{"id":983,"date":"2019-09-01T19:58:20","date_gmt":"2019-09-01T18:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/?p=983"},"modified":"2019-09-01T19:58:20","modified_gmt":"2019-09-01T18:58:20","slug":"the-state-and-the-fear-of-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/2019\/09\/the-state-and-the-fear-of-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"The state and the fear of violence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’ve just seen an interesting quote in one of my old Open University text books.\u00a0 DD101 Exploring Social Lives, page 373:<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“A state claims a monopoly of legitimate force, but ironically it is only because \u2018competitors\u2019 (that is, criminals, terrorists, etc.) contest the state\u2019s claim to have a monopoly of legitimate force that the state exists at all. A state that really did have a monopoly of legitimate force would have no reason to exist. Think of a state in which everyone acted peacefully and regarded all laws as legitimate. It would be wholly redundant!”<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
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(Hoffman, 2007, p. 45)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Hoffman, J. (2007) \u2018Sovereignty\u2019 in Blakeley, G. and Bryson, V. (eds) The Impact of Feminism on Political Concepts and Debates<\/em>, Manchester, Manchester University Press.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Meaning: it is in the interests of the state to ensure there is always a threat of violence to its citizens to ensure its own survival as the ‘protector’. Or rather, the fear of the threat of violence.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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So, the state is required to keep its citizens in a state of fear to ensure its own continuance. Scary stuff.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Now, since we know you are not a criminal until you have been found guilty of a crime, the ‘criminals’ Priti Patel refers to here must in fact by ‘citizens’, i.e., everyone who might break a law whether or not they have done so. That is, all of us.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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“The new home secretary, Priti Patel, has said she wants criminals to “literally feel terror” at the thought of breaking the law.”<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n
https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-49213743<\/span><\/div>\n
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So we should all have a permanent feeling of terror at what the state might do to us if we misbehave.\u00a0 Lovely.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve just seen an interesting quote in one of my old Open University text books.\u00a0 DD101 Exploring Social Lives, page 373: \u00a0 “A state claims a monopoly of legitimate force, but ironically it is only because \u2018competitors\u2019 (that is, criminals, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,145,15,227],"tags":[158,20,115,228],"class_list":["post-983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-absolute-power","category-fear","category-living-with-fear","category-terrorism","tag-absolute-power","tag-fear","tag-living-with-fear","tag-terrorism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":984,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions\/984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nonewwars.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}