Parasitic confrontations: Toward a phenomenology of collective violence

This paper provides a phenomenological exploration of the phenomenon of collective violence, specifically by following the leading clue of
war from Plato to the “new wars” of late globalization. It first focuses on the
genealogy of the legitimization of collective violence in terms of “counterviolence” and then demonstrates how it is mediated by constructions of “the
other” in terms of “violence incarnate.” Finally, it proposes to explore such
constructions—including the “barbarian” in Greek antiquity, “the cannibal”
in the context of Colonialism, or the contemporary cipher of religious irrationality—as mirror effects of one’s own disavowed forms of violence.