Abstract
This article enumerates and critiques the various forms of occult violence associated with the dominance of state-corporate capitalism in United States society. Ways of responding to these forms of violence are also considered. More specifically, using the political notion of care—understood existentially and theologically—I define violence, identify and critique forms of occult violence, and explore the principle of care in proposing possible ways of responding.
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Notes
Sargent, Greg, “There’s been class warfare for the last 20 years, and my class has won,” Washington Post, Sept. 30, 2011, http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/theres-been-class-warfare-for-the-last-20-years-and-my-class-has-won/2011/03/03/gIQApaFbAL_blog.html , accessed June 17, 2014.
The term occult has several meanings. I am using occult to refer to hidden forms of violence—hidden not simply in terms of effects but also in terms of causes and responsible actors.
I acknowledge earlier critiques of capitalism vis-à-vis violence by pastoral theologians. Poling (2002) focuses on capitalism and its relation to family violence. Rumscheidt (1998) addresses capitalism and its role in fostering dehumanization, which is both a prelude to and an example of violence. Smith (1982) echoes Martin Luther King’s critique of capitalism and its impact on African Americans and African American communities. The perspective offered in this article focuses on the occult forms of violence of state-corporate or neoliberal capitalism (and its consequences), relying on the political concept of pastoral care.
Of course, there are signs that class conflict is growing and that, although not necessarily violent, the conflict has evoked fantasies of violence. The Occupy Movement clearly has class elements in its critique of the 1 %. Also, there is fear among some oligarchs and conservatives regarding the violence toward them. A recent issue of The American Spectator (June 2014), a conservative magazine, has a provocative cover where the rich are being guillotined and the executioner is holding Piketty’s (2014) recent book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century. A similar instance was billionaire Tom Perkins’s comment comparing the anger about inequality by members of the working classes to the violence of the Nazis during Kristallnacht (Hu 2014). In my view, Perkins’s comment and the magazine cover are cultural artifacts depicting the fantasy of violence perpetrated by the underclass. Put another way, from a psychoanalytic perspective, the fantasy of violent lower classes represents concordant projective identification. Wealthy conservatives rationalize, deny, or split off their aggression vis-à-vis the lower classes, projecting it onto them. One might also say the cover article reflects a return of the repressed—or better the suppressed. I would add here that recent racial conflicts, some of which have been violent, are related to class. For instance, the recent unrest in Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, over the police shooting of Michael Brown, while clearly a racial incident, is also a class issue.
By political I mean socially held symbols, narratives, and rituals that are embodied in a group’s or society’s public institutions and social-symbolic spaces that function to: (a) organize a person’s experiences and legitimate an individual’s actions in the public realm (Arendt 1958); (b) facilitate collective discourse and action in the public realm (D’Entreves 1994; Young 1990); (c) distribute power and resources (Kertzer 1988; Miller 1989; Ransom 1997); (d) legitimate authority and governance (Foucault 1972; Kertzer 1988); (e) adjudicate claims and discipline and repair breeches of both social order and the laws governing social arrangements and the distribution of resources (Benhabib 1992); and (f) provide an overarching social-political identity that supports collective action and discourse, as well as provide for a shared sense of continuity and cohesion (Taylor 1989). The notion of politics, then, refers to groups of people, not necessarily or always citizens, who are engaged in public discourse pertaining to the common good and decisions being made with regard to (a) who is allowed to participate in public discourse (citizenship and identity), (b) who should govern, (c) what type of institution(s) should be the instrument of governing, (d) the kinds of policies and programs that administer and regulate economic and social affairs, and (e) the enactment and adjudication of laws that order the society.
I would raise one objection to this definition. I do not think the goal should necessarily be how well a person functions in society. This definition seems to make adaptation a goal of care vis-à-vis society. There are notable instances of suffering that are directly related to societal forces and dominant narratives that one would not wish persons to become adapted to. For example, in my view, it would not be caring to help an African American adapt to or function well within a racist society. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, while having different methods, are two figures who cared for people and labored with them so that they would not adapt to a racist society.
John Macmurray (1961/1991) argues that recognizing the Other as a person is both a matter of fact and a matter of intention. In contending that personhood is a matter of fact, Macmurray tries to make personhood an existential or ontological reality. At the same time, he recognizes that there are many instances in human life when individuals are not recognized as persons (e.g., racism). The notion of imagination does not imply that the recognition is not real but rather that intention and imagination are involved. The paradox is that we imaginatively construct the Other as person, even though the Other as person is a matter of fact.
Although pastoral care as a political concept is not directly addressed in theological traditions, it is evident in the various concerns and practices of Christian traditions, including various political theologies that are concerned about justice and liberation (see Adams 2007; Ashley 2007; Graham 2007). In my own Roman Catholic tradition, there is a history of church leaders being pastorally concerned about the effects of political-economic factors on the poor (National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1986), the proliferation of nuclear weapons (National Conference of Catholic Bishops 1983), and the effects of unrestrained capitalism in the 19th century. These critiques of larger systemic forces, though, do not employ the notion of pastoral care as a political concept. Nevertheless, these critiques and proposals are aimed at addressing the needs of human beings so that they not only survive but also flourish. Other pastoral theologians address the political in their research and writings on diverse issues that involve care vis-à-vis the political realm: GLBT concerns (e.g., Marshall 1997), domestic violence (Poling 1991, 2002), the elderly (Scheib 2004), the trauma of war (Holton 2011), and ecology (Graham 1993). These and other pastoral theologians know that political, economic, and social factors give rise to injustice and human suffering. Their focus is addressing particular human sufferings, their sources, and their remedies so that persons can survive and thrive. Generally, they do not use the concept of care to critique systemic economic and political forces and structures.
Ramsay (1998) argues for a pastoral function of resisting, which would account for caring actions that were aimed at alleviating political and economic forces and structures implicated in marginalization and oppression. While not specifically arguing that pastoral care is a political concept, Ramsay clearly considers the pastoral function of resistance in political terms.
To be fair, since the 1980s many lawmakers from the Democratic Party have (and continue to) adopted neoliberal beliefs and have participated in crafting or approving legislation that has led to unparalleled income inequalities. I remind readers of President Bill Clinton’s role in the dismantling of the Glass-Steagall Act, which fanned the flames of income inequality.
Tao Te Ching, 31. See http://www.with.org/classics_taoteching4.html (accessed 6 April 2015)
Although there is no clear consensus regarding the attributes of state-corporate or neoliberal capitalism, I nevertheless identify eight central features, namely: (1) human well-being, understood almost exclusively in economic terms, is best achieved by providing entrepreneurial freedoms so that individual actors (including corporations) can act out of their “rational” self-interests; (2) social goods will be maximized by expanding the reach and frequency of market transactions; (3) anything and anyone can be commodified (Sandel 2012); (4) the state is not to intervene to control markets or restrict the reach of commodification; (5) the state functions to ensure private property rights and deregulation so there can be free markets and free trade; (6) where markets do not exist, entrepreneurs and the state work together to privatize and deregulate (e.g., privatization of public education, prisons, healthcare, etc.); (7) corporations are to inform the state as to the laws that will enhance profit and market expansion; and (8) greed benefits society (Couldry 2010; Dumenil & Levi, 2011; Harvey 2005, 2010).
Inverted totalitarianism vis-à-vis the economic symbol system “dominates politics—and with that domination comes different forms of ruthlessness” (Wolin 2008, p. 58). This inverted totalitarianism is unlike other forms of totalitarianism that subordinate economics to politics. Inverted totalitarianism occurs when economics dominates politics. As in any totalitarian system, inverted totalitarianism corrupts, trivializes, and reduces the idea and exercise of freedom by reframing freedom in terms of the individual’s commercial choices. In addition, Wolin argues that inverted totalitarian systems project power inward by “combining with other forms of power, such as evangelical religion, and most notably encouraging a symbiotic relationship between traditional government and the system of ‘private’ governance represented by the modern corporation” (p. xvi). Wolin contends further that the inverted totalitarianism of neoliberal capitalism makes use of the state to legitimate its dominance, whereas in classic totalitarianism, the state uses business to achieve its aims of projecting power outward. The accumulation of the various forms of power means there is no clear leader of the system, as there would be in a state totalitarian system (p. 44). In totalitarian states, there is a dictator, while in inverted totalitarian societies there are many leaders from different parts of society (e.g., political, economic, religious) who support and shape the totalitarian system. This makes it difficult for citizens to be able to identify who is responsible for suffering and harm done to citizens.
Minnesota AFL-CIO, “Right to work” laws: get the facts, http://www.mnaflcio.org/news/right-work-laws-get-facts , accessed 8 August 2014.
I think most people would agree that being robbed on the street is a form of violence, even if no physical harm results. We do not view legal theft—legal, economic actions that deprive workers of a living wage—as a form of violence. We have unfortunately forgotten the term “robber barons,” which would apply to individuals (the Walton family) and faceless corporations that avoid their responsibility to pay adequate wages.
Indiana-Kentucky Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Payday lending, http://www.iksynod.org/Resources/Payday%20Lending/PDL%20Overview%20+%20Facts.pdf, accessed 8 August 2014.
The economy did not collapse for the wealthy. Indeed, the top quintile has done quite well during the last six years while the income of the middle and working classes was relatively flat—no gain.
Statistic Brain, “Home Foreclosure Statistics,” July 8, 2014, http://www.statisticbrain.com/home-foreclosure-statistics/ accessed 12 August 2014.
Dr. Traeger-Muney (see White 2014), a psychologist who treats wealthy persons, reports that her wealthy patients are anxious because they believe they are wrongly judged by the 99 %—perhaps overlooking their own judgment, misrecognition, and lack of caring imagination toward the poor. An even more startling example is billionaire Tom Perkins’s recent remark (Hu 2014). He compared the beleaguered wealthy to Kristallnacht, when the Jews were viciously and violently beaten by the Nazis. One might deride and dismiss this comment, but it is an important cultural artifact that signifies the occult presence of class violence—not toward the wealthy.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Mid-Atlantic mountaintop mining, http://www.epa.gov/region3/mtntop/#impacts , accessed 13 August 2014.
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LaMothe, R. Just War: A Pastoral Analysis of the Hidden Violence of State-Corporate Capitalism. Pastoral Psychol 65, 41–60 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-015-0650-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-015-0650-8