direct violence - TOWARDS LIFE-KNOWLEDGE

Human civilizations are shaped not only by institutions and material conditions but also by the moral narratives through which societies interpret history, justice, and identity. Religious traditions, especially those emerging from the ancient Near East, have provided powerful symbolic frameworks for understanding moral struggle, suffering, and social order. Yet these same traditions have at times been mobilized to justify domination, exclusion, and violence. This paper examines the relationship between sacred narrative, structural power, and civilizational stability through an interdisciplinary framework integrating peace research, political economy, religious history, and systems theory. Drawing on the work of Johan Galtung, John McMurtry, and René Girard, the analysis distinguishes among direct, structural, and cultural violence and explores how religious-symbolic systems can amplify or restrain these dynamics. A case study of the contemporary Middle East conflict system — including Israel, Gaza, Iran, and regional actors — illustrates how historical trauma, sacred symbolism, geopolitical strategy, and institutional asymmetries interact to produce cycles of escalation. The paper introduces the Viability Geometry Model, a systems framework evaluating institutions and narratives according to their ability to sustain life-supporting conditions such as health, water, food, ecological stability, and social dignity. The study concludes that the legitimacy of civilizations ultimately depends on whether their deepest narratives are interpreted as mandates for sacrifice or as obligations to protect the conditions of life for all.

This article by Johan Galtung (1990) introduces the concept of cultural violence as a complement to his earlier theory of structural violence (1969). Cultural violence refers to those aspects of a society’s symbolic sphere — including religion, ideology, language, art, empirical science, and formal science — that can be used to legitimize direct or structural violence. While cultural violence does not physically harm, it normalizes and renders acceptable the conditions or acts of harm, shifting perceptions of violence from “wrong” to “right” or “inevitable.” Galtung employs a violence triangle framework that interrelates direct violence (physical acts), structural violence (systemic inequality), and cultural violence (normative justification), alongside a violence strata model highlighting their different temporalities and causal flows. The paper provides examples from multiple cultural domains and explores how cultural narratives, ideologies, and cosmologies sustain violence across generations. Finally, Galtung connects these insights to Gandhian principles of unity of life and unity of means and ends, proposing a transition from a vicious triangle of violence to a virtuous triangle of peace rooted in cultural transformation.