Disputes within modern states are really wars over civility

Evidence

Civility as historical process accordingly is not the purging – ending – of violence but its veiling (the iron hand in the velvet glove), the positioning of socially sanctioned violence out of sight – behind walls (e.g., execution, torture, harassment, sweat shops) or “over there” (colonization, foreign wars, desperately cheap factories, in occupied territories), placing curtains between public and private violence, between publics and violence in their name. Civility, in short, becomes a – the – mode for monopolizing the means of public violence while expressing disinterest in it. As such, it is a principal (and sometimes nominally principled) process for establishing and sustaining modern state domination in the Weberian sense of monopolizing the forms and conditions of expression of legitimate(d) violence and force. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 250 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Disputes framed as being about the past really argue about the present — Manuel Borutta and Jan C. Jansen, Vertriebene and Pieds-Noirs in Postwar…, 1306; The pleaded points of disagreement define the scope of a civil dispute — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 2207; Civility veils rather than ends sanctioned state violence — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 250 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Violence with impunity is practiced in the name of civility #complicates (0.85)
• Civility veils rather than ends sanctioned state violence #complicates (0.82) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 250