Theories of Violence: terms from Zizek

subjective violence: violence performed by a clearly identifiable agent

symbolic violence: violence embodied in language and its forms

systemic violence: the violence and routine consequences of the smooth functioning of economic and political systems


"Subjective violence is experienced as such against the background of a non-violent zero level. It is seen as a perturbation of the "normal," peaceful state of things. However, objective violence is invisible since is sustains the very zero-level standard against which we perceive something as subjectively violent" (Zizek 2).

"There is something inherently mystifying in a direct confrontation with [violence]: the over-powering horror of violent acts and empathy with the victims inexorably function as a lure which prevents us from thinking" (Zizek 4).

"Reality": is the social reality of the actual people involved in interaction and in the productive processes, while the Real is the inexorable "abstract," spectral logic of capital that determines what goes on in social reality" (Zizek 13)

Objective violence is always accompanied by a "subjective" excess: "the irregular, arbitrary exercise of whims. An exemplary case of this interdependence is provided by Etienne Balibar, who distinguishes two opposite but complementary modes of excessive violence: the "ultra-objective" or systemic violence that is inherent in the social conditions of global capitalism, which involve the "automatic" creation of excluded and dispensable individuals from the homeless to the unemployed, and the "ultra-subjective" violence of newly emerging ethnic and/or religious, in short racist, "fundamentalisms" (Zizek 14).