Harvard Westlake Nayar Neg
| Tournament | Round | Opponent | Judge | Cites | Round Report | Open Source | Edit/Delete |
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| Damus | 1 | Loyola AB | Smith, Calen |
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| Damus | 1 | Loyola AB | Smith, Calen |
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| Damus | 4 | Marlborough SD | Scott Wheeler |
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| Damus | 1 | Loyola AB | Smith, Calen |
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| Damus | 1 | Loyola AB | Smith, Calen |
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| Damus | Quarters | Immaculate Heart DD | Adam Torson, Zane Dille, Ryan Powell |
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| Holy Cross | 3 | Newark Science BA |
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| Loyola | 1 | San Marino KWu | Adam Bistagne |
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| Loyola | 3 | Palo Alto BH | Kris Kaya |
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| Loyola | Doubles | Brentwood EL |
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| SEPT-OCT - Yale NC r1 - Warming, Elections, Case turn, SSD | 1 | Westford VA |
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| XX | 1 | XX | XX |
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| XX | 1 | XX | XX |
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| Yale | 1 | Westford VA |
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| Yale | 6 | Mountain View DZ | John Staunton |
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| Yale | 3 | Hunter MS | Christian Quinoz |
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| Tournament | Round | Report |
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| Damus | 1 | Opponent: Loyola AB | Judge: Smith, Calen 1AC - Cap AC |
| Damus | 4 | Opponent: Marlborough SD | Judge: Scott Wheeler 1AC Police brutality - minority and LGBTQ Advantage |
| Damus | 1 | Opponent: Loyola AB | Judge: Smith, Calen 1AC - Cap AC |
| Damus | 1 | Opponent: Loyola AB | Judge: Smith, Calen 1AC Cap |
| Damus | Quarters | Opponent: Immaculate Heart DD | Judge: Adam Torson, Zane Dille, Ryan Powell 1AC structural violence AC |
To modify or delete round reports, edit the associated round.
Cites
| Entry | Date |
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0 - Contact InfoTournament: XX | Round: 1 | Opponent: XX | Judge: XX | 10/2/16 |
NOV-DEC - CP - CRBTournament: Damus | Round: 1 | Opponent: Loyola AB | Judge: Smith, Calen CRBs are a legitimate alternative to immunity reform- their decisions affect the ‘clearly established’ doctrine which solves the case without judicial change The CP Solves the Case
3. The CRB doesn’t have to work- it creates a deterrent effect 4. Civilian review is mutually exclusive and more efficient than court action The net benefit is Tech Shift | 11/7/16 |
NOV-DEC - DA - Hollow HopeTournament: Damus | Round: 1 | Opponent: Loyola AB | Judge: Smith, Calen Court civil rights victories act as fly paper drawing other social movements into the court to focus on litigation strategies Courts wreck movements The court system destroys crucial parts of the LGBTQ movement and works to further marginalize people. Leachman ‘14 LGBTQ Rights are crucial to avoid extinction Tatchell ’89 | 11/5/16 |
NOV-DEC - DA - TPPTournament: Damus | Round: 4 | Opponent: Marlborough SD | Judge: Scott Wheeler TPP is top of Obama’s priorities, PC is key. Creighton ‘10/27 Solves multiple extinction scenarios. Morimoto ‘15 Regional hegemony is key to stop nuke war. Rudd 11 Rudd 11 – Kevin Rudd, Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, “The Case for American Engagement in Asia: The Australian Perspective”, 9-15, http://foreignminister.gov.au/speeches/Pages/2011/kr_sp_110915.aspx?ministerid=2 THE GEO-STRATEGIC RAMIFICATIONS But as nations change, so too do relations between nations. The emergence of new powers inevitably brings new strategic complexity, as the power relativities of the 20th century give way to the new ones. Asia will be vulnerable to a host of strategic uncertainties, arising from the need for new powers to integrate into the global economic and political order, and for the established powers to accommodate them. The potential for misunderstanding — and the consequences of miscalculation — is also vast. Tensions like those we see in the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Korean Peninsula and the Persian Gulf may become even more difficult to manage. Make no mistake: these aren’t just regional problems. Questions about the future of the South China Sea touch on every regional country’s future, given their global strategic and economic significance. This theme isn't new, but what I can tell you about this strategic shift is that we — Australia and the United States — will face it as allies. Sure, there is the possibility of instability in our region. But we've faced the possibility of conflict — and actual conflict — together in the past. Many different tests, circumstances and challenges have put the acid to our alliance since the ANZUS treaty was signed, 60 years ago. We've been reminded again that the only time the ANZUS treaty has been formally invoked was ten years ago this week — in response to the attacks on September 11. But military and intelligence cooperation with the US continues across a wide range of theatres within the framework of the Alliance. Here in San Francisco — where the ANZUS treaty was signed, all those years ago — I'm reminded that Australian and American servicemen and women have fought, flown, sailed and — I'm reliably informed — surfed together since the Pacific War. Today, that Alliance continues to grow in meaning and intensity. We are fighting together in Afghanistan; working together against global threats like piracy; and responding together to natural disasters across the region. For us, for our relationship, the end of the Cold War hasn’t meant a downgrading of the importance of our Alliance — if anything, it’s become more intense and more important. So as we face the challenges of the 21st Century — the challenges of the shift of power to Asia — we will do so together. We’re working together to ensure our forces are aligned in the right way to provide for the national security of our two countries, and to help us shape the emerging regional environment. Our forces have to be able to respond to the range of contingencies that can arise in our region, including humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Increasingly, we aren’t just working with each other, but with other regional players. I'm not just talking about the Pacific, or the Asia-Pacific. The critical region for our future now extends to include the Indian Ocean as well. The growing strategic importance of the Indian Ocean starts with India's rise. India is the largest democracy in the world. Forecast to be the third largest economy in the world in coming decades, it is in the interest of both the United States and Australia for India to play the role of a major international power. For now, India’s focus remains South Asia. But its strategic weight is increasing with its increasing economic size and strength. India is increasingly looking east with interest, both for strategic and economic reasons, and because of long-standing cultural connections. But the importance of the Indian Ocean also lies in its unique role in maritime security and sea lines of communication for a much larger group of economies, both in Europe and Asia. Lying between the Middle East energy sources and the dynamic global engine room of Asia, its importance grows with each passing year. The pressures on the Gulf and West Indian Ocean choke points will intensify, as India grows and East Asian centres of growth remain reliant on Gulf energy and African resources. In the 21st Century, questions of resource, energy and food security are becoming more vital than ever. As Robert Kaplan says, the Indian Ocean is once again at the heart of the world, as it was in ancient and medieval times. THE ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES The United States has been a guarantor of security and economic prosperity in the Asia-Pacific for decades. But the 21st Century will demand more. As the world changes, it's even more critical that the US builds its engagement with our region. As the United States transitions back from tough and unforgiving wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it might seem tempting to resist the case for further international engagement. President Obama has already rightly intensified US involvement with East Asia. It remains the case, in one way or another, that the United States is vital in solving common problems collectively. No other power is able or willing to support essential global public goods — like the free movement of trade, capital and people around the world. Sea-lane security, regional security in critical regions like the Gulf, open markets, the reserve currency, deep and liquid capital markets — who else provides these global public goods? America has faced these questions before. On the eve of entry into World War II, Henry Luce's seminal editorial in Life magazine on the American Century was much more than a statement about relative power, as America assumed its position in the new order. It was a call for American leadership in international affairs. It is in America’s interest and the world’s interest to provide that leadership — because in its absence, the risks grow that we will see destabilisation that threatens us all. The interdependence of our economies has been shown clearly by the financial crisis, and a collapse in the conditions for open trade would be an economic disaster for all trading nations. I share President Obama's view that America can neither retreat from "responsibility as an anchor of global security" nor "confront... every evil that can be found abroad". But President Obama talked of the need for a "more centered course" — and that lies in a deep US engagement in Asia. I believe the vast majority of the countries of Asia welcome that continued and expanded American strategic role in our hemisphere. As Indonesia’s President Yudhoyono said in November 2008, as the financial crisis was wreaking havoc upon us, “none of these global challenges can be addressed by the world community without having America onboard. And conversely, none of these issues can be resolved by the United States alone.” And as Lee Kuan Yew said a year later, “the consensus in ASEAN is that the US remains irreplaceable in East Asia.” In the 21st Century, the US needs substantial, sophisticated, nimble engagement in the region. | 11/6/16 |
NOV-DEC - PIC - Structural ViolenceTournament: Damus | Round: Quarters | Opponent: Immaculate Heart DD | Judge: Adam Torson, Zane Dille, Ryan Powell Counterplan Text: We advocate the entirety of the aff plan without the use of the words “structural violence”. The counterplan is inherently competitive. Since we defend the entirety of the aff advocacy aside from a change in certain rhetoric a perm would be severance out of both the reps and the language of the 1AC. Definition They misunderstand the meaning of the term “structural violence”. It is a specific term of art used in the sociological field of peace research that has been widely discredited by both critics and the terms creator. Structural violence” is a term coined by Johan Galtung, it refers to violence where no single decision maker is responsible- like poverty which results from the global economy. Gatlung 12 Theories of structural violence explore how political, economic and cultural structures result in the occurrence of avoidable violence, most commonly seen as the deprivation of basic human needs (will be discussed later). Structural theorists attempt to link personal suffering with political, social and cultural choices. Johan Galtung’s original definition included a lack of human agency; that is the violence is not a direct act of any decision or action made by a particular person but a result of an unequal distribution of resources.Here, we must also understand “institutional violence”. “Institutional violence” is often mistaken for structural violence, but this is not the case. “Institutional violence” should be used to refer to violence perpetrated by institutions like companies, universities, corporations, organisations as opposed to individuals. The fact that women are paid less at an establishment than men is an act of direct violence by that specific establishment. It is true that there is a relationship with structural violence as there is between interpersonal violence and structural violence. And Structural violence is the most problematic area to be addressed for conflict transformation. Net Benefits Finally, we come to the great Galtung metaphors of ’structural violence’ and ’positive peace’. They are metaphors rather than models, and for that very reason are suspect. Metaphors always imply models and metaphors have much more persuasive power than models do, for models tend to be the preserve of the specialist. But when a metaphor implies a bad model it can be very dangerous, for it is both persuasive and wrong. The metaphor of structural violence I would argue falls right into this category. The metaphor is that poverty, deprivation, ill health, low expectations of life, a condition in which more than half the human race lives, is ’like’ a thug beating up the victim and taking his money away from him in the street, -or it is ’like’ a conqueror stealing the land of the people and reducing them to slavery. The implication is that poverty and its associated ills are the fault of the thug or the conqueror and the solution is to do away with thugs and conquerors. While there is some truth in the metaphor, in the modem world at least there is not very much. Violence, whether of the streets and the home, or of the guerilla, of the police, or of the armed forces, is a very different phenomenon from poverty. The processes which create and sustain poverty are not at all like the processes which create and sustain violence, although like everything else in the world, everything is somewhat related to everything else. There is a very real problem of the structures which lead to violence, but unfortunately Galtung’s metaphor of structural violence as he has used it has diverted attention from this problem. Violence in the behavioral sense, that is, somebody actually doing damage to somebody else and trying to make them worse off, is a ’threshold’ phenomenon, rather like the boiling over of a pot. The temperature under a pot can rise for a long time without its boiling over, but at some threshold boiling over will take place. The study of the structures which underlie violence are a very important and much neglected part of peace research and indeed of social science in general. Threshold phenomena like violence are difficult to study because they represent ’breaks’ in the system rather than uniformities. Violence, whether between persons or organizations, occurs when the ’strain’ on a system is too great for its ‘strength’. The metaphor here is that violence is like what happens when we break a piece of chalk. Strength and strain, however, especially in social systems, are so interwoven historically that it is very difficulty to separate them. The diminution of violence involves two possible strategies, or a mixture of the two; one is the increase in the strength of the system, the other is the diminution of the strain. The strength of systems involves habit, culture, taboos, and sanctions, all these things, which enable a system to stand Increasing strain without breaking down into violence. The strains on the system are largely dynamic in character, such as arms races, mutually stimulated hostility, changes in relative economic position or political power, which are often hard to identify. Conflict of interest are only part of the strain on a system, and not always the most important part. It is very hard for people to know their interests, and misperceptions of interests take place mainly through the dynamic processes, not through the structural ones. It is only perceptions of interest which affect people’s behavior, not the ’real’ interests, whatever these may be, and the gap between perception and reality can be very large and resistant to change. However, what Galitung calls structural violence (which has been defined by one unkind commentator as anything that Galltung doesn’t like) was originally defined as any unnecessarily low expectation of life, an that assumption that anybody who dies before the allotted span has been killed, however unintentionally and unknowingly, by somebody else. The concept has been expanded to include all the problems off poverty, destitution, deprivation, and misery. These are enormously real and are a very high priority for research and action, but they belong to systems which are only peripherally related to the structures which, produce violence. This is not to say that the cultures of violence and the cultures of poverty are not sometimes related, though not all poverty cultures are culture of violence, and certainly not all cultures of violence are poverty cultures. But the dynamics of poverty and the success or failure to rise out off ’it are of a complexity far beyond anything which the metaphor of structural violence can offer. While the metaphor of structural violence performed a ’service in calling attention to a problem, it may have done a disservice in preventing us from finding the answer. 2. Galtung’s theory of structural violence perpetuates the status quo of dominant states by offering an overly vague criticism of oppression. Lawler 89 In the late 1960's Galtung's foundational model of peace research was subjected to considerable criticism as part of a general upheaval within the peace research community. A group of young, mostly Scandinavian, radicals employed a neo-Marxist perspective to attack the assumptions of symmetry and ideological neutrality that formed the core of Galtung's argument (Schmid 1968, 1970; Olsen and Jarvad 1969; Eckhardt 1971; Dencik 1982). Though their primary target was American conflict research and its contribution to the analysis of the Vietnam War, they questioned also Galtung's assumption that the path to peace lay in the principles of integration and cooperation. For the radicals, Galtung's approach neglected the political-economy of relations between the developed and underdeveloped worlds and in its attempt to preserve a sym- metrical approach to violent conflict was guilty of 'idealistic universal- ism'. From the perspective of the oppressed, an argument for the further integration of the international system was tantamount to defending a status quo which reflected the interests of the dominant states and the beneficiaries of the world capitalist economy. Against this, the radicals called for a peace research that openly sided with the exploited and advocated the 'sharpening' of the various latent conflicts of interests that characterised global politics. 3. Resolving “structural violence” requires action by international powers, as they are the only bodies capable of amending existing “structures”. This reliance on current institutions preserves existing structures of dominance. Schmid 68 Peace research is an applied or 'oriented' science. An applied science has to be applied by somebody who has the power to apply it. In the case of peace research, this means there must be some kind of institutionalized link between peace re- searchers and decision-makers on the supranational level. Thus, the universalist ethos of peace research becomes operationalized into identification with the interests of the existing international system, that is the interests of those who have power 229 in the international system. So peace research becomes a factor supporting the status quo of the international power structure, providing the decision-makers of the system with knowledge for control, manipulation and integration of the system. That is the institutional aspect of peace research. The theoretical frame of reference dominating peace research closely cor- responds to the institutional needs: the peace researcher/specialist is trained in an ideology of internationalism; he has learned how to solve conflicts, how to integrate a system, how to avoid manifest organized violence, how to prevent major uprisings against the system; and he believes that what is good for the system is in the long run also good for its elements. His concept of peace is essentially a negative one, stressing the need for stable peace,38 and the 'common interest' he will have to fall back on is the avoidance of catastrophe. His positive concept of peace is not sui generis but a negation of his negative peace concept. The essence of peace research is concentrated in the concepts of control of the international sys- tem to prevent major breakdowns, and integration of the international system to make it more stable. That is the ideological aspect of peace research. The institutional and the ideological aspects presuppose and condition each other. To become applied, peace research must meet the needs of the decision- makers. To satisfy their concern about stable peace, peace researchers must ally themselves with the decision-makers of the international system. Given this situation, change of the system can not be advocated by peace research. Structural change would be a threat to the power-holders of the international system. Only adaptive change within the system is possible. 4. Theories of structural violence offer a one-sided mechanism of achieving equality in which instead of aiding the poor we focus primarily on bringing down the rich, resulting in a system that is technically equal but objectively destitute. Boulding 77 Because of his passion for equality, his hatred of hierarchy, dominance, top dogs, and anything which looks like oppression (much of which is praiseworthy), Galtung identifies entropy as a symbol of goodness and regards negentropy, that is, structure, improbability, and potential, as evil. Galt- ung is all for the increase of social entropy so far as that means destruction of organi- zation and hierarchy, the dissipation of wealth, 'and the reduction of everything to a dead level. It would almost seem as if Galtung would regard the last ultimate whimper of the universe, according to the second law of thermodynamics, in which all things are at an equal temperature and equally distributed throughout space so that nothing more can 'conceivably happen, as the ultimate heaven, or perhaps one should say Nirvana, towards which all this uncom- fortable and unequal structure of stars and planets, life and society, will eventually move. Here we see the profound difference be- tween the structural and the evolutionary points of view. The structural point of view turns out to be inimical to the ideal of struc- ture itself, and sees structure as the enemy of equality - which it is. The evolutionary point of view sees the whole evolutionary process as the segregation of entropy, the building up of little castles of order in the crystal, in DNA, in life, in humans, and in their innumerable artifacts both personal, material and organizational, always at the cost, according to the second law, of increas- ing thermodynamic disorder elsewhere, in our case of course nicely segregated in the sun about which we don't have to worry. The structuralist sees pollution in the struc- ture whether it is smoke, slums or vice and says 'away with it. The evolutionist sees pollution as part of the price of evolution itself. Gal'tung's misunderstandings about entro- py derive, one suspects, from the cardinal principle of his normative system, the over- whelmingly strong value which he gives to equality as such. One almost suspect's that Galtung would prefer a society in which everybody were equally destitute rather than one in which some were destitute and 'some were rich. A passion for equality as such, however, can easily lead into the hatred of the rich without any love for the poor. One can put a very strong negative value on poverty and believe it should be abolished wi'thout believing in equality at all. This would lead to a society with a floor below which nobody were allowed to fall, but above which a high degree of inequality would be tolerable. Galtung nowhere spells out what his ideal society would be, and in- deed if any of us did this we would probably decide that we did not like it af'ter all! But the drive for equality as such is extremely strong in all his writings. Subpoint B: Attempts to resolve “structural violence” inevitably result in the perpetuation of physical violence that shuts off democratic channels for minority representation.
The deployment of a notion of positive peace has been a far from innocuous development in peace research. A comprehensive theory of needs, where needs are not defined simply as necessary means to an agreed end, can be the basis for a suppression of both democratic and liberal aspirations. Democracy and Liberty are both concerned with personal desires, the former in the sphere of the polity, and the latter in the sphere of the individual. Needs theory subjugates both the individual and the polity to the abstract ideology of the needs theorist. When Maxim Litvinov remarked in Geneva in the 1930s that peace is indivisible, he was referring to the negative sense of the term. 'Negative peace' is one of the few social values in whose name crimes can be committed only at the cost of self-contradiction. However, if 'negative peace' must be associated with 'positive peace' to give rise to peace in totality, then peace is no longer indivisible —since direct violence may be defended as a means of eliminating `structural violence'. This defence is a familiar one, resembling the classic liberal justification for rebellion, and even in certain circumstances intervention. Christian Bay has argued that structural violence `may be so extreme that a limited war must be deemed a lesser evil, if there is no other way to end or mitigate the structural violence, and if the war is sure to remain limited and brief in duration.'" This blithe assumption — that there could ever be circumstances in which one could be absolutely sure that a war would remain limited and brief in duration — is a splendid illustration of Bay's detachment from the real world. Nonetheless, the greatest danger in his claim stems from the extraordinary elasticity of the notion of structural violence. This is best brought out by the Danish peace researcher Lars Dencik, although using slightly different terminology. He defines conflicts as `incompatible interests', and goes on to remark that 'incompatible interests are here defined objectively, i.e. by the observing scientist according to his theory and is sic independent of the actual subjective consciousness of the actors involved. This means that incompatible interests are conceived of as structural (actor indepen-dent), the structure defined according to the theory of the scientist.'" He draws the predictable conclusion that 'in certain situations "revolutionary violence" may be the necessary means to obtain conflict resolution proper'." This is irresistibly reminiscent of the conclusion of Georges Sorel's Reflections on Violence, that it is `to violence that Socialism owes those high ethical values by means of which it brings salvation to the modern world'20, and it is instructive, though for peace educators perhaps not very comforting, to recall that Sorel's ideas eventually were used in justification of Italian Fascism." (p. 30) 2. Democratic deliberation is key to avoid massive violence. Halperin 11 As the United States struggles to wind down two wars and recover from a humbling financial crisis, realism is enjoying a renaissance. Afghanistan and Iraq bear scant resemblance to the democracies we were promised. The Treasury is broke. And America has a president, Barack Obama, who once compared his foreign-policy philosophy to the realism of theologian Reinhold Niebuhr: "There's serious evil in the world, and hardship and pain," Obama said during his 2008 campaign. "And we should be humble and modest in our belief we can eliminate those things." But one can take such words of wisdom to the extreme-as realists like former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and writer Robert Kaplan sometimes do, arguing that the United States can't afford the risks inherent in supporting democracy and human rights around the world. Others, such as cultural historian Jacques Barzun, go even further, saying that America can't export democracy at all, "because it is not an ideology but a wayward historical development." Taken too far, such realist absolutism can be just as dangerous, and wrong, as neoconservative hubris. For there is one thing the neocons get right: As I argue in The Democracy Advantage, democratic governments are more likely than autocratic regimes to engage in conduct that advances U.S. interests and avoids situations that pose a threat to peace and security. Democratic states are more likely to develop and to avoid famines and economic collapse. They are also less likely to become failed states or suffer a civil war. Democratic states are also more likely to cooperate in dealing with security issues, such as terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. As the bloody aftermath of the Iraq invasion painfully shows, democracy cannot be imposed from the outside by force or coercion. It must come from the people of a nation working to get on the path of democracy and then adopting the policies necessary to remain on that path. But we should be careful about overlearning the lessons of Iraq. In fact, the outside world can make an enormous difference in whether such efforts succeed. There are numerous examples-starting with Spain and Portugal and spreading to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia-in which the struggle to establish democracy and advance human rights received critical support from multilateral bodies, including the United Nations, as well as from regional organizations, democratic governments, and private groups. It is very much in America's interest to provide such assistance now to new democracies, such as Indonesia, Liberia, and Nepal, and to stand with those advocating democracy in countries such as Belarus, Burma, and China. It will still be true that the United States will sometimes need to work with a nondemocratic regime to secure an immediate objective, such as use of a military base to support the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, or in the case of Russia, to sign an arms-control treaty. None of that, however, should come at the expense of speaking out in support of those struggling for their rights. Nor should we doubt that America would be more secure if they succeed. 3. Combatting “structural violence” justifies reactionary violence against a system that is poorly defined. This makes conflict inevitable and trades-off with peaceful reform. Quester Subpoint C: The term “structural violence” is insufficient for diagnosing the reality of oppression. It is not a method for liberation, just an ivory tower theory.
The critical element or link in the chain of this ‘causal flow’ (200 Galtung, 1996) is structural violence. It is the process that links cultural distinction to Direct Violence. Structural violence is an ostensive label that may be applied to a broad range of phenomena. What Galtung notes as definitive is that Structural violence is the process of deprivation of needs. Each part of the violence equation depends on the existence of the other two before the violent conflict become truly serious and sustained (197-200 Galtung, 1996). It need not be consistent or radical . Simply put, it is violence embodied by a structure, or violence that ‘operates regardless of intent’ (93 Galtung, 1996). It is characterized politically as repression, and economically by exploitation. However, Galtung notes that ‘blunt repression/exploitation is necessary but not sufficient’ (93 Galtung, 1996). In fact the nature of structural violence is somewhat vague in that it allows the quantity and the qualitative nature of aggression and dominance to be variable (201 Galtung, 1996). 2. John Galtung, the creator of the concept of “structural violence”, admitted that his theory couldn’t be applied objectively. We cannot even assess what “structural violence” is. Lawler 89 For Galtung sociology was undoubtedly a science. In contrast to the formal sciences of logic and mathematics, sociology was a 'factual' science, which in terms of scientific rigour occupied a middle position between physics and the 'humanistic sciences' (Galtung 1958d, p.88). His account of the virtues of applying science to the study of the social world was, nonetheless, ambiguous. Galtung (1958d) recognised that the object-domain of the social sciences made the application of scientific method difficult and perhaps impossible if overly high standards were applied. Consequently he argued that the primary purpose of social science was to generate descriptive empirical statements which would have to be sub-jected to some form of testing procedure (1958b). Theory-building could follow but was not essential to the claim for scientific status (Galtung1959b, p. 10). Galtung also admitted that significant problems existed regarding the scientific assessment of theoretical statements about the social world, but in a manner characteristic of his subsequent work appealed to the future development of suitable analytical tools. Though his discussion of the question of value-freedom was often ambiguous in his early sociological papers, Galtung informed his stu-dents that value-statements were not testable and therefore unscientific(1958d, p.92). Though Galtung recognised that values impinged upon the conduct of social science in a variety of ways — inter alia, the deter-mination of investigative focus, the exclusion of undesired results and the procurement of financial support — the problem was consistently presented as one of degree and not destructive of a genuinely scientific sociology (1958b). 3. “Structural violence” rejects holding any specific group or class responsible for exploitation in favor of a vacuous criticism of a “system” that it never fully identifies. Lawler 89 Galtung also rejected the implication of the radical critique that specific groups or social classes were responsible for exploitation. The term 'exploitation' was refused by him on the grounds that it was politically and emotionally overloaded. The continuing influence of his sociological orientation was evident in the preference for offering a definition of violence as an abstract systemic property that can be comprehended without reference to specific historical conjunctures or agents. But Gal- tung's approach also reflected the influence of Gandhi, from whom was taken the view that a distinction should be made between status actions and status holders (1959c, 1980). It is the structure of social interaction within which agents of violence act that is to be attacked, rather than the agents themselves. To attack the agents is to meet one form of violence with another. True dedication to the doctrine of ahimsa required 'the return of good for evil' and a distinction between the doer and the deed (Galtung 1959c; Borman 1986). However Gandhian ethics arose out of a complex matrix of occidental and oriental philosophical principles never fully explicated by even Gandhi himself (Sharma 1965; Borman 1986). Galtung restricted his treatment of Gandhi's thought to the draw- ing out of some practical implications. Though he was to later complain of the failure of his critics to see the imprint of Gandhi on his work, this is hardly surprising since few clues were provided. The fundamental problem with the concept of structural violence was that it was vacuous without a substantiation of the value-system on which it depended. The denial of potentiality by structural violence, presupposed some notion of human potential. As one critic noted, without a clear analysis of the values underpinning it, the concept was reduced to a label to be applied to anything its author did not like (Eide 1971) 4. “Structural violence” cannot explain social changes or the exact origins of violence beyond the fact that it simply exists. Lawler 89 In his sociological writings Galtung provided no analysis or defence of any specific values, other than to claim that they were empirically held, or to assert that values should be revised in reflection of systemic changes. What was missing was a sense of the politics of social change. Even if consensus could be established as to the direction in which a social system is moving, it is a different matter to evaluate such change. Furth-ermore, how are we to choose between competing and non-commensurable understandings of systemic 'health'? The only answer implicit in Galtung's discussion was that empirical evidence must be produced to show which set of values accorded best with the social system under scrutiny. That brings us back full-circle to the value-contamination of observation and the impact of the political perspective that conditions our analysis of social systems. Functionalism can be wedded to any political ideology, but being a descriptive rather than analytical discourse it cannot provide that ideology. Though aware of the problem of defending values outside of a dis-tinctly normative discourse, Galtung was not apparently perturbed by it. In his discussion of functionalism (1959a) he claimed that there were' fairly inter-subjectively communicable and consensual standards' such as 'sane', 'healthy' or 'normal', against which social systems could be judged. For Galtung, to describe a system as 'healthy' was not a value-judgement, in contrast to the claim that 'healthy is good'. Leaving aside the question as to whether the distinction holds or if 'fairly consensual 'constitutes a scientific category, it became clear that when Galtung turned to peace research the evaluative standard of 'peace' was to be sim-ilarly derived and understood. In its Galtungian mould, peace research was differentiated from earlier forms of normative enquiry into global social relations by the absence of any distinctly normative discourse. Structural violence appears, for Galtung, when resources, or especially the power to allocate them, are unevenly distributed: when people are starving and this could be avoided; when life expectancy is much greater in the upper class; when a small elite control the entry into high status. Here, without any prior ethical analysis or normative preparation,110 Galtung makes his first intellectual broad jump from the analytical-empirical plane to the ethical, but in a most cavalier manner: "In order not to overwork the word violence we shall sometimes refer to the condition of structural violence as social injustice."111¶ Then Galtung presents his final two distinctions (dimensions) regarding violence: it may be intended or unintended, or manifest or latent. With these and the other distinctions mentioned, Galtung defines a "typology of violence" in which the personal-structural distinctions are basic. In focusing on the means of personal and structural violence Galtung makes his second broad jump, but now back from the ethical to the analytical-empirical plane--again without analysis and as offhanded: "If we accept that the general formula behind structural violence is inequality, above all in the distribution of power, then this can be measured."112¶ D. His Concept of "Positive Peace." The above serves as an introduction to six factors maintaining inequalitarian distributions--that is, "mechanisms of structural violence"113--which are of no concern here. Nor need we tarry over Galtung's discussion of the relationship between personal and structural violence, and the trade-offs in emphasizing a system that is higher on one than another. But what I should mention is his conclusion on the definition of peace: ¶ E. His Political Theory. Thus, structural violence = unactualized human potentials = social injustice = inequality. Therefore, positive peace = equality = social justice = realized human potentials = absence of structural violence. This equation is stipulated; analysis to support the critical relationships are lacking; and the definitional and substantive problems in the formulation are glaring. One should understand, however, that the critical relationships and definitions are entirely theoretical. Even violence, usually an easily measured empirical concept of physical harm and destruction, is converted into a construct meaning unactualized human potential, then equated in theory with injustice and, thence, equality--each of them constructs. | 11/8/16 |
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