Volume 26, Issue 2, 2023
Rafael Vizca¨ªno

Pages 235-256
https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev20231018139
Violence and the Sacred Revisited
The Case of the Narco-World
In this article, I seek to contribute to the recent philosophical interest in the phenomenon of narco-culture. I build on the intervention initiated by Carlos Alberto S¨¢nchez¡¯s A Sense of Brutality: Philosophy after Narco-Culture (2020) by articulating the spiritually ¡°generative¡± aspects of violence. For this endeavor, I turn to the French philosopher Ren¨¦ Girard, whose work audaciously understands community-building and the maintenance of social order as a violent process of sacralization. This conception of violence then permits me to challenge some of S¨¢nchez¡¯s interpretations of the violence and brutality of narco-culture. My argument is that any comprehensive analysis of the narco-world, just as any other existential option, must consider the spiritual component that, in Girard¡¯s terms, can be expressed as a search for the sacred.