The Will to Violence

• NCJ Number: 206082
• Journal: Theoretical Criminology Volume: 8 Issue: 1 Dated: February 2004 Pages: 5-31
• Author(s): Willem Schinkel
• Date Published: February 2004
• Length: 27 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article critiques social scientific accounts of violence and offers an autotelic explanation of violence that re-focuses the object of social scientific inquiry to the violent event itself.

Abstract

The author contends that there is autotelic violence, or violence for the sake of violence, and that social scientific research has largely ignored autotelic violence. In studying violence, most scientific studies have focused on the causes of violence, rather than on the violent act itself. The five main strands of social scientific theories that explain violence are critiqued as the author argues that the theories do not focus on violence itself but on the causes of violence. Moreover, research has been heavily skewed toward perpetrators and their backgrounds and while violence is the supposed topic of study, the violent act itself has been practically ignored. Problems with drawing causal inferences in the social sciences are underscored and the assumed causality present in many social theories on violence is questioned. Next, the author proposes a shift in the way violence is studied in the social sciences. While most social research to date has been focused on the causes of violence, a determinist focus, few studies have focused on the violent act itself, a formalist focus. A shift is necessary to incorporate formalist research into the existing body of determinist research. The limits of a determinist perspective are explored, followed by a discussion of autotelic violence. The author argues that autotelic aspects are present in every act of violence; violence is often selected not for the end it will secure, but for the intrinsic attractiveness of the act itself. Examples of autotelic violence are present throughout the culture, in television programming, games, art, and literature. Formalism, the study of autotelic violence, is examined in popular culture as well as in philosophical traditions as the author contends that autotelic violence must be studied in its formal aesthetic aspect. Current research focusing on the determinist aspects of violence present a one-sided view that must be balanced with attention to the aesthetics of violence. Notes, references