destructiveness

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Destructiveness (Latin destruere "tear down", "destroy") describes the destructive quality of things or situations or the destructive attitude or behavior of people. It is the opposite of constructiveness or productivity .

Common usage

Colloquially, “being destructive” is used similarly to or as an enhancement of “negative”. The charge of destructiveness in a discussion means the overemphasis on negative and hostile criticizing elements. In contrast to this, concrete suggestions for improvement are expressed in the case of constructive criticism .

A slap is a destructive, according to the Duden "destructive" criticism or review , which is also formulated with the means of irony or polemics and is the subject of a discussion - such as B. in literary criticism - in the essential parts of its execution and goals as a failure.

A destructive vote of no confidence within a parliamentary system of government is in contrast to a constructive vote of no confidence if a proposal for a successor is not made at the same time as the application to remove an office holder.

Social psychology

In his work Anatomy of Human Destructiveness , Erich Fromm defined destructiveness as “malicious aggression ” (destructive rage, cruelty, greed for murder, etc.) and analyzed it as a human passion or character structure; but at the same time as a trait that is reinforced in capitalist societies. In this context, he examined 30 recent pre-industrial cultures with different ways of life on the basis of ethnographic records for their conflict-sociological behavior. He came to the conclusion that the "lust for war" had increased with the development of civilization: the more different things a person produces and possesses, the greater are greed and envy , which he perceived as mandatory prerequisites for acts of war. In his study, Fromm found that at least destructive behavior was absent or less pronounced in egalitarian (unspecialized) hunters and gatherers than in civilized societies. In his opinion, the causes are the socio-cultural conditions, which he divided into the three groups “life-affirming societies”, “non-destructive-aggressive societies” and “destructive societies” (see also: “war and peace” in pre-state societies ) .

Sociology of work

In the sociology of work, destructiveness is emphasized alongside the “ productivity ” of work : all work not only produces something, including that whoever works is also reflected in it ( see consciousness , pride ), but also destroys it ( a) the environment (also in the form of the processed raw material), (b) other people (e.g. as an effect of competition or an impairment of the nuclear family ), (c) the workers themselves (costs them effort and life).

As a result of the emphasis on the productivity of labor in economics and sociology since the rise of capitalism, this destructive aspect has mostly been obscured in both liberalism and socialism or classified as dysfunctional, i.e. not treated in its comprehensive effectiveness. But is z. B. Schumpeter's concept of “ creative destruction ” has a similar basis ( see below ).

Destruction can even be the main purpose of the work (e.g. the manufacture of ammunition ), and accordingly the soldier is also a worker (e.g. , analogous to Karl Marx, referred to as a - negative - proletarian ), only his work can be more destructive than e.g. B. that of a miner. But at the same time something is produced here too (e.g. an army can create security ).

From this point of view, from an industrial sociological point of view (without this representing a generally valid assessment), serial and mass production in an industrial company can be structurally related to “serial” and “mass destruction” in war (e.g. in the form of rocket batteries as a factory , but also of slaughter and air fleets, which are understood as mobile industrial companies). Ashworth examined this in a structural-functionalist way using the effects of mechanical (artillery) mass killing in trench warfare on the western front in World War I from autumn 1914.

Even in the criminal milieu - that is, in "rascal work" (according to Riehl ) - the destructive traits outweigh the constructive traits. B. Pickpockets who travel from fair to fair, see their work as a job and lead a 'normal' family life , like a sales representative (cf. The professional thief von Sutherland ).

Difference between destructive work and destructive activity

There is a strict distinction between “destructive work” (regardless of possible overlaps in the event of actual destruction) and “destructive activity ”. Examples of the latter range from everyday life to serial and mass murder of the inmates of extermination camps ( concentration camps ). The difference is empirically investigated (e.g. sociologically in terms of leisure time ) on the basis of the customs of satisfaction, which become observable after a completed "destructive work" as quite different from the customs of turning away (of retreatism ) after a completed "destructive activity". For example, celebrations on the occasion of completed "destructive work" tend to have solemn features (funerals, commemorations), after "destructive activities" rather extravagant ones (cf. Eugen Kogon , Der SS-Staat ).

Economics

The element of destructiveness plays a far weaker role in economics than that of productivity, but it has never gone unnoticed.

In Karl Marx's theory , the “productive forces ... under private property only develop one-sidedly, become destructive forces for the majority, and a lot of such forces cannot be used in private property.” ( Die deutsche Ideologie , MEW 3, p . 60)

Joseph Schumpeter's already mentioned concept of capitalist entrepreneurship as “creative destruction” then became an influential figure in economic thought.

See also

literature

  • Lars Clausen: Productive work, destructive work: sociological foundations , de Gruyter, Berlin / New York, NY 1988, ISBN 3-11-011814-9 .
  • Alexander Glück: Manual for the forum troll . Röhrig, St. Ingbert 2013, ISBN 978-3-86110-535-0 (with analyzes of destructive behavior on the Internet).
  • Erich Fromm : Anatomy of human destructiveness , translated by Liselotte and Ernst Mickel, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-499-17052-3 .
  • Jenny C. Hortenbach: Striving for freedom and destructiveness: women in the dramas of August Strindberg and Gerhart Hauptmann (= Germanic series of Norwegian universities and colleges , No. 2: Scandinavian University Books ), Universitetsforlaget, Oslo 1965, DNB 363864148 (revised dissertation ).
  • Karoline Künkler: From the darkrooms of modernity: Destructiveness and gender in the visual arts of the 19th and 20th centuries (= literature, culture, gender, large series , volume 39), Böhlau, Cologne / Weimar / Vienna / Böhlau 2012, ISBN 978-3-412-18005-8 ( dissertation Uni Düsseldorf ).
  • Stavros Mentzos: The War and Its Psychosocial Functions. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-525-01469-4 .
  • Mansour Tawadjoh: Division of labor and destructiveness: scientific-technical progress in contradiction to man and nature, Verlag für Akademische Schriften, Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-88864-008-3 ( dissertation University Frankfurt am Main 1987).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stavros Mentzos: The war and its psychosocial functions. 2nd Edition. - New version, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2002, ISBN 3-525-01469-4 , pp. 42–45.
  2. ↑ Erich Fromm: Anatomy of human destructiveness . From the American by Liselotte et al. Ernst Mickel, 86th - 100th thousand edition, Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-499-17052-3 , pp. 170, 191ff, in particular 202-203.
  3. ↑ See also Lars Clausen , Productive work, destructive work , Berlin / New York (de Gruyter) 1988, ISBN 3-11-011814-9
  4. ↑ See also Lars Clausen: Productive work, destructive work . Berlin / New York: Walter de Gruyter 1988
  5. ↑ See on this Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels : Die deutsche Ideologie (many editions; MEW 3) Joseph Schumpeter: Theory of economic development , 1911