Violent Structures

VIOLENT STRUCTURES*

by

DONALD BLACK

University Professor of the Social Sciences

University of Virginia

Published in: Violence: From Theory to Research, edited by Margaret A. Zahn, Henry H. Brownstein, and Shelly L. Jackson. Newark, NJ: LexisNexis/Anderson Publishing, 2004, pages 145-158.

* Based on a paper prepared for a Workshop on Theories of Violence, organized by Margaret A. Zahn and Anna Jordan, and sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Violence and Victimization Division, Washington, D.C., December 10-11, 2002. It also partly derives from my lectures entitled "Dangerous Structures" and "Violent Structures," presented at the Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, April 7, 2000, and a symposium entitled "Hidden Structures of Social Reality: Five Innovative Theories," at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, April 18, 2000. I thank Mark Cooney, Marcus Mahmood, and Roberta Senechal de la Roche for comments on an earlier draft.

Email: [email protected]

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Pure Sociology

Pure sociology is a new kind of sociological theory that excludes several

features of virtually all other explanations of human behavior: 1) psychology (a

concern with the human mind), 2) teleology (a concern with human action as a

means to an end), and 3) anthropocentrism (a concern with humans rather than

social life in the strictest sense). It includes none of the assumptions or claims

common to other theories, such as those about the subjective experience or

goals of the people whose behavior they explain. Its logic also differs from both

microscopic explanations (based on the characteristics of individuals) and

macroscopic explanations (based on the characteristics of groups or

aggregates). Instead, pure sociology explains each form of social life with its

social geometry -- its multidimensional location and direction in social space. The

geometry of a social phenomenon includes the various social distances it spans,

the social directions it travels, and the social elevations it inhabits. And this

geometry explains why it occurs (e.g., Black, 1995, 1998, 2000a, 2000c, 2002;

see also Baumgartner, 2002; Horwitz, 2002b).

Violence

The focus of this chapter is moralistic violence. Violence is the use of

physical force against people or property, including threats and attempts.

Although most violence is moralistic, some is predatory, recreational, or ritualistic.

Predatory violence is the use of force in the acquisition of wealth or other

resources, such as in a robbery or rape. Recreational violence arises for its own

sake, such as for sport or amusement. Ritualistic violence is ceremonial, such as

a beating during an initiation into a gang or a human sacrifice during a religious

event. But moralistic violence is a form of social control1 -- a process that defines

and responds to deviant behavior, such as when a man kills his wife's lover or a

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teenager attacks a peer for insulting him (see Black, 1983, 1998: xv; Cooney

and Phillips, 2002). Most such violence is self-help: the handling of a grievance

with aggression (see Black, 1990: 74-79). Violent self-help includes beatings,

killings, fights, and other physical attacks between individuals, as well as

collective forms such as feuds, lynchings, riots, terrorism, genocide, and warfare.

Although governments and legal officials may use aggression against those they

define as deviant, the following pages address only violent self-help by

individuals and groups acting on their own.

Violence is a prominent mode of conflict management in nearly all known

societies, but appears unevenly across the social locations of each society where

it arises. Some locations in social space have a great deal of violence, others

little or none. And the means by which violence occurs and its degree of severity

differ greatly from one social location to another. How, then, do we explain the

variable nature of violence, including its incidence, form, and magnitude?

The Law-like Nature of Violence

First we must recognize that moralistic violence partly resembles law, a

process commonly regarded as the very opposite of violence. Both belong to the

same sociological family -- social control. Although modern law defines and

responds to most violence as crime, a form of deviant behavior, most violence

defines and responds to deviant behavior as well (see Black, 1983). Most

violence is explicitly or implicitly a form of justice -- punishment, retaliation,

resistance, or revenge. It rights a wrong. In modern life, then, most violence is

both crime and social control at once. Yet because moralistic violence differs

substantially from most other crime (such as robbery, burglary, or pornography),

its criminal nature is theoretically incidental. Instead, the primary theoretical

challenge is to understand it as a phenomenon similar to law itself.

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Violence not only resembles law in its moralistic nature but also in the

highly precise manner of its application. It is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon,

like an explosion with unpredictable consequences. Rather, just as each case of

conflict within the jurisdiction of law attracts a particular style and quantity of legal

consequences (such as a specific fine or payment of damages), so each case

within the jurisdiction of self-help attracts a particular form and quantity of

violence (such as a specific weapon or degree of injury). The social geometry of

each conflict predicts whether violence occurs at all and, if so, its nature and

extent.

The Geometry of Violence

Earlier theories of violence focus on the characteristics of individuals or

collectivities (for an overview, see, e.g., Smith and Zahn, 1999). However, a

shortcoming of individualistic theories (such as those attributing violence to

learning or frustration) is that no individuals are violent in all their conflicts. And a

shortcoming of collectivistic theories (such as those attributing violence to cultural

traditions or social inequality) is that no collectivities are violent in all their

conflicts. Individualistic theories are thus badly nearsighted, unable to see

beyond the individual to each conflict where violence actually occurs, and

collectivistic theories are badly farsighted, unable to see within the collectivity to

each conflict where violence actually occurs. In other words, individualistic

theories overindividualize violence (as if individuals alone explain violence), while

collectivistic theories overcollectivize violence (as if collectivities such as

societies or communities alone explain violence). Because both ignore the

conflict structures that generate violence -- the violent structures -- both

understructuralize the explanation of violence. They therefore fail to predict and

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explain precisely when and how violence takes place -- who is violent in a

particular way, toward whom, and on what occasion.

Pure sociology focuses on the social geometry of each conflict that might

arise, including the various social distances between the parties, their social

elevation, and the social direction of the grievance. It specifies how particular

conflict structures attract particular forms and quantities of violence (see, e.g.,

Black, 1995: especially 852-858). Pure sociology thus transcends both

individualism and collectivism -- microcosms and macrocosms -- and explains

violence better than either. Violent structures explain any and all cases of

violence, whether scuffling between children, fighting between husband and wife,

feuding between gangs, rioting between ethnic groups, or warfare between

tribes, nations, or groups of nations. Structures are violent, not individuals or

collectivities. Structures kill, not guns or people. Consider, for example, when and

how weapons enter conflicts.

The Behavior of Weapons

The social geometry of a conflict -- the conflict structure -- predicts and

explains whether a weapon enters a conflict and, if so, its nature and use. For

instance, all else constant (such as the nature of the conflict and other elements

of the conflict structure), the role of weapons increases with the relational and

cultural distance2 between the parties (see Black, 1998: 154):

The lethality of weapons is a direct function of social distance.

This principle predicts and explains numerous observations from diverse

societies. For example:

1) Anthropological evidence shows that lethal weapons more readily enter

distant conflicts (such as between members of different tribes or communities)

than closer conflicts (such as between family members, friends, or neighbors in

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the same tribe). The Nuer of the Sudan thus use their spears only beyond the

village: "Men of the same village or camp fight with clubs, for it is a convention

that spears must not be used between close neighbors lest one of them be killed.

. . . [But] when a fight starts between persons of different villages, it is with the

spear" (Evans-Pritchard, 1940: 151, punctuation edited). The Ik of Uganda have

spears as well, but use nothing more lethal than a club or stick within the tribe:

"The Ik say they never use spears in fights among themselves, which I believe to

be true" (Turnbull, 1972: 163).

In many tribal and other earlier societies, all adult men carry at least one

weapon such as a knife, spear, or rifle at all times, yet rarely if ever use it against

fellow villagers or other close associates. For that matter, potentially dangerous

parts of the human body (such as fists, fingernails, and teeth) and everyday

objects (such as cooking implements and furniture) are always available to

everyone, but people seldom use them against friends or relatives.

2) When weapons enter closer conflicts, their use is relatively restrained.

For instance, the Mbuti pygmies of the Congo are careful not to draw blood within

the band, a small group of families who live together as a unit: "The rules of self-

help among the Mbuti are quite simple. It is perfectly proper to hit someone with

anything wooden; it is not at all proper to draw blood, nor to hit anyone on the

forehead, which is considered a dangerous spot" (Turnbull, 1965: 188-189).

Although Mbuti men have bows and poison arrows, spears, knives, and

machetes close at hand, they virtually never use them in close relationships. An

anthropologist once saw a man throw a spear in his brother-in-law's direction, but

he apparently aimed it into the ground (Turnbull, 1962: 122).

Men of the Hadza tribe of Tanzania also have bows and highly lethal

poison arrows, and can kill one another with ease, but they apparently never do

so in their camps. Instead, their violence is limited mainly to "duels" with wooden

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staves (often bow staves), in which "head injuries are common but deaths are

very rare" (Woodburn, 1979: 252).

3) In eastern Indonesia, men of the Dou Donggo tribe are quick to confront

and threaten one another, possibly with a knife (called a kris) that every man

wears in the front waistband of his sarong. Their associates always restrain

them, however, and they apparently never use their knives or otherwise inflict

personal injuries on anyone who lives in their own village (Justice, 1991: 295,

302-305). Married couples do not injure one another either, though one spouse

might attack jointly-owned possessions, such as when one man "took out his

bush knife and hacked to pieces several chairs" (idem: 302).

When Irishmen square off and threaten to kill one another on Tory Island

(off the coast of Ireland), their relatives and friends -- like the Dou Donggo above

-- restrain the adversaries before anyone takes a swing or inflicts any injury more

serious than a bloody nose. But fights with more distant adversaries in other

parts of Ireland or elsewhere (such as London or Glasgow), might become "very

nasty," with "broken bottles, boots, and gore" (Fox, 1977: 144-145; see also 138-

143).

4) In nineteenth-century Ireland, ritualized fights between so-called

factions -- usually large groups of men from adjoining rural localities -- were

fought with long sticks, usually of blackthorn or oak, held and used in such a way

that serious injuries were unlikely: "The blackthorn was held by the middle, and

only one half of it could give a blow. If it were held by the end, it would be indeed

a deadly weapon, but held half-way it was more a weapon to defend its user than

to hurt an opponent. Hence, the faction fight was rather a fencing competition --

not a deadly combat" (O'Donnell, 1975: 186, punctuation edited). Against the

British, however, the weapons were more lethal -- earlier swords and pikes, later

guns and bombs.

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Aborigine men in modern Australia sometimes brandish lethal weapons

such as guns, spears, and knives in conflicts with others, but seldom do they

inflict serious injuries or death unless the adversary is a stranger who speaks a

different language. Although women likewise have violent conflicts with other

women in their own village, the only weapon ever used is a three- or four-foot

long eucalyptus stick (called a nulla nulla). And they avoid hitting the head and

soft body parts in favor of legs, arms, or hands (Burbank, 1994: 35-36, 74, 93-

94).

5) Finnish Gypsies traditionally fought duels with weapons such as clubs,

whips, or knives, but carefully avoided fatalities. They used knives only to slash

rather than stab, and "the winner would do anything in his power in order to

prevent the loser from dying of his wounds" -- sometimes taking the loser to his

own home where his wife could tend his adversary's wounds to assure his

recovery (Grönfors, 1986: 108-109). But the urbanization of modern Finland has

widened the social distance between fellow Gypsies, and the ancient rules of the

duel have withered away. Guns now enter the more distant conflicts, and sudden

death is replacing the lesser injuries of the past (idem: 109).

6) In some tribal societies, male neighbors or other acquaintances may

handle a conflict with a ritualized duel using only fists or hands. For example, the

Yanomamö of Brazil and Venezuela exchange blows to the chest with closed

fists or slaps to the side with the open hand until one falls or withdraws.

Occasionally they exchange blows with long sticks, eight to ten feet in length, but

wield them only in a fashion that inflicts injuries no worse than lacerations of the

scalp (Chagnon, 1977: 113-119). The Eskimo of the American Arctic may have a

head butting (during a song duel, a ritual exchange of insults similar to "the

dozens" among some African-American young men), a buffeting (an exchange of

"straight-armed blows on the side of the head, until one is felled and thereby

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vanquished"), or a wrestling match (Hoebel, 1954: 92-99). Only more distant

adversaries of these tribal people are likely to face a spear, ax, knife, arrow, or, if

available, a gun (see, e.g., Chagnon, 1977: 122-137).

7) In medieval Europe, knights in armor and on horseback might duel to

the death in a "trial by battle" with matched lances, axes, and swords, possibly

ending with the loser's mutilated body dragged away to hang in disgrace from a

gibbet -- a hybrid of violent self-help and law inconceivable between friends or

close relatives (e.g., Vale, 2000; see also Kaeuper, 1999: e.g., 159-160). In the

American South until the last half of the nineteenth century and in parts of Europe

until the twentieth century, gentlemen such as military officers and large

landowners might handle conflicts in highly ritualized duels with swords or pistols.

Though acquainted at least by name, the duelists were seldom if ever closely

connected (see, e.g., Williams, 1980; McAleer, 1994). Fighting in the rural South

between strangers and distant acquaintances of lesser standing normally

involved no bladed weapons or guns, but only fist-fighting and possibly biting,

scratching, and the gouging of eyes (Gorn, 1985).

8) Nonhuman violence also varies with the social geometry of conflict.

Teeth provide chimpanzees with a potentially lethal weapon, for instance, but

their biting varies inversely with the closeness of their conflicts: Although wild

chimpanzees who forage and sleep together "rarely" bite each other, they readily

use their teeth to mutilate and kill a chimpanzee stranger who trespasses on their

territory. Chimpanzees in zoos are somewhat intimate with all the others in their

enclosure, and usually limit the use of their teeth to minor biting of an adversary's

extremities, typically a finger or a foot (for references, see Black, 2000b: 115).

* * *

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Violence obeys geometrical principles not only in tribal and other

traditional settings but throughout the social universe, including modern societies

such as the United States. In low-income African-American neighborhoods of

Philadelphia (where weapons are readily available and lethal violence is

comparatively frequent), for instance, weapons such as knives and guns rarely

enter conflicts between closely-connected young men, such as fictive kin (those

"goin' for brothers" or "cousins") or members of the same gang. Instead, close

adversaries typically fight only with their fists and avoid striking the head, kicking,

or biting. Getting help from friends is also taboo: "The fights are characterized by

elaborate rules, including 'no hitting in the face,' 'you got to use just your hands,'

and 'no double-teaming'" (Anderson, 1999: 89; see also 90-91; Jankowski, 1991:

144-145). In one small Georgia town, some African-American young men limit

their fighting with friends to "30-second bouts" without weapons or help, encircled

by other friends who loudly count to 30 before screaming "stop" (Phillips, 2003:

700). African-American men elsewhere in Georgia and in Texas (interviewed in

prison) say they would use weapons against close associates only to threaten --

"as a scare tactic" -- rather than to injure or kill: "Restraint is, in part, a product of

relational ties. . . . Intimates brandish a weapon, but strangers shoot" (Phillips,

2003: 700-701).

Whether fighting erupts at all reflects relational distance as well, including

not only friendship but who lives in what neighborhood. In the small town of

Clarksville, Georgia, for instance, the "east side" and "west side" are "rival

neighborhoods" whose African-American young men will fight "over almost

nothing." As one remarked, "The slightest little thing can start a fight between

east and west" (idem: 701). Note also that while over 40 percent of modern

American households have at least one gun (see Cook and Moore, 1999: 278),

household shootings are extremely rare compared to the frequency of household

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conflicts. Even the chronic but mild violence of children in an American day care

center conforms to the closeness of their conflicts (Baumgartner, 1992b).

It is possible to discover the multidimensional structure of every kind of

violence -- whether a beating structure, fighting structure, dueling structure,

vengeance structure, lynching structure, riot structure, terrorism structure, or

warfare structure -- each refined to predict and explain the various forms and

degrees of violence that might occur (see, e.g., Black, 1990: 74-79l; 2004;

Baumgartner, 1992a; Senechal de la Roche, 1996, 2001, 2004b; Cooney, 1998).

The social geometry of violence in tribal and other earlier societies is easier to

identify than that in a modern society such as the United States, but this is partly

because the structure of modern conflict is so diverse -- relationally, culturally,

vertically, organizationally, and otherwise (for an overview of the dimensions of

social space, see Black, 1976). The identification of violent structures in modern

life is also difficult because social scientists seldom describe in detail the

particular conflict structures where various degrees and forms of violence arise or

do not arise at all (but see, e.g., Baumgartner, 1988; Anderson, 1999; Phillips,

2003). Strangely enough, therefore, we know more about the violent structures of

the remote societies studied by anthropologists and historians than about those

of the more familiar and accessible societies studied by sociologists and

criminologists.

The Multidimensionality of Violent Structures

My earlier examples illustrate how relational and cultural distance increase

violence in conflict structures. However, relational and cultural distance are not

the only dimensions of conflict structures that predict and explain whether and

how violence arises. For example, every conflict structure also has a vertical

dimension. Each grievance has a social elevation (defined by the social status of

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the parties) and a social direction, whether downward (from a social superior),

lateral (between equals), upward (from a social inferior), or both downward and

upward at once.3

The illustrations of weapon use above largely pertain to lateral conflicts,

but many conflict structures are stratified, one side above the other. For instance,

the beating of women and children typically has a downward direction in a

patriarchal family where the oldest male rules the household. Slave discipline

likewise has a downward direction but, because it normally spans a greater

vertical, relational, and cultural distance than family discipline, slaves face more

severe forms of beating (such as whipping and caning) and possibly mutilation

(such as amputation of ears or testicles) and crippling (such as cutting of the

Achilles tendon) (for references and more examples, see Black, 1998: 152). And

some violence is upward, against superiors. Terrorism is an extreme form of

upward and distant violence that might include mass killings with guns or

explosives and conceivably chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons (see

Senechal de la Roche, 1996: 101-122; 2004b; Black, 2004).

Conflict structures also have an organizational dimension: Is the grievance

between individuals on their own, or is it partly or wholly collective? 4 A riot

always involves a crowd, for instance, and possibly one crowd against another. A

group might lynch an individual, carry out a series of executions, or engage in

terrorism (see Senechal de la Roche, 1996: 102-105: 2001; see also Black,

1990: 75-78). If a group participates, what is its level of organization, resources,

and degree of solidarity? If two groups have a conflict, what social distances

separate them? Every conflict thus arises in a multidimensional structure, and the

central theoretical problem is to specify the particular structure conducive to each

form and degree of violence. Consider, for example, the social structure of the

blood feud.

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Blood Feuds and Gang Violence

The classic blood feud is a precise, extended, and open exchange of

killings, usually one death at a time. Such feuds have long arisen in many

traditional societies throughout the world and across history, including the

Mediterranean region, the jungles of South America, and medieval Europe (for

references, see Black, 1998: 75; for examples of detailed studies, see Boehm,

1984; Wilson, 1988; Miller, 1990). They also appeared in rural America in earlier

times -- the Hatfield and McCoy feud of nineteenth-century Appalachia being the

most famous example (e.g., Waller, 1988). Classic feuds typically entail the killing

of adult men from different clans or clan-like units such as large homesteads that

might include non-family members. The classic feud nonetheless remains

relevant in the modern world, partly because youth gangs in the United States

(and probably elsewhere) engage in significantly similar forms of violence.

The classic blood feud is distributed widely in physical space, but its

distribution in social space is quite narrow. Everywhere it arises in a distinctive

configuration of social distance and social closeness with the following

characteristics: The participants are groups largely equal in size and other

resources; homogeneous in ethnicity; functionally similar in their activities;

mutually independent economically and otherwise; highly solidary in their internal

relations; and isolated from one another by an intermediate degree of relational

distance, close enough only for mutual recognition (Black, 1995: 855, note 130).

No classic blood feud anywhere in the world has had a conflict structure without

these elements, which together comprise a stable agglomeration of social islands

(see Black, 1990: 75-78).5

Notably feud-like is the violence (known as gang warfare) of African-

American and Hispanic groups in American cities such as Los Angeles, San

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Francisco, Chicago, and New York City (see, e.g., Shakur, 1993; Sanders, 1994;

Klein, 1995; Decker and Van Winkle, 1996: 20-26, 179, 186; Cooney, 1998: 74-

83). Gang violence is particularly frequent and destructive in Los Angeles, where

police officials estimate that gangs account for between one-fourth and one-half

of all intentional homicides (Booth, 2002; see also Maxson, 1999). Gang wars do

not perfectly match classic blood feuds, partly because they sometimes deviate

from the precise and open exchange of one life for another, and partly because

the attacks are sometimes preemptive rather than reciprocal (for detailed

examples of gang violence, see, e.g., Shakur, 1993). Even so, gang wars and

classic blood feuds arise in significantly similar conflict structures.

The more a feud-like conflict deviates from the multidimensional structure

outlined above, the less its violence will follow the classic pattern of a precise,

extended, and open exchange of killings. Replace groups with individuals, for

instance, and the conflict structure will produce only violent confrontations such

as duels and fights in the name of honor. Narrow the social distances between

the groups by increasing their interdependence and relational closeness, and

violence will decline in its continuity and severity, shifting to unreciprocated

vengeance, non-lethal fighting, or even peaceful forms of settlement. Increase

the social distances, however, such as the relational, cultural, and vertical

distance between the groups, and violence will become more indiscriminate and

warlike. Such is true of the modern gang war, with its sometimes uneven and

secretive exchange of killings and preemptive strikes reflecting a greater degree

of social distance than separates the groups in a classic blood feud. The

automobile, for example, extends gang conflicts across greater social distances

by allowing contact with gang members identifiable only by their clothing, location

in enemy territory, or other outward indicators. A plurality of gangs, including

gangs of strangers who are enemies of allies, also increases the social distance

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among and between the gangs of a large city (see generally Shakur, 1993;

Decker and Van Winkle, 1996). Yet gangs are still comparatively close in various

respects, such as culturally, economically, and functionally. Greater social

distances bring true warfare and other massacres, including the mass killings

sometimes seen in interethnic conflicts between unequal groups of total

strangers.

Conclusion

We can specify the social geometry of every kind of violence with the

same predictive and explanatory power as the multidimensional model of the

classic blood feud. This broader inquiry has already begun, but its progress

requires considerably more information about the conflict structures that have

produced violence in the past, and that will do so in the future. How, for example,

do violent structures differ from nonviolent structures? Which structures produce

which kinds of violence, whether collective or individual, unilateral or bilateral,

open or secretive, deadly or mild? Explore the social structure of conflict, and

discover the answers. Violence obeys sociological laws, and those laws are

geometrical.

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Endnotes 1 This chapter employs the concepts of social control and conflict management

interchangeably. Both refer to any process that defines or responds to deviant

behavior or that handles a grievance. But neither implies a process of influence,

such as a change of conduct by the person or group subjected to the violence

(see, e.g., Black, 1984). 2 Relational distance refers to the degree of participation in someone's or

something's existence, including the frequency and scope of contact and the

amount of information communicated (see Black, 1976: 40-41). Cultural distance

pertains to a difference in culture, such as differences in language, religion, and

modes of dress (idem: 73-74). 3 The vertical dimension refers to the distribution of social status, such as wealth,

integration, conventionality, authority, or respectability (see generally Black,

1976). 4 The organizational dimension refers to a capacity for collective action (see

Black, 1976: 85). Any group has a degree of organization.

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5 One author refers to American youth gangs as "islands in the street"

(Jankowski, 1991). They are islands not only in relation to one another, but also

in relation to other groups and institutions in their community, including their

families (see, e.g., Shakur, 1993: 69, 118; Decker and Van Winkle, 1996:

Chapters 7-8).

Biographical Summary

Donald Black is the University Professor of the Social Sciences at the University

of Virginia. A theoretical sociologist, he previously held appointments at Harvard

University and Yale University. His books include The Behavior of Law (1976),

The Manners and Customs of the Police (1980), Toward a General Theory of

Social Control (1984, two volumes), Sociological Justice (1989), and The Social

Structure of Right and Wrong (1993; revised edition, 1998).