Violence is the use of physical force against persons that potentially causes fear, injury or death. Damage, in some contexts, is also considered a form of violence. The definition of violence is often widened to include threats of physical force and substantially abusive language and harassing actions.

Societies regulate the use of violence through mores, socio-cultural customs, public discussions, and ethical consideration. Most societies recognize a right to violent defense of self and others. Most societies define violence against persons or the property of others as crime.

Throughout history, some religions ( for example, Jainism, Buddhism, Quakerism) and prominent individuals (for example Mahatma Gandhi and John Lennon ) have preached that humans are capable of eliminating individual violence and organizing societies through purely nonviolent means. Modern pacifist, libertarian and anarchist movements have yet to merge these ideas into a viable program. Nevertheless, in many areas of the world, such as Western Europe, incidence of individual violence and war have decreased greatly over the past several hundred years.^[1] Per contra, H Rap Brown asserted that "Violence is as American as cherry pie."

An estimated 520,000 people were murdered in 2000. Two-fifths of them were young people between the ages of 10 and 29 who were killed by other young people.^[2]

There are an estimated 55,000 murders in Brazil every year^[3], about 30,000 murders commited annualy in Russia, more than 25,000 murders in Colombia (in 2005, murders went down to 15,000),^[4] approximately 20,000 murders each year in South Africa, at least 15,000 murders in Mexico, approximately 14,000 murders in the United States (666,160 murders from 1960 to 1996),^[5] roughly 11,000 murders in Venezuela, around 6,000 murders in El Salvador, approximately 1,600 murders in Jamaica^[6], an estimated 1000 murders in France, around 500 murders per year in Canada, and over 200 murders in Chile.^[7]

War

Many societies also support the use of military violence and war in national self-defense, or even to wage war of aggression or to suppress attempts of parts of the nation to secede from it. Since the Industrial Revolution, the lethality of modern warfare has steadily grown to levels considered universally dangerous. As a practical matter, warfare on a massive scale is considered to be a direct threat to the prosperity and survival of individuals, cultures, societies, and the world's living populations. However, death per involved populations' size has significantly decreased, due in part to the involvement of populations pressuring their governments to enact more humane fighting strategies and or opposition to war itself. Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois, calculates that 87 per cent of tribal societies were at war more than once per year, and some 65 per cent of them were fighting continuously. The attrition rate of numerous close-quarter clashes, which characterize endemic warfare, produces casualty rates of up to 60%, compared to 1% of the combatants as is typical in modern warfare.

Law

One of the main functions of law is to regulate violence. Indeed, the sociologist Max Weber famously stated that power is the Monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force on a specific territory. In modern societies, the state retains this monopoly. In earlier communities, a chieftain or king might have had that right. That is to say "violence" also refers to the means used by authorities in order for their decisions to be applied.

Governments regulate the use of violence through, often complicated, legal systems governing individuals, political authorities as well as police and military forces. Many societies condone some amount of police violence to maintain the status quo and enforce laws. Many societies also condone the killing of animals for food and even sport, though many have laws or mores against animal cruelty.

Damage to property is usually considered a less serious offense unless the damage injures, or potentially could injure, others, such as starting a fire that could spread to other buildings. Unpremeditated or small-scale acts of random violence or coordinated violence by unsanctioned private groups are usually prosecuted.

Certain forms and degrees of violence are socially and/or legally sanctioned, and some result from legal action, while others constitute crimes within a specific society. Different societies apply different standards relating to sanctioned and non-sanctioned forms of violence. Degrees of violence that are unacceptable by a society's norms are commonly regarded as cruel, and may be termed extra-normal violence. Violence used in terrorism is often normal in terms of degree.

Violence can be unilateral, while fighting implies a reaction, at least a defensive one.

Here are some forms/conceptions of violence condemned/conceived by various legal entities :

• Abuse - to use wrongly or improperly used; misuse
• Aggravated assault - assault with the use of weapons or in other circumstances beyond the realm of normal assault
• Assault - an unlawful physical attack upon another or threat to do violence to another
• Assault and battery - an assault involving actual bodily contact
• Battery - an unlawful attack upon another person by beating or wounding, or by touching in an offensive manner
• Cruelty to animals - a cruel act upon an animal
• Child Abuse - cruelty to children
• Domestic violence - acts of violence against a person living in one's household or a member of one's immediate family
• Homicide - the killing of another human being
• Murder - homicide in certain proscribed conditions
• Property damage - damage to another's property (ie: breaking of things, burning, or harming in a devastating manner)
• Rape- the unlawful compelling of someone through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines violence as "Injury inflicted by deliberate means", which includes assault, as well as "legal intervention, and self-harm".^[8] The Federal Bureau of Investigation further classifies violence resulting in homicide, into criminal homicide and justifiable homicide (e.g. self defense).^[9]

Psychology and sociology

The causes of violent behaviour are often a research topic in psychology and sociology. Violence is often pursued as an antidote to shame or humiliation.^[10] The mistaken concept here is that violence is a source of pride and a defense of honor.^[11]

Violence (in other than legislative significance) is often, but not always, a deviant behaviour. Even violence endorsed by the state (state force) is considered exceptional, and cannot be considered the norm. As Arendt explains: "Violence can be justifiable, but it never will be legitimate ... Its justification loses in plausibility the farther its intended end recedes into the future. No one questions the use of violence in self-defence, because the danger is not only clear but also present, and the end justifying the means is immediate".^[12] In this sense, the perception is in sync with the domain of psychology or sociology: the concept of violence is always a deviation of some kind.

Another view is that violence is inherent in humans,^[13] and is kept in check by self-restraint.^[14]

The psychologist James W. Prescott performed a study about how the cause of violence in the anthropological sense, which he mainly attaches to lack of mother-child bonding. He links repression of sexuality and punishment of children as a cause of violent societies.

Some writers (Riane Eisler, Walter Wink, Daniel Quinn) have suggested that violence - or at least the arsenal of violent strategies we take for granted - is a phenomenon of the last five to ten thousand years, and was not present in pre-domestication and early post-domestication human societies, although others such as Stephen Pinker (in the Blank Slate) argue that violent behavior is evolutionarily derived.

Violence in the media

Main article: Media violence research

One highly debated topic is about the influence of violent content in popular media, such as films, television, music, comic books, and video games.

Violence makes many appearances in the media, much to the displeasure of parents and politicians. Violence in the media has led to censorship in extreme cases, and regulation in others, one case being the creation of the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB, in 1994.

Violent content has been a central part of video game controversy. Critics like Dave Grossman and Jack Thompson argue that violence in games (some of which they both call "murder simulators") hardens children to unethical acts.

Health and Prevention

The World Health Organization (WHO, [1]) estimates that each year around 1.6 million lives are lost world-wide due to violence. It is among the leading causes of death for people ages 15-44, youth violence being evermost in the rise. Its impact is greater among the male than the female population.

On October 3, 2002, the WHO launched the first World Report on Violence and Health[2]. In it, violence is defined as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation."

Irvin Waller in Less Law, More Order uses the WHO report and others to develop an evidence based proposal for a crime bill to prevent violence and save taxes.

The book illustrates in convincing detail what needs to be done to prevent crime. Waller shows that hiring public health nurses and investing in helping youth at risk to complete school and get job training is better than hiring more police; preventing family violence, banning hand guns and dealing with drugs through public health saves more lives than incarceration; getting close neighbors to watch out for us and better industrial design are more effective than criminal courts; smarter policing is better than more police; paying for services to support victims and guaranteeing them rights is better than more rhetoric. Addressing the social issues that lead to crime, rather than addressing crime after it happens, or putting stiffer penalties in place, will contribute to creating a safer society and to keeping kids and adults from taking the wrong path toward a life of crime.

Endemic and mock violence

Further information: Endemic warfare Initiation

Aggressive and violent behavior are central elements of human social interaction, including display of potential aggression, ritual mock combat, competitive combat, martial arts, in particular unarmed wrestling (often ritualized to avoid severe injury), tournament bouts to establish hierarchy or prestige, as well as sexually motivated consensual violence. Violence notably plays a role in male bonding, with hooliganism and similar behavior establishing peer groups. Violence is also deeply seated in myth and ritual, enacted in animal sacrifice or human sacrifice, but is often reduced to rituals only symbolic of violence (Passion play (San Pedro Cutud Lenten Rites), Eucharist, and Purushamedha.

See also

• Aggression
• Atrocity
• Cartoon physics
• Consensual violence
• Domestic Violence
• Genetics and violence
• Hooliganism
• Injury
• Legislative violence
• Mutilation
• Nonviolence
• Nonviolent Resistance
• Pacifism
• Peace
• Police brutality
• Religious violence
• School violence
• Sectarian violence
• Soccer hooliganism
• Social defeat
• State terrorism
• Street fighting
• Terrorism
• Violence against women
• Violence against men
• Violence in sports
• Violence in hockey
• Violence (personified) in Greek mythology
• Violent crime
• War

References

• Walter Benjamin Critique of Violence
• Jacques Derrida
• Arno Gruen psychoanalyst who has written extensively on the origins of violence
• Hegel
• Marx
• Nietzsche
• Plato
• Georges Sorel
• Gene Sharp
• Rene Girard
• Flannery, D.J., Vazsonyi, A.T.& Waldman, I.D. (Eds.) (2007). The Cambridge handbook of violent behavior and aggression. Cambridge University Press, NY.
• Nazaretyan, A.P. (2007). Violence and Non-Violence at Different Stages of World History: A view from the hypothesis of techno-humanitarian balance. In: History & Mathematics. Moscow: KomKniga/URSS. P.127-148. ISBN 9785484010011.

Notes and references

External links

• Information on James W. Prescott's work
• 1986 Seville Statement on Violence
• Introduction and Updated Information on the Seville Statement on Violence
• The Meanings of Violence and the Violence of Meanings Intercultural discussions on violence
• Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma
• Violence Prevention Institute
• Text of Dom Helder Camara's classic 1971 "Spiral of Violence"

Reading

• Boys Equally At Risk For Partner Violence