Violence: Six Sideway Synthesis Essay

Violence. The very word demands immediate attention as our minds turn to what we already know of it. To relate it back to what we’ve seen or heard and recall our own experiences with it; or perhaps we relay tales of violence and pass those on to others. The majority of what we understand regarding violence stems from what we see and hear through media reports, television programmes, film and theatre. To emotionally connect or distance ourselves from what we know is often expressed through our initial emotional and physical reactions or responses. In contemporary society a week does not go by when we are not presented with a new incident involving some act of violence, whether we openly notice it or not. Violence is an everyday occurrence; a fact which, is normally out of the control of the average person. Thus to commence breaking down what violence is in a definition of terms – the World Health Organisation (WHO) defines it as:
Žižek illustrates his thesis, not just of what, but of how violence is used and exemplified within our current culture. Within the introductory chapter of Violence: Six Sideways Reflections (2009), he provides examples of different kinds of violence that he defines as ‘symbolic’ and ‘systematic’; but he also draws attention to the more ‘obvious signals of violence’ – such as ‘crime and terror, civil unrest, international conflict’. (Žižek, 2009: 1) However, what makes his proposal of violence unique is how he