Purification, Paranoia and Persecution: A Genealogy of Moral Violence

• In Event: New Approaches to Crime and Surveillance in a Post-Truth Society

Abstract

Understanding how sentiment works in the social field seems more and more necessary in our so-called ‘post truth’ society. There are implications for criminology. In this paper I want to use a genealogical method to consider the morality of purification and its relationship to the affects of fear and enmity. I will journey from campaigns of mediaeval and early-modern persecution associated with the development of the state, to the way in which they were adapted for modern, secular times, and new forms of power. Driven by violent and often murderous passions, these campaigns adopt a peculiarly pathological form characterised by the mirroring dynamics of paranoia and persecution. In view of these affective forces, we are invited to rethink criminology’s categories, boundaries, logics and hierarchies, particularly our understanding of the relationship between the normal and the pathological.

Author

• Phil Carney, University of Kent