Lucienne Lunn, Daniel J. Christie, in Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, & Conflict (Third Edition), 2022

Cultural and Structural Violence

Structural violence is also legitimized through narratives that justify enormous differences in economic security. System justification, in which people accept the status quo social, political, and economic arrangements of a society, can take many forms. Poverty, for example, can be justified by “blaming the victim” for failing to fully internalize the “protestant ethic,” which values individualism, hard work, and delay of gratification. People with few material resources are expected to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” eschew the safety net, and adopt a sense of individual responsibility. In the 1800s, Horatio Alger's stories of teenage boys who escaped poverty through hard work were popular in the United States, as they were consistent with the belief in the American dream of upward mobility for all. In the last 50 years, however, there has been very little upward mobility in the United States. Nevertheless, the narrative continues to attribute poverty and difficult life conditions to the purported failings of those whose basic needs are unsatisfied, not to the structure of political and economic institutions in a society. It is a formula that places all of the burden on individual responsibility, rather than framing the equitable distribution of power and wealth as a social responsibility.

Similarly, the structural violence of racism and sexism is also legitimized through cultural narratives. Racism has deep roots, but its modern iteration can be found in the subjugation of Africans through the brutality of colonialism and slavery. Inhumane treatment was justified by a number of narratives: the Bible's approval of the practice; the imagined inferiority of Africans; paternalistic impulses; and the view of Africans as less than human. Long after the American slave trade had been abolished, the myths that justified slavery continued to be influential and ramified around narratives of intellectual inferiority, sexual promiscuity, and laziness. These and other narratives justified the disenfranchisement and exclusion of nonwhites when the Declaration of Independence was drafted; later, Jim Crow laws justified segregation to protect the white stock from contamination by blacks.

Women were also excluded from the declaration that “all men are created equal” and were not truly guaranteed the inalienable right to liberty. Patriarchy remains the dominant social system and cultural ethos worldwide—men control the narrative, enjoy moral authority, and disproportionately occupy seats of economic and political power. Sexist narratives are even implicated in self-objectification, which occurs when women internalize others' views that they are objects to be judged on the basis of their appearance.

The recent surge of right-wing populism in many parts of the world has given rise to xenophobic forms of aggression and racism. The narrative of populism frames intergroup relations as a battle between the nationalistic impulses of “ordinary” masses versus a corrupt “elite” that favors and benefits from globalism. Migrants are often singled out as threats to racial purity, economic well-being, and the very existence of a nation. Fueled by fear of the other, populist leaders promulgate nativist notions and promise to protect the interests and dominance of the ordinary masses, typically through authoritarian forms of leadership. Historically, nationalism has been a force that united diverse people, generating social cohesion and interdependence between rival tribes and identity groups within a nation. Indeed, “love of country” (i.e., patriotism) has often fostered harmony among people. However, when the kind of nationalism that arises ties ingroup amity to outgroup enmity, xenophobia and racism are likely consequences.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/structural-violence