Ver artículo

Violence is often now a di≈ cult word, because its primary sense is of physical assault, as in ‘‘robbery with violence,’’yet it is also used more widely in ways that are not easy to define. If we take physical assault as sense (i) we can take a clear general sense (ii) as the use of physical force, including the distant use of weapons or bombs, but we have then to add that this seems to be specialized to ‘‘unauthorized’’uses: the violence of a ‘‘terrorist’’but not, except by its opponents, of an army, where ‘‘force’’is preferred and most operations of war and preparation for war are described as ‘‘defence’’; or the similar partisan range between ‘‘putting under restraint’’or ‘‘restoring order,’’and ‘‘police violence.’’We can note also a relatively simple sense (iii), which is not always clearly distinguished from (i) and (ii), as in ‘‘violence on television,’’which can include the reporting of violent physical events but indicates mainly the …