The Fascination with Violence in Contemporary Society When Crime is Sublime

This book directly explores the question of why contemporary society is so fascinated with violence and crime. The Fascination with Violence in Contemporary Society posits that the phenomenon is, in part, because we have all become consumers of the sublime: an intense and strongly ambiguous emotion which is increasingly commodified. Through the experience of violence and the sense of disorientation that accompanies it, we obsessively seek out moments of intensified existence. Equally, crime continues to speak to the depths of the collective unconscious, questioning us about our transience and the model of society we wish to live in. Binik proposes that this is why the reaction to violence has become a tool with which to express and take ownership of a desire for social cohesion. 

This book uses interviews with viewers, dark tourists, collectors and others to further interrogate this social trend. Many of these are participants in the four key case studies explored within the study: emotional pathways while watching a true-crime TV series, the trend of dark tourism, murderabilia collecting and the fanaticism of (and for) Anders Breivik. This book seeks to answer one of the most pressing cultural trends of the modern age and fill in a gap in the criminological literature on the subject. 

1. Introduction 

2. When crime is sublime

2.1 “Sympathy for the (d)evil”: the fascination with crime 

2.2 Targeting the phenomenon: from “expulsion narrative” to “proximity narrative”

2.3 A psycho-social approach: for a cultural criminology of emotions 

2.4 The emotions involved in fascination with crime: the sublime, the uncanny, the state of awe

2.4.1. “On The Sublime”: violence as unrepresentable wound

2.4.2. Edmund  Burke’ s enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful 

2.4.3. From terror to morals: Kant’s sublime

2.4.4. Losing oneself is wonderful: uncanny crime

2.4.5. Awe-ful moments

2.5 Potential connections: at the roots of a single emotional experience

2.5.1. The sense of vastness and power when a boundary is crossed

2.5.1.1. The limit by definition: death

2.5.1.2. The limits from sacred to profane and Durkheim’s effervescence

2.5.1.3. The confines between the Pleasure Principle and the Reality Principle 

2.5.2. Undecipherability and the need for accommodation

3. Effervescent and ready for use: the sublime and other emotions in the Carnival of crime 

3.1. Little Red Riding Hood

3.2. The sublime, now

3.3. The liminal experience and the Carnival of crime

3.4. The carnivalesque and crime, now

3.5. A possible bifurcation in thought: consumption and effervescence

3.5.1. Crime consumption, chillness and enjoyment 

3.5.1.1 Consuming crime

3.5.1.2.  Consumption: from psychoanalysis to sociology

3.5.2. Crime at the center of collective warm and Dyonisiac effervescence

3.5.2.1. Violence from sacred to profane

3.5.2.2. The sacredness of effervescence: Bataille and Bastide

3.5.2.3. The return of Dionysus: Michel Maffesoli

3.5. A few clarifications

4. In the cultural criminology hall of mirrors

4.1. The cultural diamond and fascination with crime 

4.2.The place of emotions (and the sublime) in culture

4.3. Methodological choices

4.4. The dual carnival metaphor and the bond between the social world and cultural objects

4.5. Research techniques or “go out and get your hands dirty in real research”

5. From sublime to resentment:  emotional pathways watching crime on television

5.1. Case study: the “Quarto Grado” TV series

5.2. The trajectory

5.3. The morbid blend of attraction and repulsion

5.4. The sense of vastness and power when a boundary is crossed 

5.4.1. “Am I capable of it too?”

5.4.2. “Look how easy is to die!”

5.5 Undecipherability and the need for accommodation 

5.6. Sublime. Use instruction

5.7. The commodification of the sublime

5.7.1. Selecting and framing crime

5.7.2. The aestheticization of violence and visual spectacle

5.7.3. Proximity, when the monster is at home

5.7.5. The indeterminate nature of the cold case

5.8. An effervescent resentment

5.8.1. Collective effervescence and the process as  ritual 

5.8.2. The Imaginary, fragile rituals and perpetual activation

5.8.3. From sublime to resentment

6. In the wild land in search of a story: dark tourism

6.1. Dark tourism and its nuances

6.2. The research

6.3. The sense of vastness and power when a boundary is crossed

6.3.1. Death 

6.3.2. The eagle and the wild boar: the authentic traces of a history

6.4. Undecipherability and the need for accommodation

6.5. The feeling rules 

6.5.1. Time 

6.5.2. Strong stories

6.6. Breaking the feeling rules, playing at voyeurism

6.7. Telling stories as a job (or the commodification of the sublime)

6.8. Dark tourism and emotional communities

7. “This is a taboo business” : the murderabilia market from sacred to profane

7.1. Can evil be bought?

7.2. “This is a taboo business”: the sacred side of murderabilia collecting

7.3.1. That obstinate search

7.3.2. Son of Sam

7.3.3. Goodfellas

7.3.4. Sinatra Junior

7.3.5. How to hinder the intermediaries: the California model and Senator Cornyn

7.4. A well rooted evil

8. Attacks or fireworks? The spectacularisation of the Anders Breivik massacre

8.1. A performer

8.2. Materials for a successful performance 

8.2.1. Good and bad according to Breivik

8.2.2. A group of lone wolves

8.2.4. Poses to consume

8.3. A performative justice

8.4. Conclusions 

9. Conclusions