Abraham Martinez Gonzalez does not consult, work for, hold shares in, or receive funds from any organization or company that could benefit from this article. He has not disclosed any relevant affiliations that go beyond their academic position.
“Remember that we’re not playing games. We’ve warned you and should share this information with all your family, friends and acquaintances for their own safety,” the communique went on to say.
Then, a string of drug-related and violent crimes took place across Michoacan. The first incident was in Sahuayo, the city, where a man and woman were killed. The other victim was a woman. Buenavista, the police from both federal and local authorities found eleven abandoned vehicles that were stocked with weapons, drugs, and grenades. There were also two stolen motorcycles, which are likely linked to a mobilization inspired by the menacing messages.
Authorities have denied any connection to the WhatsApp threat. However, the people know the exact nature of what’s happening. It’s a war of words.
However, despite understanding the tense cartel dynamics of territorial disputes, the population of Michoacan was not perturbed. In spite of an estimation of 12 homicides within the state in the last week of September alone, people continued to live their lives as normal.
The threats made by social media in October or the actual violence that followed had a significant effect; the reaction was confined to Facebook-related chains or perhaps family conversations.
The ubiquity of violence
In the 1969 Hannah Arendt book, On Violence, We are told that war as a pity for violence continues to haunt us and not because humans are naturally aggressive or due to our world’s economic challenges. According to Arendt, the main reason for the continued provocation of war is that there is nothing to substitute it with.
We humans have to be brutal as the focus of our day in our movies and our conversations over coffee.
It’s the persistence of violence as a major participant in our lives that makes violence so common. Whatever level of disgust Mexicans might feel about the violence that has been triggered by the drug war cartels that have been destroying our country over the last ten years, we continue to discuss violence as a normal part of our lives like it’s an element of decor or a supplement to our everyday life.
How could we possibly not? Add 2016’s 15,000 fatalities to the 66,400 deaths from the remainder of the administration of Pena Nieto (since 2012), and experts agree that Mexico’s deaths are higher than those of war zones.
Massacres, like those in Ayotzinapa that killed 43 schoolchildren in 2014 or the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, where soldiers massacred around 300 protesters prior to the Mexico City Olympics, were important historical events for the nation. However, in the everyday world, in a society that is flooded with violence, threats, or misinformation, the type of violence we’ve witnessed in Michoacan has become commonplace.
We’ve moved away from denying violence, such as that analyzed in the work of Arendt in her iconic 1963 Eichmann in Jerusalem, which is a study of the absurdity of evil to awe and awe, and lastly, to the state of numbness.
The psychology behind dissociation
Psychology research and social research confirm this view. The prevailing climate of violence can be devastating to communities, which can create a vicious circle where violence makes distance between people and also keeps people away from public spaces, which are usually places of violence. In the end, the bonds of the community weaken.
It’s not surprising that for those who have been surrounded by violence, it becomes commonplace. Self-defence is a psychological reaction that makes people stop feeling the effects of the terror that is a part of their lives.
And here we are in Mexico today, entangled in disinterested ways to violent crimes that don’t even interfere with our daily routine. Murders, disappearances, or dismembered bodies strewn across the streets – why stop doing what you’re doing if it’s going to continue going on? It’s still necessary to do work, run errands, and go out for a walk.
According to the definition, “event” is a term used to describe an event. “event” is something that interferes with daily life. It’s a “rupture in being” that, according to Alain B. Badiou’s 1988 book “Being and Event,” disrupts the normal flow of events and the flow of historical debate. In addition, Jacques Lacan affirms that the occasion is able to be interpreted through the use of language, and that means we can assign meaning to the insignificance of the rupture and confer on terrible actions symbolic meaning.