This essay seeks to explore what violence is, who violence is, and what is speaking to us through violent acts? Rage? Insult? Bruised self-esteem? Wounded self-image? Feelings of exile? Feelings of powerlessness? Any of these and more you could name.
Violence in all of its forms and intensities may be a ritual of sacrificing something or someone on more than a physical level. So we must ask: is violence sometimes or always a symbolic act?
The essay traces how eruptions of violence today are reminders—memories even—of an ancient act of ritual sacrifice that may have brought consciousness into being initially. One writer will argue that consciousness is born in the act of killing. As acts of violence escalate in numbers, is it calling us to witness something we have lost sight of but need to retrieve?