Cruelty and Diffuse Violence within the Current Brazilian Context

This work aims at contributing to a reflection on the cruelty issue within the current Brazilian context by registering radical felonious practices related to unexplained but evident violations of the victim’s body amounting to weird irrational uses of violence. The theme dealt with by other disciplines, such as Arts and Psychoanalysis, where one finds several formulations and reflections, is a challenge to sociological endeavors. Based on native usage of the word cruelty, the work assesses the use it is put to by the media, encompassing the common sense and its juridical meaning. Considering diffuse violence, the word cruelty seems to express practices originating in several explaining ordainments within which are inscribed not only individual marks from agents but also the repetition of tragedies or unexpected reactions that make up the structure of human beings. In summary, the article articulates cruelty and diffuse violence by evaluating some symbolic categories that characterize unexpected reactions occurring out of a situation of social acceptance as an upshot of criminal acts.

Keywords: Cruelty, Diffuse Violence, Crime, Violent Deaths, Body