Santiago – This Wednesday, December 4th, the Research Center in Social Complexity (CICS) together with the Doctorate in Social Complexity Sciences (DCCS), organized the talk “Mass Violence and Public Opinion: Conversations about the social explosion”, given by José De La Cruz Garrido, Master in Philosophy of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and academic of the Faculty of Government of the Universidad del Desarrollo. 

With the presence of students from the doctoral program, researchers, academics and collaborators, De La Cruz addressed various aspects of vertical and horizontal violence, giving examples of barras bravas, drug trafficking, anti-system groups, and also manifestations of social discontent. Likewise, he referred to the eventual manipulation of Public Opinion which, in his words, “would serve to destabilize the government,” adding that what sustains a government “is not the will of parliament, but of Public Opinion”. 

In his presentation, the UDD academic said that “there are enough conditions of unrest to have this social explosion,” adding that this social explosion had enough actors to “have been organized”. In this line, and taking a philosophical approach, he referred to “moral judgments”, where belief and opinion correspond to these judgments, since a person “can feel similar to what an ‘other’ feels, building an experience of discomfort from that ‘other'” and is taken as a discontent or nuisance of their own. 

At the end of the talk, the speaker gave space to answer questions and receive opinions and comments from the audience.