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Home > Arhiva > 2012 > Numar: 4 > The Culture of Violence or Cultivated Violence?

 The Culture of Violence or Cultivated Violence?

    by:
  • Valentina Rujoiu (University of Bucharest, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work, 9 Schitu Măgureanu Street, Bucharest, Romania, phone: 0040 213140326, E-mail: valentinarujoiu@yahoo.com)

The evolution of society in terms of cultural, political, technological and scientific perspectives causes crystallization and sedimentation of certain circumstances responsible for the emergence of a dichotomy that perceived, understood and mostly applied dogmatically, may generate effects that are, in the first instance, acute. Subsequently, in the context of the lack of gravitational recognition but also of the seriousness and deficit in relation to what we call action, effects and their consequences go beyond the chronicity stage and become pathological. A society may move unidirectional, recording remarkable progress in some aspects of everyday life, but it also can move multidirectional. Regardless of the stage of development in any community, violence is present and is an indicator of both interpersonal relations and of the existing relationship between what is respectively called micro or macro system. In this context, the factors that support and generate formal and informal intervention are majorly influenced by collective mentality reflected by the civil and criminal justice system, in social, health, education services. There are communities/societies where congruence becomes a fundamental principle so that legislative regulations are supported by what we call human resources and human infrastructure. From this point of view, we refer to specialists trained for intervention, recovery and social integration in relation to both victims and the perpetrators. But we cannot disregard the cases of those communities/ societies that are members of international structures, that adhere to pacts and conventions in which are stipulated human rights and principles which are based on human dignity, but in which the rigidity and ambiguity still exists to what we call formal social support.

There are still phrases that influence us like "beating is torn from heaven", "I've made you, I'll kill you", "You are mine", "man knows best what to do", "you love a woman only when you hit her or make her suffer", "the end justifies the means", "the manifestation of love/feelings show vulnerability/weakness"? Social emotions represented by guilt, shame, embarrassment are those which, in many communities, generate rules that allow the development of a culture of violence reflected in stereotypes, principles, rules that are embraced and respected by the major pillars of society: family, justice, religion. In a context where the role of the family is recognized mainly in theory but less supported the plan in action, rules and principles are transformed into a virtue, in current circumstances, simple ideals and those who dare to support them and put them in practice may be considered to be nostalgic, not to say utopian. Most times, acts of aggression later turned into violent acts are analyzed in the context of a constellation of causes such as: the lack of income, consumption and harmful substances addiction, the lack of education and information, emotions such as jealousy, envy, embarrassment, principles and specific rules of socialization, of patriarchal type.

The etiology of violence and human aggression is explained and analyzed according to the social dynamics reflected in the different segments that define it. Whatever the type of approach may be, the common point of the analysis is the presence or absence of the family model considered to be definitive in what is called the socialization process of the individual. Violence within the family is reflected in its interaction with the environment. It is actually an ambivalent process in which the algorithm is easily identified and intervention approach involves customizing.

This issue of the Journal of Social Work presents a series of studies and approaches in examining the etiology of family violence (child abuse, intimate violence, elderly abuse) but also socially (prevalence of school violence). There are perspectives taken into account both classic and current ones and, the analysis focuses on the importance of treating this phenomenon in an interdisciplinary context. The action and holistic intervention is an advantage from a triple perspective: preventive, curative and formative because each individual, depending on context, education, access to information, personal development, can become a victim or perpetrator. However, most studies have a blueprint for how violence is addressed in Romanian society in relation to new legislation and social services infrastructure.