ABSTRACT
Violence The focus of this chapter is moralistic violence. Violence is the use of
physical force against people or property, including threats and attempts. Although most violence is moralistic, some is predatory, recreational, or ritualistic. Predatory violence is the use of force in the acquisition of wealth or other resources, such as in a robbery or rape. Recreational violence arises for its own sake, such as for sport or amusement. Ritualistic violence is ceremonial, such as a beating during an initiation into a gang or a human sacrifice during a religious event. Moralistic violence is a form of social control1-a process that defines and responds to deviant behavior, such as when a man kills his wife’s lover or a teenager attacks a peer for insulting him (see Black, 1983; 1998:xv; Cooney & Phillips, 2002). Most such violence is self-help: the handling of a grievance with aggression (see Black, 1990:7479). Violent self-help includes beatings, killings, fights, and other physical attacks between individuals, as well as collective forms such as feuds, lynchings, riots, terrorism, genocide, and warfare. Although governments and legal officials may use aggression against those they define as deviant, the following pages address only violent self-help by individuals and groups acting on their own.
