Violence, Conversation, and Education

• In Event: Theorizing Gun Violence: School Shootings, Politics, and Curriculum

Abstract

Judith Butler writes of the ways in which humans can respond to vulnerability, other than through counter-attack. Her account is sensitive, as it begins with the bare exposure of humans to one another and rejects the Hobbesian quest for security and control that has come to mark our present era. Sharon Todd questions the utopic cosmopolitan ideals developed in response to the perennial problem of violence, by asking us to face ‘how things are’, offering an image of humanity in education that does not occlude the violence, antagonism and conflict that is endemic to human relations. To face humanity requires facing the person in all their complexity, whilst also acknowledging our own capacity for violence.

It is tempting to generalise about violence or to appeal to psychological rather than structural or causal relations that are premised on violence’s perpetuation. This paper will consider the difficult question of violence when we see violence everywhere in the world, whilst a hierarchy of victims dictates which forms of violence are seen as justifiable or not. In my philosophy classes in prison we have discussed the question of violence. When co-developing a curriculum with men and women who had been in prison, the first question that was suggested was ‘What is violence?’. The first part of this paper will reflect on some of the conversations that I have had both within and outside the prison. Some felt that to be a man meant that violence was inescapable, not because of some desire to inflict violence, but because of the constant threat of violence and the fear of assault, particularly in coercive institutional settings or conflictual local environments. Sometimes, the dominant experience through childhood involved continuously witnessing or being subjected to violence. Oddly, such a life can lead to violence as, to quote one man, ‘it is all I know’. At other times the resort to violence was an aberrant moment. The tendency to promote monolithic explanations of violence is not helpful when, as Todd points out, it occludes both the many forms of violence in life and the capacity that each of us has for violence. The curriular context allows for discussion of ideas that extend beyond a particular individual’s experience and remove the question of violence from a narrowly psychological approach.

The second element of the paper reflects on a pedagogical art project that Jonathan Cummins began with IRA prisoners in a prison in the Republic of Ireland. This culminated with an exhibition, for which I organised a series of events accompanied by a set of resources and responses. Many of these were pre-emptive responses to the charge that those convicted of violent offences, political or otherwise, ought have no voice in the public domain. I asked, as a citizen, ‘To whom may I listen’. Through these projects, I hope to open up conversations about how we might address, more honestly, the question of violence in our world and the reasons for violence in our educational institutions and in the public domain.

Author

• Aislinn O'Donnell, Mary Immaculate College (University of Limerick)