Abstract

This essay offers a phenomenological interpretation of symbolic violence. According to my thesis, the craving for violent imagery derives from the audience’s unconscious desire to liberate itself from pain’s destructive effects. I argue that this unrealizable project of liberation can take three forms: it can aim to express the inexpressible, escape the inescapable, or transfer the non-transferrable. I further contend that the audience’s approach to contemporary representations of violence is paradoxical: its irresistible craving for pain’s virtual manifestations is no greater than its incapacity to tolerate pain’s actual manifestations. After addressing some objections that my interpretation is bound to provoke, I conclude with some reflections regarding the possibility of an ethical engagement in symbolic violence.