Reimagining the Social Bond: Review of Kevin Duong's The Virtues of Violence

Reimagining the Social Bond:Review of Kevin Duong's The Virtues Violence Marieke Mueller (bio) and Robert P. Jackson Duong. Violence: Democracy Against Disintegration in Modern France. Oxford University Press, 2020. 256 pp. £36.45 (hc). ISBN: 9780190058418. contract theory has tended to associate violence with chaos, disorder, irrationality. In Violence, Duong directs us towards an alternative lineage "redemptive violence" that is inherently neither illiberal, nihilistic, nor anti-democratic. It responds rather a problem identified (nineteenth-century French) modernity: "democratization as experience social disintegration" (128). various guises, thinkers have diagnosed dissolution inherited bonds having potential for atomization moral fragmentation. Redemptive derives its appeal from attempt regenerate or redeem "thick" bond, i.e., form fraternity [End Page 716] solidarity, enabling multitude achieve popular self-government through unifying collective self-transformation. French Revolution, imperial conquest Algeria 1871 Paris Commune, images redemptive are marshalled constitute redefine boundaries sovereign "People." For Duong, republican tradition paradigmatic, because clarity self-consciousness theorists, who made explicit these problems democratization. This type particular interest it appears across spectrum political thought therefore, he argues, speaks character modern democratic experience. To comprehend pervasiveness this "France's long nineteenth century" (168), undertakes four impressively researched thoroughly readable studies. each, examines episode violence: Jacobin interventions debates about regicide Louis XVI, Tocqueville's justification "total war" colonial Algeria, Communards' conception "people arms," appeals regeneration among diverse critics Third Republic years preceding First World War. suggests idiom which disintegration expressed moments can be linked contemporaneous developments scientific discourse. Thus, Jacobins employ metaphors natural catastrophe describe action people, Tocqueville interweaves new theories psychological fragmentation those disintegration, Bergson's vitalist critique positivism politically weaponized by like Sorel. Chapter one analyzes relationship between emerged during Revolution. establishes wider intellectual landscape: eighteenth century, disappearance corporate system questioning ideology "king's two bodies" guarantor cohesion (36), raised question what could look like. Events such storming Bastille women's march on Versailles, according "cemented link agency (28). was crystallized prosecution XVI. contrasts Girondins' legalistic approach Jacobins' concern king's trial further Revolution's task "reconstructing foundations social" (37). short, violent attack body needed emerge. nuanced depiction their arguments might surprise some readers: interested concrete not abstract ideals conventionally assumed (38-9), mobilized religious vocabulary sacralizing regicidal while adopting naturalistic lightning portray agency. second chapter individualism reduces "société en poussière." understands solution, creation "modern national glory," context Cousin Guizot's rejection Lockean "sensationalism" (55, 62). Instead viewing humans fragmented bundles sense perceptions, respectively stress subject "unified volitional power" interdependence inner life. concluded people had relearn exert will, best achieved pursuing glory. On reading, Tocqueville...