Customer Reviews

Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

James Gilligan's *Violence* is a provocative read. The author is absolutely correct when he sees violence as a problem of epidemic proportions. His interpretation of violence as a disease and consequent search for the best preventive medicine strategies to counteract it, is also potentially fruitful. Finally, Gilligan's claim that the root cause of violence is shame is intriguing and well worth taking seriously--although not, perhaps, as seriously as Gilligan wishes.

Having said this, however, there are serious flaws in this book. In the first place, it's horribly written and horribly edited. The book is over-long, maddeningly redundant, and choppy in presentation. Gilligan's central shame thesis is repeated again and again; Chapter 5 is basically a rewrite of Chapters 2 and 3; chapter 4 could've been condensed into a couple of paragraphs; the Prologue and Epilogue are over-long and rather gratuitous; and to top everything off, Gilligan writes Chapter 5 as if it's the real beginning of the book (which it actually is), even including an Introduction-like summary of the chapters that follow. It's as if he combined two manuscripts to make one book. The poor style of presentation is enough to cause even patient and sympathetic readers to hair-pull.

Moreover, it's difficult to see that Gilligan really establishes his central thesis: that shame is the root of violence. I would argue that he begs the question, ignoring as he does the obvious point that not all experiences of shame result in recognizable violence. Sometimes--perhaps usually, as a matter of fact--shame leads to renewed determination to succeed in order to redeem past offences. (The schoolchild "shamed" by a poor grade can resolve to study real hard in order to show her classmates, teacher, and parents that in fact she's got what it takes.) What Gilligan doesn't do is to explain how it's possible that some shame experiences lead to violence and others don't. But without an attempt to make sense of this, the whole thesis collapses. What appears to really be at stake, then, isn't whether violence is caused by shame, but why most people who experience shame don't turn to violence.

Still, Gilligan is to be commended for his insight that there's at least some connection between shame and violence, even if he overplays it. My guess is that the soul-killing varieties of shame he discusses in Chapter 2 best fit his model, and he's actually at his best when discussing them. Moreover, his thesis raises intriguing possibilities for national and international public policy, as well as personal relationships and educational reform. If Gilligan is even partly correct, we might be able to go a good way toward reducing violence between individuals, classes, and nations by making sure that social and economic structures that "dis" others are reformed.

Despite my criticisms, I recommend this book. Gilligan comes across as a compassionate and concerned man, and his book, if read judiciously, contributes to the continuing dialogue about violence and nonviolence.

[Please use the following review in place of my previous review, which I have found contains a few typos.]

The most hopeful insight Gilligan offers about violence is: A person's tortuous, shameful sense of self prompts the act of murder to "symbolically" silence the ridicule one has endured. Does this sound remarkably similar to those humiliated young teenagers who feel compelled to avenge their pain with murderous revenge against their taunting classmates? Gilligan's book offers a sign of hope, for if we are able to significantly prevent violence, it will come from focusing on the underlying "incapacitating feelings" we humans experience when we are repeatedly emotionally wounded. In my new book on education strategies for prevention of violence, I address our cultural reluctance to educate children (and their parents) about the critical importance of understanding their inner reaction to being emotionally wounded. Gilligan, in his own way, seems to be advocating that violent consequences follow blaming others for what WE feel, and then symbolically attempting to punish them (with murder) for our sense of shame. We need more parents, teachers and emotional educators who can demonstrate a healthy and honest way of dealing with emotional wounds other than shaming ourselves or blaming others. It is not rocket science to LEARN how to deal with painful feelings. It is just that we have a deeply embedded cultural tendency to ignore and let our pain build up within us until it erupts into what Gilligan calls the "ritual" of murder. I would venture that few, if any, persons who commit violence were ever taught how to name, own and honor their hurt feelings as a normal -- not shameful -- part of their human vulnerability.

As a scholar who has spent the last 3 years trying to understand what drives men (and now boys) to the extremes that we have witnessed at the Dunblane (Scotland) Elementary School - 19 dead, (March, 1996), the Port Arthur (Tasmania) Historic Site - 35 dead (April 1996), on through a litany of American towns right up to the Columbine High School in Littleton, CO in April 99, I have found the greatest insight into these actions in Gilligan's book. He asserts that at the root of the worst violence, indeed all violence, is shame. I concur. This book must be required for parents, teachers, psychologists, anyone concerned with the roots of violence. Guns provide the means (the British and Australians were wise enough to legislate gun controls after their respective disasters), shame is the driving force behind each of the cases of horror we witness all too frequently!

I teach classes on the sociology of violence and have recently started assigning this book. Although Gilligan is a psychiatrist and not a sociologist, he offers a sociological understanding of the problem of violence. His arguments are convincing, and his writing is accessible to college students. I disagree with the previous reviewer that the book is poorly edited and poorly written. Gilligan is an excellent writer. His book targets a general readership, but he does not insult an academic audience.

I would have liked more than a few pages on what we can do about the problems he outlines. But the book is a great starting point. I consider it a "must-read" for anyone studying the problem of violence.

I lived with violence (or to be more accurate, the constant threat of...) and in an attempt to understand it, I bought James Gilligan's book after I heard him on the radio. Unfortunately the damaged young man named Dennis X described almost perfectly the person who inhabited my apartment space. The author's insight into the twisted logic of violence mirrored my own personal observations. His perspective immediately helped me to set aside emotion and confusion, to communicate and handle my situation better and ultimately plot my successful escape! Useful for any of us who have to navigate amongst angry and potentially violent people in an urban setting.

This book is probably one of the most important books written on the subject of violence in America. I would couple it with Steven Stosny"s Treating Attachment Abuse: A Compassionate Approach as creating a solution to the problem of violence. If you are interested in the solution and not in perpetuating the problem, read these books.

It has never been difficult to initiate a discussion about violence in the United States-it pretty much defines the paradigm of this country's 225 year existence. Not just successive revolutions and gunboating diplomacy but it's very conception. In the mind's eye of those Europeans who,centuries ago, would possess this continent lay the seeds of conflict and confrontation with those people already residing here. It is from these beginnings that Gilligan uses a tradgedy from his own family's history to establish a context for this particular book. I am somewhat familiar with various theories concerning violence and it's causes,as well as 'solutions' to it and my first observation was Gilligan's characterization of the epidemic as a 'national' one. In fact,people are exposed to horrific levels of violenc on an international scale on a daily basis. In general I tend to look for global solutions for problems of this scale right from the beginning so I was a bit apprenhensive about where this book might be headed. It didn't take long to see that Gilligan was going to focus on individual anecdotes and actual case histories of prisoners he had worked with for a good portion of the book. And his credentials as a professional-including as a director for mental health for the Massachusetts prison system-did seem to qualify him for the task. Still,by a third of the way into the book I found my self almost daydreaming,wishing for words of clarification from the likes of Frantz Fanon and Malcolm X;two individuals who have dealt with violence on both a social and personal level. As a psychiatrist in Algeria after it's war for independence from France in the early 1960's Fanon treated both the tortured and their torturers. The last year of Malcolm X's life saw him put forward theories about causes and solutions to violence that are,unfortunately,rarely noted. On a more positive note Gilligan has a clear message for those who might have felt that, in the wake of prison rebellions such as Attica and others, there had been some level of improvement in living conditions: those conditions haven't changed. Over a million people are currently behind bars in the U.S. alone under conditions that are as bad, if not worse, than they were thirty years ago. Killings(of the spirit as well as the body),beatings,rapes,extortion,etc. continue at unprecedentd rates further eroding the character of all those victims and other participants who will eventually be expected to function "productively" in a society that, for the most part, never gave a damn about them in the first place. Things aren't looking too good but the discussion Gilligan takes us through IS positive because the damage done by incarceration is a central component of this problem of violence and will have to be looked at in all it's detail if it is ever to be adequately addressed. After getting this far in the book I began casting about for a more 'intuitive' definition of violence than a review of autopsy reports and Gilligan obliges with "....an intolerable condition of human shame and rage, a blinding rage that speaks through the body". Now we're getting somewhere. While making it clear that he doesn't excuse individuals for their specific crimes Gilligan embarks on an examination of why crime continues and whose interests are served by it's continued existence. "It is not in the vested interest of the ruling class to pursue those social policies that would cut down on crime;on the contrary, it is in their interests to keep the crime rate as high as possible. The ruling class(all of whom are white,in America)is responsible, in large part, for the way in which we,as a community,have chosen to distribute our collective wealth(since they,or those who represent their interests,write the laws that constitute these choices),which is,in turn responsible for the social inequities that lead to crime and violence. At the same time,it is the ruling class that wages the so-called 'war on crime',which is really a war on the poor....". Current social policy,in other words,isn't simply a prescription for disaster but,in reality,it is a prescription for how to continue to run an inherrently violent society. It is in this context that Gilligan moves on to an unflinching examination of society's perpetuation of violence and it's relationship to minority communities by documenting the hugely disproportionate rates of poverty,incarceration,lack of educational opportunities,et.. Overall,Gilligan has given us an excellent view of the crisis and has indicated what it's frightening trajectory,if uninterrupted,might be. Where Gilligan falls short in this book is in pointing us toward a truly effective solution that is politicalin nature and international in scope. For example,we get only one specific reference to those political entities(the Democratic and Republican parties)that are directly responsible for implementing social policy over at least the last one hundred years. That reference comes in a passage where a Democratic Party politican refers to "the party that represents the interests of the very rich",fostering "as high a crime rate as possible;and even to exagerate what the crime rate is,to foment fear and panic about violent crime far beyond what is realistically appropriate,and so on." Though Gilligan gives short shrift to bipartisan social engineering one should consider this book a valuable tool-a reminder,if you will-that the true war on crime and violence has a long way to go.

This book is insightful and dead-on in its accuracy in pinpointing the sources of violence in our country. We wonder why ours is the most violent in spite of all our freedom and wealth...Gilligan makes it painfully clear. He was not afraid to point fingers at those in power, including the government, and he offered logical solutions to the problem. I highly recommend this read (although I do agree with another reviewer that parts are redundant...i skimmed through to get to the rest that was well worth it).

I am in the process of completing a book on American history for the average person interested in a teacher's view of the subject of the American past from colonization to the present. Gilligan's book, Violence, has been instrumental in all of my thinking and writing about slavery, Native Americans, and Wars. It must be read!

This is an excellent book about the culture of violence that we continue to support with our policies. We say we abhor violence but we don't do the things that would curtail and prevent it. Dr. Gilligan has done a superior job of pointing out how we support and perpetuate violence. As a clinician, I have changed how I think and deal with abuse. Thank you, Dr. Gilligan for your insight and your caring. I am a better clinician because you shared your thoughts.