Sociological Perspectives on Violence, Power, and Modernity

Comprehensive practice flashcards examining sociological, cultural, and micro-interactional theories of violence, modern bureaucracy, gaslighting, sports subcultures, film censorship, and colonial liberation.

According to Zygmunt Bauman, what are the two common ways social theorists have marginalized or minimized the significance of the Holocaust?

By presenting it either as an event unique strictly to Jewish history (the culmination of Christian antisemitism) or as an extreme case of an all-too-familiar category of social phenomena such as primeval human aggression or generic ethnic conflict.

How did Everett C. Hughes formulate the core sociological problem regarding the Holocaust?

As identifying who the people are that actually carry out colossal "dirty work" and discovering the circumstances under which "good" people allow them to do it.

What unexpected finding did Nechama Tec reach regarding the social determinants of Holocaust rescuers?

She found no statistical correlations between rescuing behavior and class, education, religious denomination, or political allegiance, concluding that rescuers acted spontaneously from their nature.

According to Herbert C. Kelman, what three conditions erode moral inhibitions against violent atrocities?

When violence is authorized by official orders, when actions are routinized by rule-governed practices, and when victims are dehumanized through ideological definitions.

In Max Weber's formulation of bureaucratic administration, how is the "honour of the civil servant" defined?

As the ability to execute an order from superior authorities conscientiously, exactly as if it agreed with one's own conviction, even if the order appears fundamentally wrong.

According to philosopher John Lachs, what feature of modern society creates a moral vacuum by disconnecting actors from the outcomes of their deeds?

The mediation of action, where intermediate actors stand between an individual and their actions, making it impossible to experience the consequences directly.

Under what specific circumstances was $22$-year-old Aboriginal woman Ms. Dhu arrested prior to her death in Western Australian police custody in $2014$?

Police responded to a domestic violence report called in by a neighbor, but instead of investigating the abuse, they arrested Ms. Dhu for approximately $2,500\,\text{USD}$ in unpaid fines.

What is the Australian legal slang term "trifecta" that reflects discretionary racialized policing against Aboriginal individuals?

The cumulative combination of being charged with resisting arrest, using offensive language, and assaulting police.

How many times had African American motorist Philando Castile been pulled over by police prior to being fatally shot in $2016$?

He had been stopped by police on $49$ previous occasions.

How did the architectural layout of Dublin's Kilmainham Gaol (the "New Gaol"), constructed in $1796$, operationalize early disciplinary surveillance?

It allowed jailers to observe inmates from a central viewing area, compelling compliance because prisoners never knew whether they were actively being watched.

In Geoffrey Canada's memoir, what progression of physical weapons serves as a metaphor for the changing geopolitics of violence in the South Bronx?

Fist, stick, knife, gun.

What ideological doctrines animated the perpetrator of the July $22$, $2011$ mass shooting and bombing in Norway?

White supremacist, anti-immigrant, and anti-multicultural ideologies aimed at punishing Norwegian government elites supporting cultural diversity.

How did poet and activist June Jordan define the concept of an "honest body"?

As an individual's fundamental quest to live free from tyranny, where the inner gender and sexual identity are fully aligned and respected in one's public bodily career.

What concept did film historian Tom Gunning use to describe early cinema's intense sensory and mechanized visual shock that alarmed moral reformers?

An "aesthetic of astonishment."

Which D. W. Griffith film from $1915$ provoked national civil unrest and protests for its racist portrayals of African Americans and glorification of the Ku Klux Klan?

The Birth of a Nation.

What agency, established in April $1917$ under George Creel, mobilized Hollywood cinema into the United States government's World War I propaganda apparatus?

The Committee on Public Information (CPI).

What self-regulatory system was adopted by Hollywood in $1930$ and backed by rigorous studio enforcement in $1934$ to constrain depictions of crime and sexual immorality?

The Production Code (administered through the MPPDA under Will B. Hays).

What central argument regarding mainstream narrative cinema did Laura Mulvey advance in her seminal $1975$ essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema"?

That classical Hollywood restages masculine Oedipal drives through a patriarchal gaze that forces women viewers into either sadistic male identification or masochistic subordination.

How did film theorist Gaylyn Studlar revise Freudian models of film spectatorship proposed by Laura Mulvey?

Drawing on Gilles Deleuze, Studlar located cinematic pleasure in pre-Oedipal masochistic desires centered on the infant-mother relationship rather than Oedipal sadistic control.

What is the primary tenet of the violent subculture hypothesis in its generic form as tested by Michael D. Smith?

That violent behavior is produced by an individual's adherence to a distinct set of pro-violence values and attitudes.

Did Michael D. Smith's study of Toronto hockey players support the societal version of the subculture of violence hypothesis formulated by Wolfgang and Ferracuti?

No; pro-violence values and attitudes failed to predict off-ice street fighting and showed no meaningful association with fathers' socioeconomic status ($\text{SES}$).

What type of subculture did Michael D. Smith identify as driving assaultive behavior in Canadian amateur ice hockey?

An occupational subculture found predominantly among older players in competitive select and junior leagues where professional criteria of physical coercion prevail.

In Michael D. Smith's study, what was the gamma ($\gamma$) correlation between players' scores on the Kindness Index and their number of hockey fights?

$\gamma = -0.47$ (indicating that players who placed high value on kindness engaged in significantly fewer hockey fights).

At what age do Canadian amateur hockey coaches begin explicitly evaluating players based on their capacity to employ and endure illegal physical coercion?

Around ages $13$ to $14$, becoming fully institutionalized by Midget age ($15$).

What did Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach's ($1973$) test of the subculture of violence thesis discover regarding the Rokeach Value Survey and violent behavior?

It found virtually no relationship between personal values and self-reported violent behavior, and only a weak association between attitudes approving violence and actual violent conduct.

How does Paige L. Sweet define gaslighting as a distinct sociological phenomenon?

As a set of attempts to create a "surreal" social environment by making an intimate partner seem or feel "crazy," consequential when abusers mobilize macro-level structural and institutional inequalities.

Which sociological model of psychological abuse is illustrated in this diagram?

Paige L. Sweet's Situational Map of Gaslighting, depicting how abusive Tactics mobilize gendered/racial Stereotypes and Institutional Settings to produce a Sense of surreality.

According to the $2014$ National Domestic Violence Hotline (NDVH) survey cited by Sweet, what percentage of victims reported partners deliberately trying to make them feel "crazy"?

$73.8\%$ of respondents.

Why is gaslighting considered an inherently gendered strategy of control in intimate relationships?

Because it draws upon the deeply rooted cultural association of femininity with irrationality, emotional excess, and lack of credibility to construct the victim's reality as defective.

How did abusive partners of undocumented immigrant women in Sweet's study exploit institutional settings to gaslight them?

They fabricated stories of constant surveillance by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and threatened deportation while claiming the victim was too mentally unstable to understand the law.

In Sweet's analysis, how did abusers weaponize racialized stereotypes against Black women in encounters with police and legal representatives?

They exploited the controlling image of the "angry" or "aggressive" Black woman to portray the victim as the violent party and persuade authorities that she was delusional or out of control.

Who originally introduced the term "gaslighting" into clinical psychotherapeutic literature, and what phenomenon did they describe?

Russell Barton and J. A. Whitehead in a $1969$ Lancet article describing involuntary psychiatric hospitalization as a form of spousal abuse.

According to Randall Collins's micro-sociological theory of violence, what central emotional barrier inhibits violent behavior in almost all face-to-face confrontations?

Confrontational tension and fear.

What is a "forward panic" as described by Randall Collins?

A violent episode where severe confrontational tension and fear suddenly dissolve upon the discovery of an opponent's complete weakness, converting into a frantic emotional rush of vicious overkill.

According to Collins, what are the arrest rates for violent crime among adults who were abused or neglected as children compared to matched controls?

$18\%$ for those abused or neglected versus $14\%$ for controls (a modest ratio of $1.3\text{ to }1$).

In Collins's micro-interactional model of elder and invalid abuse, how does the altruistic commitment of the caregiver become an interactional weapon?

The caregiver's moral commitment allows the dependent person to make persistent, whining demands for attention, creating an escalating clash of wills and mutual resentment that erupts into abuse.

How does Michael P. Johnson differentiate between "common couple violence" and "intimate terrorism"?

Common couple violence is low-level, gender-symmetrical, and limited; intimate terrorism involves systematic physical and emotional control, severe injuries, and is predominantly male-perpetrated.

In Hubert Montagner et al.'s video observational study of French daycare centers, which specific group of children served as the preferred targets for peer bullies?

"Fearful victims" (timid children who cry easily and passively give up toys).

How does a "terroristic torture regime" in domestic abuse differ from a "forward panic" in Collins's interactional framework?

It is a cold, slow, premeditated routine of repeated psychological and physical intimidation that tantalizes the victim with false appeasement, rather than an explosive rush following sudden tension release.

What is a "moral holiday" in collective behavior theory as outlined by Randall Collins?

A temporary social enclave in time and space where conventional moral restraints break down, the crowd shares collective effervescence, and authorities are absent or openly defied.

According to Collins, why are looting and property destruction crucial for sustaining home-turf protest riots?

They act as mass participation sustainers, providing the vast, nonviolent segment of the crowd with an accessible, low-risk activity that keeps the crowd assembled and maintains the moral holiday.

In what way does the deliberate destruction of personal property at wild fraternity or house parties parallel an indigenous "potlatch"?

It serves as a status-seeking ritual of conspicuous destruction, flaunting wealth, insouciance, and disdain for normal material costs in front of peers.

What are the three distinct pathways that routinely produce interpersonal violence in carousing zones?

Authority intervention and counter-escalation, gate-crashing violence, and end-resisting violence.

What does Randall Collins mean by the "one-fight-per-venue limitation" in carousing gatherings?

The principle that a gathering's emotional attention space can generally support only one fight drama per evening, which exhausts collective energy and preempts secondary fights.

Why does widespread alcohol intoxication fail to cause violence in the vast majority of social drinking episodes?

Because confrontational tension and fear persist even when drunk, disputes regularly abort, and intoxication induces physical clumsiness and loss of balance rather than combat competence.

How do mosh pits at punk rock concerts maintain boundaries to prevent slam-dancing from degenerating into genuine violence?

Through strict self-regulation synchronized to the musical beat, prohibiting closed fists and kicks, quickly picking up fallen dancers, and physically removing individuals who intend real harm.

How does Frantz Fanon characterize decolonization in terms of its structural agenda for social change?

As an inherently violent process that replaces one "species" of mankind by another, enacting a complete tabula rasa where "the last shall be first."

According to Fanon, how does the role of the state agent of order differ between metropolitan capitalist societies and colonial territories?

In capitalist nations, educational and moral institutions instill voluntary submission; in colonial territories, the soldier and police officer maintain submission through direct, unmasked violence using rifle butts and napalm.

What linguistic mechanism does the colonist utilize to dehumanize the colonized subject, according to Fanon?

A zoological vocabulary derived from the bestiary that describes the colonized in terms of slithering movements, yellow hordes, swarms, and animalistic masses.

What psychological effect does armed collective violence have upon the colonized individual in Fanon's theory of liberation?

It acts as a cleansing force that rids the colonized of their internalized inferiority complex, passivity, and despair, restoring their self-respect, agency, and dignity.