The purpose of this article is to challenge the reduction of the phenomenon of cruelty to crimes of totalitarian regimes, as supposed by Human Rights paradigm. In doing so, it problematizes cruelty as a fact of culture, susceptible of integrating to liberalism. Thus, considering that the will to make someone suffer (cause suffering) is not strange to exclusive reason, we propose to analyze how a discourse of extreme violence becomes possible, reasoned and assimilable to a normative framework. In this respect we focus our analysis on three experiences of union between violence and rationality. Firstly, the use of revolutionary pedagogy, for which we propose a complementary reading of Che Guevara and Sade. Secondly, the radical interpretation of the Enligthment’s ideas present in the Cambodian genocide. Thirdly, the role of bureaucracy as a condition of possibility of cruelty based
on Arendt’s analysis of Eichmann’s process.
Álvarez Muñoz, D. (2020). Cruelty or freedom? three critical approaches to the cruel condition. Revista Bricolaje, (6), 26–35. Retrieved from https://revistapsicologia.uchile.cl/index.php/RB/article/view/58062
