Abstract

After discussing the difference between violence as a means and violence as an end, the paper goes on to discuss the difference between warm (instrumental) and cold violence (gratuitous). Starting from the assumption that violence, inasmuch as it is significant, belongs to the human world, it focuses on human relational dynamics and on the theme of impersonality. The invisibility of the drop-outs, the confiscation and the objective cover-up of the suffering bodies remove the place of ethical resistance, thus producing indifference and consequently gratuitous violence.