Javier Castellote Lillo

This article aims to critically examine the skeptical position that reduces the harmful effect of certain words to the excessive sensitivity of the receiver. Against this position, it is argued that violent language has an objective dimension that exceeds individual sensitivity, which shapes a symbolic power that functions on the basis of historically sedimented conventions and classifications. Following the ideas of Louis Althusser and Judith Butler, the analysis shows that the force of certain insulting words is not a simple subjective and psychologizing act, but a phenomenon that rests on a dynamic and collective conception of language, in which power is deployed through the dialectic between movement and retention, which is materialized in the violent name. Thus, violent speech is not only an isolated act, nor can it be analyzed only from the context of enunciation, but acts as a reaffirmation of hierarchies and social binomials that perpetuate power structures.