“To rub one's boots over with its victims fat”. Conscious and Unconscious Violence*

The chapter unfolds through three vivid images to focus on and philosophically grasp the roots of nihilism, investigating its first, primordial manifestations. It takes as its starting point a passage from Schopenhauer; dwells on the last words spoken by Jesus on the cross in Luke's Gospel and, finally, on an oriental parable that tells of the relationship between a Buddhist master and his young pupil. Through these stages, it is possible to observe the tormented path that leads from ego as the original point of condensation of drives in search of discharge to a subjectivity endowed with a conscience. On the background, the mysterious space in which human and non-human lives intertwine. Faced with the manifestation of egoism as a natural characteristic of living beings and violence as the primary expression of egoism itself, one encounters a decisive question: do we know what we are doing when we act? And: what does ‘to know what one does’ means? The troubled emergence of the conscience turns around these fundamental questions. On the one hand, conscience gradual affirmation, thanks to language, makes it possible to progressively distance oneself from the original gratuitous violence closely correlated with the manifestation of egoism, on the other hand, at the same time, the persistence of violence despite the presence of conscience appears increasingly senseless and unjustifiable. The subject who becomes aware of the cruciality of the question, partly thanks to the other's help, opens the way to a new form of subjectivity and can enter into a constructive relationship with himself and with the other.