The domain of violence begins –Lacan said– in the confines where the word resigns. When the word no longer seeks to mediate, violence emerges as a sign of this impasse. It can take the form of physical aggression, but insult is also a form of violence because it does not focus on conversation but on the disqualification of the other as a human being. The insult is a judgment on the most intimate part of your being. Absolute judgment – ??without possible defense – that condemns him to become an object segregated from the social bond: “moor, whore, traitor, dog…”. Objectified and evicted, a previous and necessary step, he is intimidated to leave the scene, alive or dead: “Go to your country, die, hanging by your feet.” Lacan added that this violence resides in each person, in the form of hatred, always ready to manifest itself without the need for provocation.
Digital has not invented hate, but it has opened its cyber doors and expanded it without limits. Digital gender violence claims more victims every year: women harassed by their ex-partners, blackmailed and humiliated. The cancel culture uses its liquidation campaigns against anyone who expresses any dissidence with what is politically correct. J. K. Rowling is the best-known case in a long series. Not even celebrities or athletes are safe from hatred and insult when they deviate from the planned plan.
But perhaps it is in the political arena where violence unfolds with greater intensity. Some populists are true professionals in the art of bullying. Trump is undoubtedly the king, but with more and more emulators everywhere. The veil that traditionally covered political discrepancies – to place them in the field of programmatic dispute – has fallen and everyone is now authorized to harshly judge the adversary, to whom they grant the status of enemy. The new dialectic of the chainsaw.
Social networks have replaced the former in-person agoras, social infrastructures that allowed meeting and exchange. With bodies erased, commitment and responsibility are diluted. Anonymity – when used – increases disinhibition and in these virtual conditions it deprives the connection and weakens the bond, which requires presence and time. In the instant of a click, the other (as a target) is reduced to a hostile being.
The consequences? Violence often goes unpunished thanks to the fallacy that what is virtual has no real effects. The polarization, fueled by the algorithm that benefits, is inflated and the social legitimacy that these leaders provide authorizes each one to switch to an aggressive act. What was previously more exceptional is beginning to become common: politicians who slap or insult each other in X, citizens who harass them on the street or on transport.
20% of young Spaniards deny the existence of gender violence, encouraged by political discourses that make it their flag. Physical and verbal attacks on women are increasing and do not seem to be alien to that legitimacy. Rather than talking about the porn generation, perhaps we should take into account that what authorizes the objectification of women is not the private viewing of a video, but the public display of women as objects of enjoyment and contempt. The first produces shame – no one brags in public – and the second naturalizes and authorizes that violence.