Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads

By Gil Bailie

Book Overview

This book is about the spiritual crisis of our time. It is also a literary work, an often miraculous interplay between cultural documents and historical periods. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0824516451
• ISBN13: 9780824516451
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: PublishDrive
• Length: 312 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

HARD TRUTHS

HARD TRUTHSIn Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads, Gil Bailie makes a hard demand of the reader: put aside for this time your cherished preconceptions, and listen. That is not only a hard demand but a risky one for any writer to make, lest he be found foolish. In my judgment, Bailie is not foolish, but prophetic.Bailie is founder and director of the Florilegia Institute, a kind of Catholic "think tank/apologist." In his analysis of the roots and results of violence, he scrutinizes disparate sources, ancient and modern, including the Bible and current events. He does so both as a Christian and as an anthropologist, peeling away layer by layer the myths and pieties often associated with "The Greatest Book Ever Written." Readers who regard the Bible primarily as a literal statement of God's word may be shocked at many of Bailie's assertions, but they need to remain open to the end of the book and beyond. As well, non- and nominal Christians will be put off by Bailie's unwavering focus on Jesus Christ's role in the unraveling of the power of "sacred violence", but they need to "put on" what Bailie considers to be the fundamental Christian message.The seminal assertion of Bailie's book is best stated in his quotation from literary critic Northrup Frye: "Man creates what he calls history as a screen to conceal the workings of the apocalypse from himself." All civilizations (according to Bailie) arose out of a sea of chaotic violence, and were in fact established by acts of such overwhelming and consummating violence (the apocalypse) that chaos was stilled and stability reigned. At least for a while, as in the Bolshevik Revolution. This "screen" of history (or myth) is a whitewash protecting the civilization from facing its own founding horrors, especially by shutting away the faces and voices of the countless innocent victims. "History" we admit, is written by those who win. The celebration and ritual re-enacting of this founding act of "sacred violence", now a sanitized myth, is the beginning of religion, with its bloody sacrifices (often human), and its prescriptions and taboos, all intended to placate fickle gods (ideologies) who alone, it is now exhorted and believed, have the power to keep the apocalypse from recurring.The effectiveness of the founding myth (still according to Bailie) and its ritual re-enactments in maintaining stability has relied on two factors, the first being the ardent acceptance by the members of the civilization of the "sacred truths" of the founding myths, and the second being the non-recognition of the victims. To see and hear the human victim, Bailie points out many times, is to empathize and see through the screen, thereby nullifying its "good" effect. Bailie argues that Western civilization, over the course of several millenia, has gradually and uniquely come to see the plight and humanity of the victim. It has done this through the Bible of Judeo-Christian culture: ". . . all of the world's religions urge th

a profound look at violence in our culture

Jesus' words "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword" are the best way to summarize this extraordinary book. Bailie grabs on Rene Girard's work to carry on a profound journey through mankind and history. The West, and eventually the whole world, according to Bailie, is in a profound state of crisis that is yet to be overcome. The gospels' revelation is presented as a profoundly paradoxical phenomenom. The world is in a state of crisis as a result of the gospel's influence. The gospels have revealed to humaninty what myth had been unable to do for centuries: the sacrificial victim that lies at the foundation of cultural order is innocent. This revelation has completely unstructred the 'sacred', which up to then had kept societies at peace. After a culture receives the gospels' influence, scapgoating no longer works. The gospels tear away the distinction that culture had made regarding violence. This distinction consists in a 'bad' or profane violence, which will lead to chaos and self-destruction, and a 'good' or sacred violence (sacrifice) that is able to put an end to profane violence. The power of the gospels resides in the fact that these distinctions are no longer possible, sacred violence is done away. Through some clever magazine articles and book excerpts, Bailie makes us understand that the world is no longer able to restore peace through sacred violence. The root of the current crisis lies, then, in the fact that sacrificial options no longer work. Jesus warns in a dramatic fashion that he will not bring peace, but instead a sword. Jesus announces that after his death, scapegoating will no longer be possible, therefore, mankind is in danger of engaging in apocalytical violence that sacrifice simply can't solve. This, however, does not mean that Bailie argues that sacrifice is not a feauture of the modern world. The holocaust, Rwanda, Bosnia and the Rodney King beating are all tragic reminders of the presence of sacrifice in our world. But, amazingly enough, people have come to discover that scapegoating solves nothing and find it morally troublesome to perform such actions. Violence is unveiled, it is shown in its real nature

Provocative Insight into Cultural Violence

Bailie draws on Rene Girard's theory of foundational violence as the generative cultural force, and explores its modern effects on a culture no longer enthralled by ritual or sacralized violence. I found especially compelling the newspaper accounts of violent acts which have taken place within my own memory. Bailie uses these along with historical accounts of scapegoating to illustrate his theory, producing a hard-hitting indictment of all forms of violence, whether isolated actions or legalized responses to a violent act. Increasingly, I find it difficult to distinguish between an act of violence and an act of retributive justice. I have not read a newspaper account of a violent encounter the same way since reading Violence Unveiled, nor do I react to photojournalism with my previous detachment. The impact stays with me, despite the fact that I read the work initially two years ago when I borrowed it from a friend. I now have my own copy, heavily underlined and notated in the margins with thoughts spawned by Bailie's excellent analyses. Provocative and insightful.

Very challenging, opinionated, with a lingering effect.

I have given copies to several friends and find this a book that I want to discuss with them. It is rather academic at times, but by the time he gets to the interpretation of Scripture he starts to soar. Ideas from this book have continually returned to enlighten and offer insight months after I read it.

An excellent history of the roots of social violence.

This book presents an excellent analysis of the connection between non Judeo-Christian religious rituals and the need of societies to preserve social order. The author explores the implications of Rene Girard's "Violence and the Sacred", and uses that work as a foundation to explain the social purpose of human sacrifice. This book is startling in its dispassionate observation of cultures past and present, for the author gives much evidence of the role of sacred violence used as a warning not to fall into the chaos of anarchy. The author also gives us a warning of the limits of this tool of social control.