Peace And Violence By Galtung
As I tried to conceptualize the idea of violence and what it means, physical force such as: assault,
bullying, abuse, rape, murder, war, terrorism, genocide amongst many more came to mind.
However, what is considered violence depends on the social context and the type of violence
described, because as we have learned in class so far, Violenceis Relative. So what really is
violence? There is not an easy explanation of the term without taking into consideration that
violence can not only be physical but also psychological, emotional, and verbal. I believe violence
to be a form of expressed aggression either physical, psychological, emotional, and verbal
showcased by an individual. In the paper we will discuss how violence can be viewed as... Show
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depending on intentional violence or not necessarily intentional (Galtung, 1969). In my
understanding, if an act of violence such as hurting a person intentionally it could mean that it is
unacceptable. However, if an act of violence were not necessarily intentional depending on the
social context, it would be acceptable. Direct violence, which serves to physically induced threats
such as killing, bullying, sexual assault, and emotional manipulation could serve as unacceptable
violence since its intentional. The Child Beater by Ai, and Death Warrant by district judge Issac
Parker, are good representations as to how they intentionally use physical violence against a victim
to cause harm. In Child Beater , we read about how the abusive mother uses cruel punishments such
as starvation and viciously beats the child to tears (Ai, 1971). This would be a representation of
direct violence since the mother causes physical threats against the child however, it could also be
structural violence since the child is prevented from an equal access to opportunities such as food
and living conditions. In our western society, our viewpoint of the violence inflicted would be
unacceptable since it the mother is conducting child abuse, something that is seen as illegal. From
personal experience, in many hispanic families for example, their form of cultural violence
includes using different forms of punishments to discipline their children such as spankings. While
forms of punishments such as the ones described in Child Beater are unacceptable, spankings are
a form of violence that is acceptable in many homes. In the reading Death Warrant , the author also
uses direct violence and structural as he verbally implies on the warrant sign that when the suspect
is dead no one will miss him, life will go on
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