For a New Social Science of Violence

Abstract

Speaking, writing, is not without violence — it is not without an aspect of violence. This is all the more true in the case of speaking or writing about violence. For not recognizing aspects of violence has a euphemizing and thereby legitimizing effect of such aspects, and even of forms of violence. That euphemization and legitimation are the complementary aspects of violence of a double violent movement. First, there is the misrecognition of a social phenomenon, which is as such characterized by an aspect of violence. This aspect is, however, hardly highlighted. Any science studying its research-object misses aspects of that object, if only by turning it into an ‘object’; every science sees only partial truths, and there is no particular reason to lay emphasis on the aspect of violence that accompanies such science. That goes for all science, in almost every field of enquiry, except for that of the study of violence. Here, the scientific study and its necessary aspect-blindness, or one-sidedness, has the aforementioned second violent aspect, an aspect of violence much more highlighted, although hardly ever reflexively highlighted within the social sciences. When studying violence, therefore, the performative power of social science is likely to contribute to violence and to an ideology of violence. A special kind of social scientific reflexivity is required when violence is the object of study. The problem of the violence of speaking of violence is in fact a version of the problem of social science being a part of its general object of enquiry, which is usually labelled ‘society’, but which actually consists of all social life, not just the social life that coagulates into ‘society’.