Political Hoplology: Religion, Warriors and the Preservation of Nations

Dear Colleagues,

Our relationship with violence can be best described as one of repulsion and fascination. To some extent, it is a necessary evil. Yet, we are generally socialized to be disgusted with it. The overwhelming need for cooperation, which is ultimately embedded in the social norms that allow complex societies to survive, trumps the necessity for the general population to be accustomed with violence. Moreover, most religious traditions consider it detrimental to civility. In fact, modern religious communities disregard, disincentivize, or even consider it as an immoral sin.

However, with the birth of Nations, violence is somehow deemed necessary to protect the state. But societies, understandably, wish to remove such necessary violence from sight and regulate it within clear, and morally acceptable, limits. Machiavelli and Weber, for example, reminded us that the legitimate leaders of society get to decide if violence is acceptable or not and under which circumstances it is welcomed. This concept is not new to political philosophy as we see in the development of the Just War Theory which tried to justify violence on religious grounds. Thus, since violence could be outlawed but not eliminated, it was isolated in specific activities ranging from combat sport competitions to the military. But violence being necessary to protect the state fosters a paradox: how do we generate such desire and control it?

An answer to this question is that at some point in history, warrior classes, later replaced by the military and martial artists, emerged precisely with the explicit goal of restraining violence and preventing men from falling into a condition of perpetual mortal combat prompted by the individual desire, in Morgenthau’s words their animus dominandi, of harvesting power over others. 

It is not surprising that these individuals are the ones who hold more onto religious beliefs and practices than others. Religious institutions and norms have emerged to address these silos and implement ways to harvest the full potential of violence while reducing and controlling its side effects and preventing social degradation.

The Special Issue aims to address this nexus and is broad in scope. We are inviting high-quality, original contributions from a wide array of disciplines, such as political science, sociology, psychology, martial arts studies, philosophy, and history. Contributions to this Special Issue might address, but are by no means limited to, the following points:

• What is the political role of violence?
• What role does religion play in promoting and containing violence via specialized warrior/military/martial artists classes?
• With which concepts of political science can we meaningfully understand the relationship between specialized military classes and religion?

Dr. Andrea Molle
Guest Editor

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• religion
• political violence
• hoplology
• martial arts