Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART I INTRODUCTION AND CORE CONCEPTS
- PART II THE ROOTS OF HELPING OTHER PEOPLE IN NEED IN CONTRAST TO PASSIVITY
- PART III HOW CHILDREN BECOME CARING AND HELPFUL RATHER THAN HOSTILE AND AGGRESSIVE
- PART IV THE ORIGINS OF GENOCIDE, MASS KILLING, AND OTHER COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE
- PART V THE AFTERMATH OF MASS VIOLENCE: TRAUMA, HEALING, PREVENTION, AND RECONCILIATION
- 33 Preventing Group Violence
- 34 Kosovo: The Need for Flexible Bystander Response
- 35 The Effects of Violence on Groups and Their Members
- 36 Healing, Reconciliation, and Forgiving after Genocide and Other Collective Violence
- 37 Healing, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Project Summary and Outcome, with Addendum on Other Projects
- 38 Further Avenues to Prevention
- 39 Commentary: Human Destructiveness and the Refugee Experience
- 40 A Vision of Holocaust Education in Holocaust Centers and Schools
- 41 Out of Hiding
- 42 Review of Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich
- 43 What Can We Learn from This Tragedy? A Reaction Days after September 11, 2001
- PART VI CREATING CARING, MORALLY INCLUSIVE, PEACEFUL SOCIETIES
- Appendix: What Are Your Values and Goals?
- Index
- References
33 - Preventing Group Violence
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 May 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- PART I INTRODUCTION AND CORE CONCEPTS
- PART II THE ROOTS OF HELPING OTHER PEOPLE IN NEED IN CONTRAST TO PASSIVITY
- PART III HOW CHILDREN BECOME CARING AND HELPFUL RATHER THAN HOSTILE AND AGGRESSIVE
- PART IV THE ORIGINS OF GENOCIDE, MASS KILLING, AND OTHER COLLECTIVE VIOLENCE
- PART V THE AFTERMATH OF MASS VIOLENCE: TRAUMA, HEALING, PREVENTION, AND RECONCILIATION
- 33 Preventing Group Violence
- 34 Kosovo: The Need for Flexible Bystander Response
- 35 The Effects of Violence on Groups and Their Members
- 36 Healing, Reconciliation, and Forgiving after Genocide and Other Collective Violence
- 37 Healing, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation in Rwanda: Project Summary and Outcome, with Addendum on Other Projects
- 38 Further Avenues to Prevention
- 39 Commentary: Human Destructiveness and the Refugee Experience
- 40 A Vision of Holocaust Education in Holocaust Centers and Schools
- 41 Out of Hiding
- 42 Review of Legacy of Silence: Encounters with Children of the Third Reich
- 43 What Can We Learn from This Tragedy? A Reaction Days after September 11, 2001
- PART VI CREATING CARING, MORALLY INCLUSIVE, PEACEFUL SOCIETIES
- Appendix: What Are Your Values and Goals?
- Index
- References
Summary
There was hope after World War II that the horrors of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany's crusade against Jews, and the killing of millions of other people would bring such violence to an end forever. Instead, collective or group violence has become commonplace in the second part of the twentieth century. Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Tibet, East Timor, Argentina, El Salvador, Chile, Guatemala, Colombia, Bosnia, and Rwanda are only some of the better-known places where such violence has been perpetrated. Its forms have also been numerous, including genocide, mass killing, abductions or disappearances of large numbers of individuals, and widespread torture (Suedfeld, 1990).
Without effective prevention, the frequency of such violence is likely to rise further in the twenty-first century. Poverty, the experience of injustice, and social and psychological disorganization that prevents the meeting of basic human needs in a rapidly changing world tend to lead people to turn to ethnic, religious, national, or other “identity” groups to strengthen individual identity and to gain support and security. This, combined with ideologies that groups adopt in difficult times, whether Nazism, communism, nationalism, racial supremacy, or something else, frequently leads to antagonism and violence against other groups.
Understanding the influences that lead to collective violence is necessary for prediction; both understanding and prediction are essential for prevention. For effective prevention, it is highly important to further our understanding of commonalities in both causes and methods of prevention as well as to respect the particulars of each potentially violence-producing situation.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Psychology of Good and EvilWhy Children, Adults, and Groups Help and Harm Others, pp. 419 - 427Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003