ago, foot binding was done to place value on women - the smaller your foot the more elegant/worthy one is. Men at the time would only be attracted to women with the smallest feet. It was also done in order to control women so that they wouldn't be able to participate politically and to severely limit her mobility.
Structural violence is primarily the fault of society, not genes. Although there is scientific evidence that links violence to heredity, violence is fostered by the environment that one surrounds them self. Several factors, including poverty and friends, play in a role. It is usually the case that if one surrounds them self with people who use violence as way of life, such as domestic disputes, gang-related fights, crimes, etc... they are likely to be influenced by such acts.
I also agree with Manny and believe that human rights are universal. In countries such as America, female circumcision is easily perceived as an act of violence towards woman. Those who practice female circumcision perceive it as a way of life. However, if the practice itself is assessed as to why it is being done in the first place, it can ultimately be considered a violent act against women. The cultural aspects of the practice should not even be taken into consideration.
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