Every issue has one section dedicated to a particular question. Collecting responses from a range of perspectives, these symposia prompt us to think about the values and ideas that shape our most urgent cultural and personal decisions.
“I’m not sure anyone understands sadistic violence … Or maybe we do understand, in the way I understand the dreams that horrify and bewilder me. Maybe we just don’t want to admit we understand.”
Demonic Force
While “everyone” may understand the pragmatic or raw emotive reasons for violence, I’m not sure anyone understands sadistic violence sans motive, especially when acted out…
The War Habit
On any given day for the past quarter of a century, the United States was probably dropping bombs on a country somewhere.
What We Become
Violence had not just wrought metaphorical transformations in Syrians, turning them at points into bystanders, accomplices, exiles, perpetrators, victims and (for now) a free people.…
Fear and Trembling in the Garrison
Tonight, across this country and on bases far afield, young American soldiers will take shifts guarding explosives.
Propaganda of the Deed
On March 13, 1881, Emperor Alexander II left the Winter Palace to inspect a St. Petersburg military parade.
Kinds of Killing
It was this convergence that made it so obvious, and so culturally confrontational, that Manson and My Lai shared gruesome content and form.
Popular Justice
Girard did not deny Foucault’s insight that our modern institutions bear traces of their archaic predecessors. But this did not lead him to conclude that…
