S.AfTJ.PsychoJ.

1993, 23(4) 167

The effects of exposure to political violence on children:

does violence beget violence?

Kerry Gibson
Education Department, University of the Witwatersrand, P.O. WITS 2050, Republic of South Africa

Received August 1991; accepted August 1993

Concerns have been expressed about the effects of years of exposure to political violence on South Africa's
children. In particular there are fears that children have been dehumanized and that they believe that
violence is an acceptable way of resolving differences. In spite of the common-sense status of this idea there
is considerable disagreement about it within the international research literature on the psychological effects
of violence. In this article it is argued that much of this disagreement arises out of the lack of clarity about
what is meant by the question 'does violence beget violence?'. The author critically evaluates the different
theoretical perspectives within which the question might be posed and their relative usefulness in under-
standing the effects of political violence in South Africa. It is also argued that the most useful way of under-
standing the relationship between the experience of violence and subsequent violent behaviour is not in
terms of direct causality but rather in terms of the more complex interrelationships between intrapsychic and
social factors. In this process the question is shifted out of the prior simplistic form within which it is most
often understood and reconstructed within the more sophisticated explanatory paradigm of psychoanalysis.

Kommer word dikwels uitgespreek oor die effek van jarelange blootstelling aan geweld op Suid-Afrikaanse
kinders. In besonder is daar vrese dat geweld kinders dehumaniseer en, dat as gevolg hiervan, geweld as 'n
aanvaarbare manier deur kinders geag word om geskille op te los. Ten spyte van die algemene verstandig-
heid van die idee is daar aansienlike meningsverskille in die internasionale navorsingsliteratuur oor die psigo-
logiese effekte van geweld. In hierdie artikel word aangevoer dat veel van hierdie meningsverskil te wyte is
aan 'n gebrek aan duidelikheid oor presies wat bedoel word deur die vraag of geweld verdere geweld ver-
wek. Om meer helderheid aan die vraag te verleen, evalueer die outeur verskillende teoretiese perspektiewe
waarvolgens die vraag gevra mag word en verder word daar gekyk na die nuttigheid van sulke perspektiewe
vir die verduideliking van die effek van geweld in Suid-Afrika. In die artikel word aangevoer dat die mees be-
tekenisvolle wyse om die verhouding tussen die ervaring van geweld en enige daaropvolgende geweldadige
gedrag te verstaan, nie in terme van 'n direkte oorsaaklike verband gevind word nie, maar eerder, in terme
van 'n meer komplekse onderlinge verhouding tussen intra-psigiese en sosiale faktore. In die proses word
die vorige simplistiese vorm waarin die vrae algemeen verstaan word verskuif na die meer gesofistikeerde en
verklarende paradigma van die psigoanalise.

In this article the author addresses current concerns about
the psychological effects of years of exposure to high levels
of political violence on South Africa's children. In addition
to evidence that exposure to violence is likely to result in
short-term psychological suffering (Straker, 1987), there are
also concerns that children are being dehumanized and that
they have been socialized to find violence acceptable (Chi-
kane, 1986). The present wave of both political and crimi-
nal violence in South Africa is sometimes presented as
proof for the claim that exposure to violence leads to in-
creases in violence. It is this common-sense notion that vio-
lence begets violence which is the focus of this article. Due
to the urgency of the problems we face in our country there
is a tendency to want to rush in with research which is
thought to be able systematically to test this hypothesis.
Research energies may however be wasted if the fundamen-
tal conceptual issues underlying this question have not been
addressed. In this article the claim that violence begets
violence is subjected to critical scrutiny and it is argued that
its validity depends very much on the kind of theoretical
framework within which it is constituted. In order for it to
produce any helpful additions to knowledge in the area of
political violence, the question must be asked within a psy-
chological theory which can explain the complexity of the
relationship between an external event and an individual's
response.
Research on the effects of violence on violent be-
haviour
The notion that violence begets violence has been with psy-
chology for many years. While this question was originally
raised in respect of the generational cycle of child abuse, in
more recent times it has been incorporated into the psychol-
ogy of political violence. Although there has been little
South African research which seriously investigates this
question (with the exception of the recent publication of
Straker, Moosa, Becker & Nkwale, 1992), it has received
considerable attention in the international literature on
political violence. There is, however, a sharp division be-
tween those who offer support for this claim (Bloom &
Amatu, 1983; Fields, 1976; Fraser, 1974; Harbison & Har-
bison, 1980; Landau & Beit-Hallahmi: Lyons, 1979;) and
those who actively dispute it (Heskin, 1980; McWhirter &
Trew, 1982; McWhirter, 1983). The disputations of the
'violence begets violence' hypothesis centre around a num-
ber of methodological and conceptual criticisms of the re-
search in support of it. Firstly, it is claimed that the notion
that violence begets violence has been based on assertion
substantiated by anecdotal material rather than any well-
founded knowledge. Secondly, it has been argued that stu-
dies often demonstrate serious methodological problems,
such as inadequate or skewed sampling techniques and lack
of clarity over the independent variable in the research de-
sign.

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168
However, a far more fundamental issue which seems to
account for the contradictory evidence on this question is
the lack of clarity about different theoretical orientations
within which the question itself is being asked. It is in-
evitable that there should be disagreement around findings
when there is uncertainty about the meaning of the ques-
tion: 'Does violence beget violence?'. In this article the
author examines and evaluates the interpretation of the
given question as it may be understood within three differ-
ent theoretical frameworks.
The behavioural question
In its crudest form (and this is usually the one that informs
common sense) the question of whether violence begets
violence is seen in terms of a linear causal relationship be-
tween external events and violent behaviour. In other
words, somehow the experience of violence will directly
and inevitably cause a person to act violently in the future.
In searching for evidence on the question in this form, one
might gather statistics on the events of violence to which a
specific population has previously been exposed and then
attempt to establish a relationship with this and subsequent
violent behaviour. This is precisely the sort of exercise in
which Harbison and Harbison (1980) engage, using indices
which are known to be correlated with anti-social behaviour
and assuming that these can be directly attributed to the
previous events of the 'troubles' in Northern Ireland. Much
can be made of the methodological problems of studies
using this kind of approach, including poor definitions of
terms, limited sample size, lack of control groups and dif-
ficulty in ascertaining precisely what violence children have
been exposed to and whether it is these precise circum-
stances to which they are reacting. These difficulties might
appear to be capable of resolution through bigger and better
empirical investigations into the matter.
There are, however, major problems with doing this kind
of research at all. The greatest of these is the establishment
of direct causality in the relationship between an external
event of violence and violent behaviour. Mestrovic (1985)
points to the logical impossibility of making a claim of
direct causality in relation to external events and human
behaviour. Firstly, he notes, it is not possible to ascertain
the point at which one event, such as violence, begins and
another, such as economic deprivation, ends. Secondly, he
argues, there is no way of distinguishing clearly between a
cause and an effect. In other words, was exposure to pre-
vious violence a cause of current violent behaviour or are
both a symptom of another, as yet unknown, cause.
Of course, none of these problems is reducible to poor re-
search design or 'hassle' factors in the process of research.
They are reflections of fundamental philosophical problems
with the paradigm within which the question itself is con-
strued. To argue that violence causes violence in a linear
fashion, is to situate oneself firmly within the constraints of
crude empiricism. This paradigm has its origins in Cartesian
dualism which sets up the separation between subject and
object, between inner and outer. In empiricism this dichot-
omy is presented in terms of the priority of the external
over the internal. In terms of our question this distinction
becomes the separation between the 'event' of violence and
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S.-Afr.Tydskr.Sielk.1993,23(4)
the reaction of the individual. To separate the subject and
object so profoundly leaves one with no other possible ex-
planatory model to account for a relationship other than a
simple determination of one observable event by another.
Behavioural theory is unable to answer its own question
with any validity.
The Interactionist question
Having set out this question in its crudest form, it is only
fair to acknowledge that very few academics would think
about the relationship between, the external event of vio-
lence and subsequent violent behaviour in this simplistic
way. Almost all psychologists working in the area of politi-
cal violence have acknowledged the fact that not every
child will react to violence in precisely the same way. Fac-
gors assumed to mediate this reaction include social sup-
port, family relationships or organisational involvement, age
and temperament. These are among the factors invoked by
McWhirter (1983) in accounting for the low levels of vio-
lent behaviour among those exposed to violence in Northern
Ireland. Similarly, in South Africa, a great deal of attention
has been given to the role of these factors in the 'resilience'
of children exposed to various forms of violence and repres-
sion (e.g. Dawes, 1987; Gibson, 1989). These factors are
thought to intervene in the cognitive process of 'appraisal'
of the event. For example, being part of a tightly knit group
may prevent an individual from feeling alone and therefore
vulnerable to attack. Children may, as a consequence of
this, be less inclined to act violently.
This model represents a shift away from the notion that
an external stimulus produces a behavioural response. It
acknowledges how the response is determined by the way
in which the person perceives the stimulus, a process which
itself is dependent on a number of other factors. There is no
simple relationship between cause and effect and we cannot
predict with absolute certainty that the external event of
violence will lead to violence in all cases. Where results are
contradictory, one of the factors cited above may be evoked
to explain the discrepancy. Where this is not sufficient it
has to be assumed that a further, as yet unknown, factor
which might mediate the experience of violence has been
overlooked. The question of whether violence begets vio-
lence, in terms of this model, may be set out as: What addi-
tional or facilitating factors must be present in order for
violence to lead to violence (or vice versa)?
While this approach seems to be a way out of the im-
passe created by crude empiricism, interactionism has been
subject to more or less sophisticated interpretations. In its
crudest form the 'event' of violence is simply transferred
from being an external influence to a mirror image of itself
in the mind. Here, the image is altered by the reflected
images of other 'events' such as social support and so on. It
is this accumulated set of images and their influence on one
another which constitute appraisal (of the violent 'event'.
From this point of view appraisal is a function of external
events rather than a reflective activity of the mind. The lack
of explanatory power of this model impacts at a number of
different levels. Firstly, it does not address the processes
and mechanisms by which factors such as social support or
age influence appraisal of an external event. Secondly, it
S.Afr.J.Psychol. 1993, 23(4)
does not explain the processes by which different mediating
factors influence one another (e.g. how social support and
age interact). Finally, it does not provide a sufficient ex-
planation of the origins of any of the factors themselves
(e.g. where does temperament come from). This approach
can offer a useful guide to the sorts of factors important in
the response to violence, but it does not constitute a suffi-
cient theoretical explanation. At its best, researchers who
adopt this model are able to draw from other theoretical
frameworks within developmental psychology, psychoanal-
ysis, or social psychology to increase the explanatory power
of this approach. At worst, there is a tendency to use this
model in a mechanistic way which is simply an elaborated
form of the behavioural approach.
The psychoanalytic question
As a way out of the sorts of theoretical dilemma's posed
above, Mestrovic (1985) pr9poses a shift away from the
dualistic perspective which separates an external event from
an internal response. He argues that the whole notion of an
external 'event' is one which is necessarily reductionistic
and, instead, proposes the use of the term 'fact', which has
more in common with the psychoanalytic conceptualization
of trauma. A trauma is, of course, neither internal nor ex-
ternal but straddles and incorporates both of these. These
traumata or 'facts' have a number of features which further
distinguish them from events in that they are not visible,
they are not dated and are not localized in space. They are,
in psychoanalytic terms, the memory which bears no simple
relation to the event. There can then be no directly causal
relationship between the external event of violence and sub-
sequent aggressive behaviour. The only true relationship
exists between the internal 'fact' of violence and the subse-
quent reaction. Mestrovic (1985) notes that events only be-
come trauma through the psychological state of the subject,
social circumstances, and psychic conflict.
At first glance this synopsis appears to bear a strong re-
semblance to the interactionist approach outlined above.
The crucial difference, however, which moves this approach
beyond the interactionist approach is that 'facts' or trauma
are not simply a combination of a set of mediating factors
plus the event of violence. It is specifically the conception
of psychic conflict which shifts this account beyond dual-
ism. Through conflict, all internal and external processes
are dialectically transformed by one another according to
laws and structures which are not themselves visible. In
terms of this approach one event does not simply cause
another. Neither then is it possible to offer a yes or no
(even in an elaborated sense) answer to the question of
whether violence begets violence. Instead, it is far more in-
structive to develop an understanding of the possibilities
and constraints in terms. of general laws of psychological
functioning, which may offer an explanation for the rela-
tionship between the experience of violence and violent be-
haviour. In terms of this approach the question of whether
violence causes violence needs to be rephrased as: 'How is
it possible that violence may arise out of violence?'
In terms of this model of trauma, prediction becomes ir-
relevant and the emphasis falls rather on explanation. This
position may be stretched to the absurdity of extreme rela-
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169
tivism where it would be possible to argue that each indivi-
dual's reaction can be explained with reference to any
issues the theorist might choose to acknowledge. This, how-
ever, is not the position advocated in this article. Rather, it
is proposed that a theoretical model be developed for anal-
ysing the constraints and possibilities which provide the
framework through which to understand a relationship be-
tween the experience of violence and violent behaviour.
This model could then provide a means of analysing a par-
ticular instance, or group of instances, in terms of this ques-
tion as opposed to offering an answer to the question itself.
This analysis needs to be conducted on two levels. On
the first level, it is necessary to outline the psychological
constraints and possibilities that would allow for violence to
emerge out of violence. The second level needs to address
the social constraints and possibilities which constitute both
the experience of violence and ways of reacting to it. In
examining the psychological constraints and possibilities in
the experience of violence I will draw from the broad field
of psychoanalysis. The account provided here is, in terms of
my overall argument, simply one example of the form an
analysis of this question might take and is designed to illu-
strate some of the processes, structures, and laws which
may be used in such an analysis.
It must be recognized that the experience of violence may
take on different meanings for particular individuals depen-
ding both on the kind of violence experienced and the his-
torical experiences of the individual. For example, violence
may be experienced primarily through the loss of a loved
one or it may be experienced as a test of strength. In this
particular analysis I begin with one possible meaning which
may be attached to the experience of violence: the confron-
tation with the possibility of death (De Wind, 1968) and
trace this through to the expression of violent behaviour.
Within the psychoanalytic position, the basic constraints
are given by instinct, development and the nature of the
unconscious and other mental structures. De Wind (1968)
has argued that, in the face of an extreme threat in the ex-
ternal world, the most adaptive response is a retreat from
reality and the objects in it towards a psychological state of
narcissism. This seems also to be a very probable reaction
to the experience of violence which contains within it the
possibility of death (even if this is a symbolic rather than an
actual possibility as might occur when violence against
others is witnessed). This retreat serves two important func-
tions. Firstly, it allows the ego to function independently of
objects around it, which is appropriate in terms of the fact
that surrounding objects are threatening; and secondly, it
allows the ego to compensate for the loss of external ob-
jects by self-love (Freud, 1914).
Libido is however only one of the instinctual forces
governing human behaviour. The other force which operates
in conflict to libido is (in terms of Freud's later conceptuali-
zation) Thanatos, or the death instinct. This instinct is in
most cases bound with Eros or the life instinct (of which li-
bido is now conceived as one aspect) (Freud, 1923). In
usual states the destructive tendencies of Thanatos which
aim towards the breaking down of structures are curbed by
the synthesizing functions of Eros. However, when the libi-
do is withdrawn back into the ego, the death instinct is
denied one of its most common modes of expression and
170
release, through the relation with objects (Freud, 1923).
With this painful build-up of energy, it is possible for the
death instinct to become partially defused from Eros and to
seek its own expression. Initial attempts at expression are in
the form of masochism, which is aggression directed to-
wards the self. This follows the ultimate aim of the death
instinct which is to 'lead organic life back into the inani-
mate state' (Freud, 1923, p. 380). In the face of this attack
on itself, however, the ego can no longer stand the proxim-
ity of the death instinct which threatens it and is forced to
expel some of the destructive energy from the ego.
Although later Kleinian psychoanalysts differ from Freud
in their emphasis on object relations and their rejection of
the conception of a primary narcissistic stage, the Kleinian
contribution can be helpfully used to elaborate this explana-
tory model. For Klein, an excessive external threat may also
result in a denial of the importance of relations with objects
and even hostile attacks on links with them (Segal, 1982).
The individual would then experience the threat of their
own hostility and would be forced back to using the primi-
tive defence mechanisms of splitting and projection to pro-
tect the ego (Segal, 1982). The good (Eros) is held inside
the ego and the bad (a defused part of Thanatos) is expelled
outside on to other objects. There is thus a partial break-
down in the relation between Eros and Thanatos with sepa-
rate paths of resolution; each of these may, in different
ways, contribute to the expression of violent behaviour.
The good feelings associated with the libido are held
within the self as a protection against the bad feelings that
have been projected on to external objects. It is a necessary
feature of this process of projection that there is a lack of
empathy with what has been projected. This may account
for the apparent phenomenon of dehumanization that many
theorists have used as the basis for understanding how a
person is able to exercise violence against another (Kelman,
1973). This loss of empathy with the enemy however is
often paired with an increase in loyalties between members
of the same group. This is best understood not as love of
the real objects but rather as extension of self-love (Freud,
1921) to those who share a common nationality, skin colour
or ethnic identity. Importantly, the love of the self and the
narcissistic love of the group does not have the normal
gentle characteristics we attach to love, because its object is
not the ego as it is, but rather the idealized ego as it would
like itself to be. Groups operating under this shared nar-
cissism cannot tolerate self-criticism and are unable to bear
weakness in their members. Any weaknesses need, like the
death instinct, to be expelled. These 'bad parts' are then
projected on to 'the other', the apparent weaknesses of
whom serve as the justifications for one's own power
(Kovel, 1988) and increase the sense of a lack of shared
humanity.
This process facilitates aggressive behaviour in a number
of different senses. Firstly, dehumanizing the enemy pro-
tects people from the guilt that may ordinarily be evoked by
their aggressive intentions. Secondly, the brittle and ideal-
ized conception of the self needs to be protected against
attack and this necessitates a heightened vigilance to insult
or injury. FinalIy the projection of weakness feeds into a
sense of omnipotence which may be acted out through vio-
lence.
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S.-Afr.Tydskr.Sielk.1993,23(4)
As much as love turned away from external objects may
result in violence, hate may also contribute to this potential.
Anger is often seen by psychoanalysts to have great healing
properties in so far as it allows righteous protest against
what is wrong with the world and the avoidance of an un-
necessary burden of self-hate (Brenman-Pick, 1991). This
conception underlies Fanon's (1968) understanding of vio-
lence as a cleansing force that allows African people to
shake off their despair and fearfulness. Brenman-Pick
(1991), however, points out that anger is only ever half
righteous protest, the other half being destructive rage.
Anger is destructive when it serves primarily the aims of
the death instinct. Anger is projected on to external objects
in order to maintain the integrity of the ego. Because of
their identification with badness, these objects become the
source of persecutory anxieties. The persecutory anxiety is
added to the real fear of attack and this contributes to the
repetition of the cycle of threat, withdrawal from objects,
de-fusion of instincts and the projection of aggression. Se-
condly, it calls up the individual's own unconscious longing
for death. In other words, it puts the person in touch with
his or her own instinctual aggression which, unmediated, is
imagined to possess omnipotently destructive properties.
The aggressive impulse seeks to destroy as much as the
loving impulse seeks to hold and build. 'The conflict be-
tween the two produces enormous anxiety which gives rise
to feelings of shame generated by a harsh and primitive
super-ego. The shame leads to feelings of vulnerability and
anger which further justify the need for violence.
The explanation thus far is, however, only partial. What
has been suggested here is not an explanation for violent
behaviour, but only for unconscious aggressive phantasies
combined with an inflated self-regard and narcissistic in-
tolerance of the other. There is, though, no necessary con-
nection between the unconscious phantasy of destruction
and physical activity. The former, in Freud's terms, is sub-
jected to the laws of primary process thought, while action
is necessarily a function of the secondary process (Freud,
1911). In order for a phantasy to be transformed into a con-
scious action (however random and irrational violent behav-
iour might appear to be, it still is conscious), some addi-
tional features are needed for the transformative process. In
the process described, the ego is threatened on all sides. It
faces real threat in the external world, it faces the threat
posed by the persecutory super-ego and those posed by its
own instincts. The ego is all that is left in the midst of this
onslaught. In order to hold on to its own fragile structure, it
reconstitutes its threatened self through the most radical
action of alI - the destruction of another. In a way which
is not that dissimilar the process by which a borderline
patient may injure him or herself to prove his or her own
existence and attempt to counteract the terrible feeling of
numbness, an ego, terrified of its own disintegration, might
kill another to establish its own life.
Psychologists working with Vietnam veterans suffering
from post-traumatic stress disorder similarly see this kind of
violent behaviour (Feldman, 1988). In addition to holding
the self together, violent activity is reinforced by a narcis-
sistic lack of concern for others as well as by identification
with a group set up in opposition to an enemy.
S.AfrJ.PsychoI.1993,23(4)
As already stated, this is only one possible permutation
of psychological process in relation to the experience of
violence. What is perhaps more important than this particu-
lar analysis, is the way it illustrates the reaction through
dialectical causality within the constraints of instinct,
psychical structures and mechanisms. Having said this, one
might reasonably ask, what are other possibilities that may
alter the course of the experience of violence. The most im-
portant among these, particularly in children, is the concept
of development. Development is not, of course, separate
from the processes and structures outlined above; it simply
marks a particular stage within the development of these
structures and processes. A child, in the Oedipal stage may,
for example, be currently experiencing an excess of guilt.
This may operate in concert with the experience of guilt
induced by the person's own aggressive wishes, as I illu-
strated earlier. On the other hand, an older child may still
experience guilt but be able to activate more sophisticated
defence mechanisms through which the feelings evoked
could be expressed and dealt with (Freud, 1965).
The significance of development must not be limited
however to the current developmental stage of the child; but
in a psychoanalytic sense, it must also be able to accommo-
date the significance of 'the return of the repressed'. Each
stage through which a child has passed leaves residues to
which the child may return under threat. In the experience
of violence, where the likely regression is to narcissism,
one would need to understand how this particular phase was
negotiated by the child and the impact this might have on
their present functioning.
A second level of important possibilities in the process
might arise out of the child's relations with significant
others. While, as Freud (1905) notes, the development pro-
cess is pre-determined, accidental contingencies will evoke
particular dynamic structures and unconscious conflicts
within this pre-determined process. As the trauma of vio-
lence may provoke alterations in the psychical condition, so
other experiences in the child's life will have resulted in
unconscious phantasies that may be evoked by the violence
and structural anomalies (such as a fixation at a particular
stage of development). For example, the child may have ex-
perienced bonding difficulties with the mother in the
earliest months of life, leading to narcissistic injuries which
reinforce the retreat to narcissism in the face of threat.
Similarly, a current experience of violence may call up, in
addition to aggressive instincts, memories of previous loss
or destruction which build upon or transform the action of
the instinct in a variety of ways. It would be naive to sug-
gest that one need only consider the relationship with the
phantasy mother or the impact of past memories on the cur-
rent trauma. Of course, the real mother, family, or commu-
nity organization are also significant to the particular form
the trauma takes. These people and groups however do not
have an impact which is independent of developmental
structures or phantasy objects. They are, in fact, perceived
through these. So a child within a tight-knit family who ex-
periences violence, perhaps because of Oedipal guilt and
rivalry, may be unable to seek compensatory comfort from
members of his or her family. This example illustrates the
crucial differences between the psychoanalytic and the
crude interactionist approach which lacks the power to ex-
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171
plain the relationship between a particular mediating factor
and a psychological response.
The explanation offered so far may rightly expose the
author to accusations of psychological reductionism particu-
larly in view of the overtly political nature of much of the
violence in South Africa. It is one thing to offer a psycho-
logical explanation of the violence, but quite another to
treat the psyche as if it operated entirely independently of
its social or political context. Others have recognized the
need to take this context into account and there have been
several attempts to address the problem of the relationship
between the individual and society in terms of political vio-
lence. One attempt to address this need argues that psycho-
logical theory, particularly psychoanalytic theory, can be
used to explain the social dimension of violence (Van Zyl,
1990). In terms of this approach the Oedipus complex is
used to account for the relation between the State and the
people. In its most extreme form, this approach draws on
the post-structuralism of Lacan. The difficulty with this sort
of approach is that individual and society are indeed differ-
ent levels of a phenomenon that work according to different
rules. Society, for example, does not have instincts (al-
though individuals within it do) and individuals do not have
modes of production (although they might have within them
the ideological reflection of these modes or operate within
them). As exciting as this sort of analysis is, it can never be
really useful, except in a metaphorical sense. It tells us
more, for example, about what people think of the State,
than about the State itself as a material social entity. Simi-
larly, the strength of psychoanalysis lies in its ability to ex-
plain the material reality of individual psychological func-
tioning (Lasch, 1979).
Another way in which psychology can be freed from its
reductionism is to explore the way in which the notion that
violence begets violence is a product of social discourse.
This sort of analysis (Swartz & Levett, 1989; Swartz, Gib-
son, Swartz, 1990; Straker, 1989) offers rich insights into
the way in which society perceives violence against child-
ren and its effects on them, but tends to ignore the psycho-
logical processes and reactions involved.
I would argue that individual psychology and society re-
present two different objects of study and that they require
different methods of analysis. This is not to say that the
psychology of the individual must be a-social. This would
be to go back decades in the development of psychology
(Henriques, Hollway, Urwin, Couze & Walkerdine, 1984).
Rather, the way in which society becomes a part of the in-
dividual is the domain of psychology; society, on the other
hand, operates according to laws which cannot be reduced
to the psychological.
There is a second set of constraints and possibilities
which operate in a dialectical relationship with those of in-
stinct, development and structure described above. This set
consists of the mechanisms and processes which determine
the social nature of the individual's experience of, and
reaction to, violence. These constraints and possibilities
operate in three ways. The first of these is determined by
the individual's history, which is constructed from instinct
as well as people and environmental circumstances. From
the very first, none of these objects in the child's life
operate outside of their social position. If, for example, a
172
child's particular dynamic structure, which contributes to
their experience of violence can be attributed, in part, to
poor mothering, it is necessary to ask what sorts of social
constraints governed the mothers's capacity to care for her
child. In Ingleby's (1976) terms, a mother's position in the
system of production and consumption will influence how
much crying she can permit or tolerate in her child. Thus,
what is social becomes internalized into the mother's be-
haviour and through that, becomes a part of the child's
developmental and dynamic structure. This filters the ex-
perience of violence in particular kinds of ways. Within
psychoanalytic theory there is structural accommodation to
the significance of the social domain as a psychological
phenomenon through the notion of the super-ego. In
Freud's terms, the child identifies with the parent in the re-
solution of the Oedipus complex and by taking in the social
values of the parent, becomes civilized. For Klein, this pro-
cess of internalizing aspects of the social domain begins in
the earliest moments of life with the constant cycle of pro-
jection and introjection in relation to the object (Segal,
1982).
The second major way in which social constraints act in
the psychological sphere is perhaps best explained through
Mestrovic's (1985) notion of collective representations.
While Mestrovic acknowledges that the 'fact' of trauma
arises out of unconscious psychical processes, he argues
that these are also moulded to some extent by shared sets of
meanings in any social context. He is not proposing any
sort of genetic collective unconscious, but rather acknow-
ledging that psychical 'facts' and expressions of them are
limited by social constraints. This notion has long been
recognized by those working in cross-cultural psychology,
where it is recognized that the form taken by disorders will
vary across time and culture (Swartz, 1986). What happens
is not an alteration in the basic psychical structures them-
selves, but shifts in the expression of conflicts. In terms of
the question of violence in South Africa, we would need to
accept that, on this level, violence has become an accepted
means of expressing a conflict which may, at another point
in time, have been dealt with in some other way. This is not
of course to say that the mechanisms of regression, delusion
and projection do not occur, but that their end point may
vary depending on how society governs the expression of
conflict. In present day South Africa violence has become
not only a legitimate means of protest, given the years of
curtailment of other forms of protest, but also, in some
cases, a necessary means to survival.
Social constraints must be acknowledged also in so far as
they provide the setting within which psychological dynam-
ics are expressed. These circumstances which arise out of a
different set of laws, processes, and activities pertaining
specifically to the social domain, provide the conscious
cause and opportunity for expression from the point of view
of the individual. In other words, without real power issues
between political groupings and the State and without real
deprivation among certain groups it is unlikely that there
would be violence on the level that we have seen. The re-
cognition of the social domain in terms of this constraint
illustrates the way in which psychological and sociological
explanations are not entirely independent of one another.
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S.-Afr.Tydskr.Sielk.1993,23(4)
Conclusions
In this article I have attempted to redress the lack of serious
attention that has been given to the question of whether vio-
lence begets violence. The aim has not been to provide de-
finitive answers to this question - indeed, in terms of the
approach adopted, there can be no definitive answer. The
intention has rather been to raise some questions about
useful ways of understanding the idea that violence begets
violence. Among the most important points made is the as-
sertion that violence does not beget violence in any simple
and predictable fashion. This is not to say that there is no
connection between a previous experience of violence and
violent behaviour, but rather that there is a range of pro-
cesses, relationships, and transformations that occur be-
tween an external event and the subsequent behaviour of a
person. What is needed is an informed and sophisticated
psychological understanding of these constraints and possi-
bilities. This may provide a framework for understanding
the relationship between exposure to violence and violent
behaviour among South Africa's children.
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