Tratado sobre la violencia

by Wolfgang Sofsky

Como los hombres son mortales y vulnerables, y se sienten amenazados por sus semejantes, se ponen de acuerdo para recurrir a formas no violentas de asegurar su existencia. Una de estas iniciativas civilizadoras es la decisión de fundamentar la sociedad en un contrato que, entre otras cosas, proscribe la violencia. Sin embargo, la historia de las sociedades humanas es a todas luces una historia violenta. El tratado de Wolfgang Sofsky se centra en esta sombría paradoja que parece inherente a la condición humana. Sus minuciosas descripciones nos muestran lo que sucede en una ejecución, cómo la violencia que inicialmente parecía perseguir un determinado fin se pervierte hasta el punto de revelar su verdadera esencia, qué dinámicas se desencadenan en una masacre, y cómo la violencia absoluta, que transgrede todos los acuerdos y prohibiciones, todo fin y toda disciplina, se convierte para los que la ejercen en una experiencia de libertad ilimitada. Los análisis de Sofsky, expuestos en un lenguaje sobrio y desapasionado, evidencian que la especie humana es esencialmente violenta. Por eso, quien quiera defender la civilización de sus detractores ha de tener una idea clara de las exigencias que ésta impone al hombre; idea que el estudio de Sofsky desarrolla de forma admirable. «Cuando todos los hombres eran libres e iguales, nadie se sentía seguro ante los demás. La vida era breve y el miedo inmenso. Ninguna ley protegía a nadie de la agresión. Todo el mundo desconfiaba de todo el mundo, y de todo el mundo tenía que protegerse, pues aun el más débil era lo bastante fuerte como para herir o matar al más fuerte, a traición o en confabulación con un tercero. Entonces los hombres establecieron una alianza para su común seguridad».

Genres: Sociology

232 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Wolfgang Sofsky, geboren 1952, lehrte als Professor für Soziologie an den Universitäten Göttingen und Erfurt. Seit 2001 arbeitet er als Privatgelehrter, Autor und politischer Kommentator. 1993 erhielt er den Geschwister-Scholl-Preis für »Die Ordnung des Terrors. Seine Essays sind regelmäßig in der deutschsprachigen Presse zu lesen und im Rundfunk zu hören.

Reviews

[Maurizio Manco · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Poiché l’uomo può immaginarsi tutto, è capace di tutto. [...] Nonostante tutti gli sforzi morali, tutte le fatiche per domare la brutalità, il male è eterno. Gli strati più primitivi dell’anima sono ciò che è realmente immortale." (p. 194)

[MJa · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book Sofsky tells a story of violence as a part of culture and human nature. If there is a culture, there is always the urge to be violent. The stronger a culture becomes with its orders, norms and structures, in which you need to fit in, the bigger the urge to liberate yourself with violence from this culture. This means destroying everything that restricted you in the cultural life: destroying houses, symbols, books as bodies of culture, but also bodies of human beings. Nowadays the corona-situation is proofing this right: The rule of not being able to leave your home increases domestic violence. The tighter the net is getting the more you need to break free.

Sofsky has a radical world view of human beings: Civilization is for him not a progress. Even in the best developed cultures and civilizations violence is included. Only the forms and places of violence change, but violence is always there. Freedom and happiness can’t be part of the culture.

Violence is inherent to culture. With the beginning of civilization human beings begin to produce equipment for work, which can always be used as a weapon. The knife to cut your food, is the same knife to kill your neighbor.

Civilization grows to prevent violence. People want laws to prevent violence. There is police to stop violence. At the same time one main part of culture is to produce weapons and means of war to prevent violence, e.g. the atomic bomb can destroy everything, but is meant to be a defense. The progress of technology supports directly the development of new weapons. If you want to defend yourself, you need to create weapons that can destroy others.
So, the conclusion lies near: Violence is not a regression, a relapse to barbarism, but is rather a product of culture, a result of culture.

Culture has the same roots as violence, both try to overcome mortality. Culture with building something that endures the life, with giving your life a sense. While at the same time: During the act of killing, you experience a special sort of passion and freedom: You are like a god: Deciding about death and about life.

It’s important to keep in mind that the book is more a tale than a scientific study of violence so expect more practical examples than arguments for his statements. But this made it interesting at the same time: Sometimes I read statements, I was truly against it intuitively, but explaining why he was wrong, on a rational basis, was challenging.

In every chapter he describes a different aspect of violence: From the spectator to torture to massacre to execution. Some parts didn’t bring up something new to me. Some parts were written that easily and obviously, while at the same time the book’s theme was shrieking, which made the topic even harder.

One chapter that resonated with me was about the victim. Because usually if you read about an act of violence, you always try to understand the behavior of the perpetrator. Our focus lies there instead on the victim. This part is one of the strongest of the book. And this focus proofs our interest in violence itself.

Now I am heading to Hannah Arendt.

[Gloria Quiroz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me aha ayudado a comprender muchas cosas y a tener otra perspectiva completamente diferente sobre la violencia, el porqué existe y la casi nula tolerancia qué le tenemos a ella pero es contraproducente el que siempre sea protagonista en cada etapa de nuestra vida, sin tener evolución en el diálogo y los acuerdos para mejorar la convivencia y existencia humana.

[Schopfi · Rating 4 out of 5]

violence is not the antithesis of culture, it is part of culture, entangled in the contradictory nature of human desires and and aspirations. it is not nature that fosters cruelty, it is humanity itself, the human condition. sofsky, known for his study on the nazi concentration camps, again uses his preferred medium of "thick description" in order to address the problem of violence on a more general level. if asked, i would describe the book as a phenomenology of autothelic violence.