Forms of brutality

Abstract

Most analyses of violence in the different historical periods tend to view the modern era as significantly less violent than all of its historical predecessors. By focusing on such apparently reliable indicators as the decrease in homicide rates, the disappearance of public torture or growing civility in inter-personal relationships, many authors contend that our ancestors inhabited a substantially more violent world. In this article, I argue that since such blanket evaluations do not clearly distinguish between different levels of violence analysis, they are unable to provide an accurate picture of historical reality. To properly understand violence, it is necessary to compare and contrast its historical transformation at the interpersonal and intra-group (micro), the inter-group and intra-polity (mezzo), and inter-polity (macro) levels. When violence is comparatively analysed on these three interrelated levels, it becomes clear that the scale of collective brutality gradually and dramatically increases with the rise of modern social organizations and ideologies while the character of inter-personal and intra-group violence remains essentially constant.

Religion and National Identity in Central and Eastern European Countries: Persisting and Evolving Links

“…In spite of the different strategies implemented by the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, the collapse of the two federations saw these same issues violently come to the surface, not just metaphorically: in order to cope with the changing environment [39][40][41] and as a possible response to the ideological, economic, institutional, and social shocks to the existing systems, 42 the cultural features of politically mobilized groups became dichotomizing elements 43 serving the purpose of delimiting the groups' boundaries. all over the Cee region, nation-building and boundary-making mechanisms-as a whole falling under the rubric of "centrifugal ideologization" 44,45 -were largely led by nationalist political actors and put at the center of new state-sponsored ideologies. Religion as a whole stood at the core of these processes, and religious actors and institutions also played a crucial and critical role in reinforcing the "us-and-them" dichotomy.…”