SA 203 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Socialist Register, Civilizing Mission, Fruit Tree
4 Jun 2018
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SA WEEK 2 NOTES
Chapter in textbook:
Introduction: Making Sense of Violence
- Violence gives birth to itself
- Structural violence- violence of poverty, hunger, social exclusion and humiliation
- Like produces like- wife beaters are usually beaten and abused themselves; same with
political regimes that use torture and fear and terror
- Violence can never be understood solely in terms of its physicality
- the social and cultural dimensions of violence are what gives violence it’s power and
meaning
- Apartheid- System of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination that existed
in south Africa (example of the social/ cultural meaning behind the violence [fruit tree])
- Violence defies categorization. It can be everything and nothing, visible or invisible etc
- Violence, like power, corrupts absolutely except when it is said to liberate the perpetrator,
stating that colonize subjects can only regain their humanity by acts of revolutionary
violence
The introduction discussed violence in the sense that it comes in many different forms for many
different reasons and is yet to be fully understood. The different types of violence have a very
vast range and is seen countlessly throughout history and in human behaviour. This chapter
features small descriptions on what to expect from the anthologies gathered including topics on
the holocaust, why people kill, genocide, grey zones, torture, politics and communal violence
etc. The themes of telling stories of violence from different perspectives, from those inflicting
violence, victim of violence or bystanders of violence allows for a more thoughtful approach.
What was specifically interesting was Scheper-Hughes experience being invited to record and
photograph the wounded bodies of three young thieves that had been flogged almost to death and
having to stay for the evidence.
Article:
H. Bernstein, C. Leys and L. Panitch 'Reflections on violence today' pp.5-22 in Violence today:
actually-existing barbarism, Socialist Register 2009 (Volume 45)
-Violence has become more or less endemic
-violence that attend the development of capitalism….violence amongst the people
-Colonial expansion and European settlement- extermination- facilitated by racism to justify a
civilizing mission
- National liberation resistant to dispossession and oppression
-“wrong” ethnic or religious identities
- common pleas of modern military history that soldiers have to be trained to see the enemy as
inferior beings if they are to be able to kill them enthusiastically
Similar to the textbook and the film the article discusses themes in violence such as political,
revolutionary, wartime, cultural and racism etc.
Film:
The People Speak: a 2009 documentary based on Howard Zinn's classic book A People's History
of the United States
-Critical view of American history
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Structural violence- violence of poverty, hunger, social exclusion and humiliation. Like produces like- wife beaters are usually beaten and abused themselves; same with political regimes that use torture and fear and terror. Violence can never be understood solely in terms of its physicality the social and cultural dimensions of violence are what gives violence it"s power and meaning. Apartheid- system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination that existed in south africa (example of the social/ cultural meaning behind the violence [fruit tree]) It can be everything and nothing, visible or invisible etc. Violence, like power, corrupts absolutely except when it is said to liberate the perpetrator, stating that colonize subjects can only regain their humanity by acts of revolutionary violence. The introduction discussed violence in the sense that it comes in many different forms for many different reasons and is yet to be fully understood.
