A boy, about three years old, plays with some small cats, his play turns cruel when he hits one of them, while the other children watch with delight.
“I was taught to hit without explanation
explanation, but I was never taught
taught, I didn't learn what it is
forgiveness, now you are in front and even though
you never expected it, we will gouge your eyes out, we are
crows that you raised”
(Les Miserables, The Origin of Violence)
Cecilia Barriga records a very simple situation, and for that reason horrifying. The child, the bucolic scene, the game, the kittens, the blow, the throw, the cat scared to death, and the child having fun. The question about the origin of violence, through this brief document, is resituated in the nature of the human being himself, above the socio-cultural conditioning. Is a project of a man who enjoys doing harm, unconsciously, a way of knowing what surrounds him and how it works? No one can know what goes through this child's head (although the terrified cat's does).
A gesture of power without a practical reason, of biological domination acquired in the evolution of the human being, an exclusive characteristic that usually turns into voluntary behaviors, either premeditated or spontaneous, with the purpose of causing harm to other beings, in this case gratuitous harm. It can be seen that there is not much distance between this unjustified torture and that of any other adult torturer, it only differs in that this child does not have the “idealistic” or “pragmatic” justifications of his elders, but the cruel pleasure is the same. A violence that is deployed to its ultimate consequences in order to feel superior, a matter of ego, compassion for the other is null.