Social Tension and Violence

Social Tension
INTRODUCTION
In any developing country of continental dimensions like India, where scores of languages
are spoken and where every religion and ethnic diversity abounds, it is natural to come across
different kinds of tensions- social, economic, political, religious, or ethnic. The Concise
Oxford English Dictionary defines "tension" as he "act of stretching or the state of being
stretched." It also means "mental strain, stress, or excitement." To this list, the Oxford
Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English adds another menang:"a situation in which
people feel aggressive or unfriendly towards each other, and which may develop into conflict
or violence." Tension is also understood as the opposite of the state of "relaxation," on the
hand, and of "amity, congeniality," on the other. Further, tension is a variable because it
increases or decreases, thereby having different values because it increases or decreases,
thereby having different values on a continuum at different points of time. Sometimes it may
be less, sometimes it may be more, and much depends upon the causes the produce it and for
how long.
Ralph Dahrendorf said that the absence of conflict in a society is an abnormality.
Social tension in any society is the first symptom of something serious that would follow, if
adequate steps are not taken at the appropriate time to check it, and it is also the effect of
something serious that has taken place in the past. So it is the duty of the state machinery to
control the tensions and regulate them in positive direction. In developing societies, there are
more chances of social tensions emerging.
The regularity of communal tensions and clashes in India is unfortunately accepted as part of
the country's fabric. Communal frenzy, as seen in Gujarat, Delhi, Mumbai, Kandhamal and
post-Babri Masjid, was considered a problem of law and order. Terrorist attacks on the
public, by those belonging to different religions, also keep apprehension alive. Yet solutions
to problems that beget such acts do not seem to be India's top priority. The proposed
Communal Violence Bill has divided political parties, with undercurrents that are strongly
coloured by religion. Religious bigotry divides people, leading to misunderstanding,
intolerance, fear, hatred, social ostracism, violence and loss of livelihood and life. Yet post-
mortem on major upheavals fails to focus on societal factors, which are responsible for
widespread endemic tensions within communities.
India was always feudal, with its diverse and warring provinces and kingdoms. Its ancient
civilisations, vast land mass, diverse geography, varied regional narratives, different
provincial histories, distinct languages, assorted traditions and dissimilar cultures meant that
its heterogeneity was always a source of tension among its numerous social groups and
regions. In addition, repeated military invasions and cultural exchanges resulted in significant
numbers converting to and following different religions, practising distinct traditions and
appearing as discrete cultures. India as a unified nation and single national entity is a
relatively recent concept.
CAUSES OF SOCIAL TENSION
There are numerous causes of social tensions. The most important ones are:
(1) Class struggle
(2) Political corruption
(3) Crime
(4) Competition
(5) Unemployment
(6) Heterogeneous (different in kind) population
(7) Racialism
(8) Religious intolerance(inability to tolerate).
(9) Linguistic (relating to languages or knowledge or the study of language) intolerance
(10) Uneven distribution of wealth
(11) Rapid social change
(12) War
Among the above twelve causes of social tensions, the first five are very visible.
1. Class Struggle -
Class struggle is a form of social conflict, which creates tension in the society. Credit for the
theory of class struggle goes to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marx's theory of class
struggle asserts that, in the course of making a living and utilising technical knowledge and
industrial equipment, the members of society become segregated into classes which carry on
different functions in industry and, as a result, occupy different positions in the social
organisation. Among these classes, there arises an Antagonism (opposition) of interests,
which may lead to a struggle. In large social transformations, the struggle of classes may lead
to social disintegration (to break up). This is true specially when the class struggle is carried
out among social groups which are in early stages of economic and intellectual development.
Such class struggles have often resulted in social crises.
2. Political Corruption
Political corruption is generally the misuse of public power for private profit. Although no
political group has been entirely free from jobbery (unfair means employed to secure some
private end), corruption has not prevailed to an equal degree at all times or under all
conditions. It has responded to various opportunities for the misuse of power created by
various governmental institutions. Any analysis of the prevalence (common) of political
corruption, therefore, must regard it as a phenomenon of group psychology, conditioned by
the entire cultural setting of the group. Political corruption requires the existence of public
officials with power to choose between two or more courses of action and the possession by
the government of some power or wealth, which can be used for private gains. No particular
system of government is a guarantee against political corruption. Corruption can be
eliminated only where the power to do so is linked with the desire to crush corruption. But
power itself is an inducement to corruption. As the saying goes, "power corrupts and absolute
power corrupts absolutely". Ignorance of the existence of corruption, widespread benefits
derived from the lavish (to waste) distribution of goods, political indifference (or lack of
political will) and materialistic culture are the major factors which contribute to corruption in
the political life of a nation and create tension in society.
3. Crime
Antisocial conduct (known popularly as "crime") may be regarded as a universal
phenomenon. Its extent, particular form it takes and the reaction it provokes (to call up or
evoke (feelings, desires, etc)) are intimately dependent on the cultural status and social
organisation of the group. The term "crime" is used indiscriminately by the layman to denote
antisocial, immoral or sinful behaviour. The existence of crime in a community is a challenge
to its members since crime is harmful for ordered social growth. Combating (a struggle)
crime involves huge economic burden and enormous waste of misdirected energy. The
progress of the science of human behaviour in the last several decades has increasingly
centred its attention on criminal behaviour.
The three strategies to combat crime are referred to as punitive, therapeutic (relating to the
curing of disease) and preventive. The punitive approach regards the offender not only as
justifying punishment morally, but as being also susceptible to deterrent measures.
Punishment is, therefore, exercised to incapacitate the criminal for the present and to keep
him away from engaging in any criminal act in the future. The preventive approach centres
on modifying the interaction of social and individual conditions to forestall offensive
behaviour. This method calls for improvement of sociological environment, strengthening of
social structure and development of conforming personalities. Education and recreation can
play a vital part in this respect, and so can a wide range of other practices like vocational
placement and community organisation.
4. Competition
Competition is an important term in social theory. It is by competition (of persons, firms,
industries, nations, races or cultures) that the fittest survives. Competition arises out of rivals
(a person pursuing an object in competition with another), which is a universal fact in life and
society. Rivalry (competition) is manifested in a struggle among germ cells among plants for
sunlight and growth and among animals, for food and mates. Rivalry is evident in the striving
in our daily life and appears in every social order under which men live. Competition has
lifted the human race to a standard where the mode of living of common labourers in
developed countries is more comfortable than the daily existence of ancient kings. On the
other hand, competition is a nice new name for the brutal/ senselessly cruel; fact of all against
all, without pity or mercy.
5. Unemployment
Work satisfies many needs of the individual and the community. For the individual, work
satisfies the need to exercise his faculties and to participate in the collective work of society.
In addition, work also gives the individual a claim upon social products, enabling him to
support himself and his family. In case of the community, work is necessary for survival and
progress of civilisation.
In the wealthy and technologically advanced countries, neither the size of the work force nor
the number of working hours per week has shown any tendency to decline in the last fifty
years. Of course, there have been economic crises (like depression and recession/ the state of
being set back) giving rise to unemployment; but the unemployment created in this way was
eventually absorbed.
Management

 Social tensions can be addressed by facilitating interactions between various groups,

by creating an order of leadership at various levels in each group, by appropriate
recognition and respect to each member of the group in a larger milieu a in matters of
communal, religious, and sectarian conflicts. Inclusion of the aggrieved or the so-
called minority members vis a vis the majority community in various segments of the
government organs like in the administration, police, judiciary, and the legislature
would help. Non-segregated residential colonies and areas would help in integration
to foster respect for each other's ways of living. Education being a prime factor,
ensuring literacy for one and all would help contain strife and develop understanding.
 It is also necessary to prevent dominant character and the hold of antisocial like
smugglers or underworld dons from becoming champions of the weaker sections or
groups. The administrative machinery should be strengthened so that the emergence
of anti social elements as "saviours" is undermined. The so called "army" of various
castes or groups should not be allowed to exist under any banner. It is also necessary
for the government in power to send a clear message that it is a government of all and
not of or for a chosen few. For this purpose, there should be no partisan attitude or
occasion for bias or favoritism in any sphere of its activity. The attitude and dealing of
the administration should be unbiased and impartial to all communities so that no
group or community feels deprived or avoided.
 As a visible and enforcing arm of the government, the police plays a vital role in
maintaining tranquility in the social order. It is not only in its basic task of
maintaining public order. Police also plays a crucial role in economic and cultural
field. Today, the police also concentrate in addressing the root cause for social
tensions that hampers its mission of preventing chaos and anarchy.

VIOLENCE
INTRODUCTION
Psychological theories of violence are rooted in a long-standing debate about
whether humans are innately brutal or benign. Two contrasting views of human nature are
found in the classical writings of philosophers and scientific thinkers. On the one hand,
Thomas Hobbes argued in Leviathan (1651) that humans are naturally brutal and that
societal laws and their enforcement are consequently required to curb our natural
aggressive instincts. Conversely, Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1762 conceptualized the noble
savage, who is naturally benign, happy, and good. According to Rousseau, the restrictions
imposed by society lead to aggression and corrupt behavior.
These opposing viewpoints emerge in psychological theories of human aggression. The
pessimistic Hobbesian view of innate aggressive instincts is found in Sigmund Freud's
psychoanalytic theory, developed in the 1920s. Rousseau's perspective is more clearly
seen in social psychological theories of the 1960s, which emphasize the role of external
factors in producing aggressive outcomes. It is noteworthy, however, that most
psychological theories of aggression and violence, including those that emphasize
situational factors and learning, place some importance on underlying biological
processes.
DEFINITION
Violence is the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against a
person, or against a group or community that either results in or has a high likelihood of
resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation. This
definition associate’s intentionality with the committing of the act itself, irrespective of the
outcome it produces.
Violence is a social phenomenon. For an action to be considered violent, it needs a victim or
a group of victims. The interpersonal nature of violence seems to call for explanations or
understandings that also are interpersonal. Rather than look inside the perpetrator for the
causes of violence, social perspectives look in the social situation for factors that may explain
why violence is not universal but instead varies in frequency and intensity. The social
question is not, "Why does violence occur?" but rather "Why does this naturally occurring,
socially undesirable activity happen more in some circumstances than in others?" Attention to
the social aspects of violence can seem to excuse individual actions and, as a result, to
encourage more violence. Rather, this review is intended to help prevent violence by
contributing to the understandings of the social influences contributing to violence.
THEORIES
In his psychoanalytic theory Freud (1930) argued that each human is born with equally
powerful instincts toward life (Eros) and death (Thanatos). When the death instinct is
turned inward, it results in self-punishment (in the extreme, suicide). When directed
outward, it results in hostility and anger, leading to destructive behavior and even
murder. Freud believed that aggressive energy would build up and produce illness unless
released, ideally in acceptable behavior.
The idea of innate, biologically based aggressive instincts dominated psychologists'
thinking during the first quarter of the twentieth century. Sup port for this view was
provided by discoveries of brain mechanisms in aggressive behavior (e.g., Cannon 1925),
as well as studies demonstrating that animals could be bred for high levels of aggression. In
fact, the biological basis for aggression was explored throughout the twentieth century
and remained an important and popular perspective in the broader scientific community
(including many psychologists).
Konrad Lorenz (1966) and E. 0. Wilson (1975) later developed an evolutionary
perspective of human aggression, by emphasizing the place of human beings within the
animal kingdom and pointing to the apparent universality of aggression among vertebrates.
Aggression is considered a valuable instinct necessary for survival, because it enhances the
ability to hunt, defend territories, and compete successfully for desirable mates. How ever,
strong inhibitory mechanisms coevolved, enabling humans to suppress aggression when
needed.
Although most psychologists accept the role of biological factors in aggression at some
level, some have focused on the external factors that elicit such behaviors. The frustration-
aggression hypothesis was the first systematic explanation of human aggression as a
reaction to environmental factors. This theory was originally formulated, in 1939, by John
Dollard et al., who proposed that frustration always leads to aggression and vice versa.
Other research demonstrated, however, that frustration does not necessarily lead to
aggression and instead may cause depression and lethargy (Seligman
1975). In his revised frustration-aggression hypothesis, Leonard Berkowitz (1980)
proposed that frustration leads to anger, which may in turn instigate aggression in the
presence of certain external cues. To social psychologists of the 1990s biological factors
provided "background conditions that moderate the effects of aversive stimuli in the in
dividual's immediate situation, particularly those that involve conflict with other people"
(Geen 1998). In this regard, aggression is viewed not simply as an innate drive but as a
response to external stimuli.

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF VIOLENCE

In the past, some violent acts were integrated into society by either justifying the violent
actions or by attributing the actions to individual psychopathology.
In the family environment, the violent male was seen as enforcing a natural rule that men
should direct the activities of their wives and children.
Violence in a political context—war and revolution—was seen as the inevitable outcome
when opposing rulers struggled over resources or when an oppressed people attempted to free
themselves.
When the actions of an individual or a group of individuals were too hard to justify, societies
protected themselves by judging the offender(s) to be different from other people. Over the
years, such individuals were viewed as possessed by devils, suffering from brain fever,
mentally retarded, or having missing out on emotional connections with other humans.
There are continuing debates about whether or not society has actually become more violent
(Warr, 1994). Popular accounts describe a changed world—one in which the idyllic
community of the 1950s has given way to a violent society characterized by drug wars,
sexual assaults on children, robbery and killing on neighbourhood streets, and violence in
school corridors. Some scholars challenge these accounts, suggesting that the peaceful
community—if it ever existed—was not as prevalent in Western societies as in various tribal
or indigenous societies (Knauft, 1994). Social harmony, then, is only one kind of social
experience: one from which it may be possible to learn how to help modern communities
move toward the ideal of a violence-free society.
One viewpoint explains the apparent change in violence as the breakdown of a "myth" that
prevailed in Western society (see Brown, 1979; Steinmetz & Straus, 1974). According to this
view, the myth of harmonious, loving families participating in a society which offered
freedom from pain, oppression, and want was perpetuated by a small group of the elite who
controlled public images. People whose lives did not conform to the myth lived "on the other
side of the tracks" and their social experience—one in which family beatings, assaults in
public places, starvation and sexual exploitation were common—was not shared with the
larger society. The myth has been exposed as modern transportation and modern
communication have eliminated social barriers, making violence visible (Marr, 1994).
Other scholars explain the apparent change as one of social redefinition; the social category
of violence has been expanded (Gelles & Straus, 1979; Reiss & Roth, 1993). Coercive sexual
behavior serves as a good example of this redefinition (see Koss & Cook, 1993; Yllo, 1993).
Not so long ago in the U.S., commonly held assumptions about human sexuality served to
condone men's use of force and manipulation in overcoming women's sexual refusals. Such
behavior was considered acceptable because it was believed that women were intensely
ambivalent about sex and therefore the man was doing the woman a favor. Changing social
assumptions, especially an increased concern with the psychological effects of involuntary
sexual activity, have gradually led to an environment in which more and more people agree
that marital rape is a form of violence. Attitudes toward corporal punishment of children are
beginning to change in the same way (e.g., Turner & Finkelhor, 1996).
Despite the possible challenges to such perceptions, it remains likely that violence levels have
increased. Increases in reported violent crimes and in incarcerations can be documented
(Cohen & Canela-Cacho, 1994), and certain kinds of violence are clearly more prevalent
(Reiss & Roth, 1993). Public attitudes demonstrate high anxiety about violence, leading to
changes in lifestyles and even place of residence (Warr, 1994).

TYPES
Self-directed violence: Self-directed violence is subdivided into suicidal behavior and self-
abuse. The former includes suicidal thoughts, attempted suicides – also called ‘‘para suicide’’
or ‘‘deliberate self-injury’’ in some countries – and completed suicides. Self-abuse, in
contrast, includes acts such as self-mutilation.
Interpersonal violence: Interpersonal violence is divided into two subcategories: Family and
intimate partner violence – that is, violence largely between family members and intimate
partners, usually, though not exclusively, taking place in the home.
Community violence is violence between individuals who are unrelated, and who may or
may not know each other, generally taking place outside the home. The former group
includes forms of violence such as child abuse, intimate partner violence and abuse of the
elderly. The latter includes youth violence, random acts of violence, rape or sexual assault by
strangers, and violence in institutional settings such as schools, workplaces, prisons and
nursing homes.
Collective violence: Collective violence is subdivided into social, political and economic
violence. Unlike the other two broad categories, the subcategories of collective violence
suggest possible motives for violence committed by larger groups of individuals or by states.
Collective violence that is committed to advance a particular social agenda includes, for
example, crimes of hate committed by organized groups, terrorist acts and mob violence. A
class of violence against members of a stereo-typed minority group is called Hate Crimes.
Political violence includes war and related violent conflicts, state violence and similar acts
carried out by larger groups.
Economic violence includes attacks by larger groups motivated by economic gain – such as
attacks carried out with the purpose of disrupting economic activity, denying access to
essential services, or creating economic division and fragmentation. Clearly, acts committed
by larger groups can have multiple motives.

CAUSES
Violence cannot be attributed to a single factor. Its causes are complex and occur at different
levels. To represent this complexity, the ecological, or social ecological model is often used.
The following four-level version of the ecological is often used in the study of violence:
 The first level identifies biological and personal factors that influence how individuals
behave and increase their likelihood of becoming a victim or perpetrator of violence:
demographic characteristics genetics, brain lesions, personality disorders, substance
abuse and a history of experiencing, witnessing, or engaging in violent behaviour.

 The second level focuses on close relationships, such as those with family and friends.
In youth violence, for example, having friends who engage in or encourage violence
can increase a young person’s risk of being a victim or perpetrator of violence. For
intimate partner violence, a consistent marker at this level of the model is marital
conflict or discord in the relationship. In elder abuse, important factors are stress due
to the nature of the past relationship between the abused person and the care giver. A
culture that endorses male violence as a way of addressing threats to social reputation
or economic position is called Culture of honour

 The third level explores the community context—i.e., schools, workplaces, and
neighbourhoods. Risk at this level may be affected by factors such as the existence of
a local drug trade, the absence of social networks, and concentrated poverty. All these
factors have been shown to be important in several types of violence.

 Finally, the fourth level looks at the broad societal factors that help to create a climate
in which violence is encouraged or inhibited: the responsiveness of the criminal
justice system, social and cultural norms regarding gender roles or parent-child
relationships, income inequality, the strength of the social welfare system, the social
acceptability of violence, the availability of firearms, the exposure to violence in mass
media, and political instability.

FEW FINDINGS

 If violence is learned, exposure to aggressive and successful models leads people to

imitate them. Being aggressive can become an established pattern of behaving, even a
way of life, which is likely to repeat itself by imitation across generations (Huesmann,
Eron, Lefkowitz 8c Walder, 1984).
 Violence was associated with high self-esteem; more specifically, violence seems to
erupt when individuals with high self-esteem have their rosy self-images threatened.
 Narcissistic groups (e.g., narcissistic ethnic groups, religions or nations) that
experience a status threat are more likely than non-narcissistic groups to resort to
collective violence (Golec de Zavala, Cichocka, Eidelson, 8c Jayawickreme, in press).
 A different kind of cultural variation is the subculture of violence (Toch, 1969). Many
societies include minority subcultures in which violence is legitimised as a lifestyle.
The norms of the group reflect an approval of aggressiveness, and there will be both
rewards for violence and sanctions for non-compliance. In urban settings, these
groups are often labelled and self-styled as gangs, and the importance of violence is
reflected in their appearance and behaviour.
 Bond (2004) noted that not all complex societies are democratic, and that totalitarian
regimes employ widespread violence as a form of control and domination.