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The Violence of the Singular

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Violence and Meaning

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Abstract

The dominant model to understand the social meaning of violence relates the manifestations of violent acts to the power and the (alienating) effects of a general (political) entity, for instance, the state, capitalism, globalization. This model seems to be able to explain the most important manifestations of violence in modern societies. According to this model, the meaning of violence is political and has to be situated within the clash between a universal which is not a true universal (unable to recognize the particular) and a particular that is rejecting it, being oppressed by it. My contribution intends to challenge this model, starting from the observation that this dominant model is not sufficient to explain the outbreak and other manifestations of violence. In order to remediate these shortcomings of the dominant model, I will argue that it is necessary to take into account another meaning of violence, the violence of the singular. With this notion of the singular, I intend to introduce a reflection on violence that precedes the political understanding of violence on the basis of the universal/particular gap.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    All translations of quotations from this book are my own. “Die spätmoderne Gesellschaft, das heiβt jene Form der Moderne, die sich seit den 1970er oder 1980er Jahren entwickelt, ist insofern eine Gesellschaft der Singularitäten, als in ihr die soziale Logik des Besonderen das Primat enthält” (Reckwitz 2017, 12).

  2. 2.

    “Die soziale Logik des Besonderen betrifft dabei sämtliche Dimensionen des Sozialen: die Dinge und Objekte ebenso wie die Subjekte, Kollektive, die Räumlichkeiten ebenso wie die Zeitlichkeiten. »Singularität« und »Singularisierung« sind Querschnittsbegriffe und bezeichnen ein Querschnittsphänomen, das die gesamte Gesellschaft durchzieht”(Reckwitz 2017, 12).

  3. 3.

    “In der Moderne konkurrieren eine soziale Logik des Allgemeinen und eine soziale Logik des Besonderen miteinander” (Reckwitz 2017, 27).

  4. 4.

    “Gewalt kann für die Täter so zu einer »attraktiven Lebensform« werden, indem sie verspricht, sie vom Opfer in den negativen Helden zu verwandeln” (Reckwitz 2017, 428, cf. Reemtsma 2016).

  5. 5.

    “Es handelt sich bei ihnen um selbstbewusste negative Singularitäten, die es gezielt darauf angelegt haben, eine negativ bewertete Tat zu begehen. Sie sind gerade keine Gegenstände des Mitleids von anderen. Sie zelebrieren ihre Abweichung, sind »lachende Täter«” (Reckwitz 2017, 426).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium

    Arthur Cools

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  1. Arthur Cools
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Correspondence to Arthur Cools .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hoger Instituut voor Wijsbegeerte, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Lode Lauwaert

  2. KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Laura Katherine Smith

  3. Husserl Archives, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

    Christian Sternad

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Cools, A. (2019). The Violence of the Singular. In: Lauwaert, L., Smith, L., Sternad, C. (eds) Violence and Meaning. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27173-2_5

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