Towards a Multi-modal Phenomenological Approach of Violence

Excerpt

Violence is a pervasive dimension of our individual and social existence. No one can deny such an evidence, precisely during these troubled times of social unrest. The unanimous feeling that we are living in an increasingly violent world, full of rage and anger, is more and more tormenting. Not only our past is full of violence as well as our present, but also we cannot have high expectations regarding a peaceful future. There is no need to mention the countless instances of violence worldwide—each one having its own grounds and simultaneously generating new violences, with their always-particular contexts and their multi-stratified implications—in order to enhance our “catastrophic sensitivity”. Even for those who are somewhat sheltered from actual aggression, just seeing it on TV or Internet from a quasi-safe distance, violence is still an indisputable and a deeply disturbing menace. Indeed, any such circumstantially “sheltered” situation is by definition unstable and it can switch over, at any time, into its opposite. For even if, in the particular context we live in, violence is not an actual one (it happens “somewhere else,” “out there,” or to “someone else”), and even if it is not imminent (as in a perceptible and definite threat), violence is always latent and, as such, it can at any time re-emerge and suddenly explode in our face. In fact, existential and social peace seems to be only a very fragile crust, and it can at any moment be shattered by appalling crimes terrifying the public space, by street clashes of all kinds, by terrorist attacks, or by the horrors of war. …