Idealization and psychic transmission in adolescence: interpretation of an event of violence in Chile

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the murder of a young homosexual committed in Chile in 2012 and analyze this event of violence in relation to the imaginaries of contemporary Chilean society and to the processes of idealization and psychic transmission. With this objective we develop a theoretical interpretation that associates psychoanalytic elaborations on the role of the cultural superego and of idealization during the adolescent passage and the interrelation between the ethnical-political dialectic and the ethical-moral dialectic in the Theory of Mediation. The proposed association highlights the power of the social ideals of control and rejection of the other on the processes of subjective appropriation of adolescence. Thus, we propose an approach to this event of violence that seeks to interrelate the psychic and interpsychic processes of adolescence and the subjectivation processes that constitute the social experience, of the adolescents and young people of today’s Chile.

Keywords:
adolescent passage; person; violence; idealization and transmission

Resumen

El propósito de este artículo es examinar el asesinato de un joven homosexual, perpetrado en Chile en 2012, y articular este evento de violencia a los imaginarios de la sociedad chilena contemporánea y a los procesos de idealización y de transmisión psíquica. Con este objetivo, se desarrolla una interpretación teórica que vincula elaboraciones psicoanalíticas sobre el rol del superyó cultural y de la idealización durante el pasaje adolescente, y el entrecruzamiento de la dialéctica étnico-política y la dialéctica ético-moral en la Teoría de la Mediación. El vínculo propuesto resalta el poderío de los ideales sociales de dominio y de rechazo del otro sobre los procesos de apropiación subjetiva de la adolescencia. Así, se propone un acercamiento a este evento de violencia que busca entretejer los procesos psíquicos e interpsíquicos de la adolescencia y los procesos de subjetivación constitutivos de la experiencia social de los adolescentes y jóvenes del Chile actual.

Palabras clave:
pasaje adolescente; persona; violencia; idealización y transmisión

Résumé

L’objectif de cet article est d’examiner le meurtre d’un jeune homosexuel perpétré au Chili en 2012 et d’articuler cet événement de violence aux imaginaires de la société chilienne contemporaine et aux processus d’idéalisation et de transmission psychique. Dans ce but, une interprétation théorique est développée qui relie les élaborations psychanalytiques sur le rôle du surmoi culturel et de l’idéalisation au cours du passage adolescent et le croisement de la dialectique ethno-politique et de la dialectique éthique-morale dans la Théorie de la Médiation. Le lien proposé met en évidence le pouvoir des idéaux sociaux de domination et de rejet de l’autre sur les processus d’appropriation subjective de l’adolescence. Donc, il est proposé une approche de cet événement de violence qui cherche à entrelacer les processus psychiques et interpsychiques de l’adolescence et les processus de subjectivation qui constituent l’expérience sociale des adolescents et des jeunes au Chili actuel.

Mots clés:
passage adolescent; personne; violence; idéalisation et transmission

Resumo

Este artigo se propõe a analisar o homicídio de um jovem homossexual, fato ocorrido no Chile em 2012, e articular este evento de violência com certos imaginários da sociedade chilena contemporânea, bem como aos processos de idealização e transmissão psíquica. A partir desse objetivo, desenvolver-se-á uma interpretação teórica vinculada a elaborações psicanalíticas sobre o papel do superego cultural e da idealização durante a fase adolescente, fazendo também um intercruzamento entre a dialética étnico-política e a dialética ético-moral, na Teoria da Mediação. A referida perspectiva destaca uma maior incidência dos ideais sociais de controle e exclusão do outro sobre os processos de apropriação subjetiva da adolescência. Dessa forma, intenta-se uma aproximação a este caso violento, buscando tecer um emaranhado de processos psíquicos e interpsíquicos da adolescência e os processos de subjetivação constitutivos da experiência social de adolescentes e jovens no Chile de agora.

Palavras-chave:
passagem adolescente; pessoa; violência; idealização e transmissão

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to examine the murder of a young homosexual, by a group of young Chileans, and attempt to analyze this event of violence in relation to the imaginary of contemporary Chilean society and to the processes of idealization and psychic transmission.

Our argument has the following organization. In the first part, we present the crime and analyze the connotations that the murder of the young homosexual D. Z., committed in 2012, acquires within Chilean society. At this point, we describe the social reactions concerning this act of violence, but we also propound a discussion regarding their relation with the social imaginary of contemporary Chile. In the second part, we will attempt to understand the main dimensions at stake in this case. To this end, based on public data we propose an interpretation according to which at the foundation of this excessive display of violence lies the prevention or hindrance of processes that guide the adolescents’ positioning in the social, hindering the processes of psychic development and transmission.

Therefore, we propose an approach that integrates the psychic and interpsychic processes in adolescence and the effects of individualization on the Chilean youth, which are defined based on the social discourses of today’s Chile. Accordingly, we will attempt to address the associations that would be admissible to recognize, between psychic processes such as idealization or sublimation and modes of subjectivation, which as components of the young Chileans’ social experience constitute a problematic horizon, since they propose and legitimize segregation, violence, and rejection of otherness.

First part

The crime and its impacts

On March 2, 2012 young homosexual Daniel Zamudio is attacked and tortured for several hours by a group of young people. The attack occurred in a park in downtown Santiago, capital of Chile. On March 27 the young man finally dies after a few weeks spent in vain in the hospital to try to heal from the injuries caused by the attack.¹ The murder of the young homosexual had a strong impact on the population, because of the nature of the wounds: severe damage to skull, broken limbs, cigarette burns and marks on the stomach of the young man, as well as because of the explicit motive for the crime, the sexual condition of the murdered young woman. All of the above contributed to generate a broad social debate on sexual minorities and crimes of hate in Chilean society.

From the legal and police point of view, this death brings the need to give a signification to a series of actions performed, apparently, without justification. Thus, according to the Public Prosecutor of Chile (Cuarto Tribunal de Juicio Oral en lo Penal de Santiago, 2013), the violence aimed, primarily, to humiliate and torture the homosexual young man, as the acts are presented from a perspective that emphasize the complete control of the other and absolute disregard for the person of D. Z. In fact, the claims of the Public Ministry of Chile during the opening of the trial strive to emphasize the capacity of the young people involved in the crime to produce a completely disproportionate damage to the victim, in order to demonstrate the ignominious character of his actions:

It’s a story of horror, infinite suffering of the victim, inhumane injuries, sessions of torture, contempt for life and indifference to the suffering of a victim who could not resist. . . With regard to the aggravating circumstance of ignominy, the dignity of the victim was affected, which is attributed to the swastikas on the body, cigarette burns, this repetition of strikes performed jointly by all defendants, none of them cared about how bad the victim was. (Cuarto Tribunal de Juicio Oral en lo Penal de Santiago, 2013, p. 10-11)

For the public, in an undeniable way, the young people involved in this murder comply with all attributes of barbarism. The term chosen to account for this condition is that of neo-Nazi (adjective with which, on the other hand, the young killers liked to define themselves). Thus, the crime of D.Z. acquires a connotation that expresses the social need to encapsulate the young killers as a part that is alien and strange to the whole of society. True or not, this effort to crystallize into a group of young people a stereotypical image of hatred and discrimination was highly effective within the Chilean social environment.

However, the crystallization of violence in the image of these four young people leads to some questions. Questions that seek to understand the association between this event of violence and the imaginaries of Chilean society; with respect to the other, the difference and violence.

Some notes on today’s Chilean society

The collective processes that constitute the foundation of the social imaginaries of contemporary Chile are situated within the sociohistorical structure, whose main impact on society has consisted in the adoption of a social, legal, and economic model that leads to a continuous privatization of social bonds and to a deep individualization of the relations between individuals and the social.

Recent studies in the field of psychopathology have tried to understand the importance that this historical and social process acquires for the signification of the very subjectivity. Giving rise to a hypothesis that situates the impact of Chilean society’s individualization processes in the interiority of subjects, through their identification with ideals of entrepreneurship, welfare, performance, and competition (Aceituno, Miranda, & Jiménez, 2012).

On the other hand, sociological studies that focus on knowing the national ideology built after the dictatorship and its impact on the population insist on the creation of a social imaginary that is imposed on the individual through stories of autonomy and an increasing social segregation (Mayol, Azócar, & Azócar, 2012; Moulian, 2002; Salazar y Valderrama, 2000). This collective imagination would argue, according to these analyses, for the need to distance and differentiate oneself from the other, present among the citizens of contemporary Chile.

Accordingly, Canales (2007) observed that the difficulties of integration or inclusion of majority groups within the Chilean population are the expression of a deep social rigidity and stratification, which consolidates a pattern of social relations of discriminatory character. It is important to underline that, according to this study, the motivation behind these acts of discrimination would lie in the need to dominate and depreciate the other, in order to sustain an ideal of social homogeneity and hierarchy. These views are shared by a significant part of the historical and anthropological research. These researches observe that in Chilean society the historical trend towards the rejection of otherness is expressed in the relationship of individuals with respect to themselves and society, and has a particularly clear illustration in everyday acts and more or less spontaneous displays of violence, in relation to groups such as women, immigrants and sexual minorities (Aravena Reyes & Baeza, 2013; Duarte, 2007; Salazar, 1999).

This brief review of these hypotheses on violence in Chilean society could be concluded by pointing out: (1) the depth of the individualization and privatization processes, constituent of the current modes of social interaction, (2) the relation between the patterns of conduct, modes of life and historical worldview of Chilean society, and (3) the construction of an image of the other at least problematic, which refers to differentiation and violence.

Second part

Development of a position for analysis

The elaborations we develop from this case do not seek to establish a chronological or psychogenetic relation, through which it is possible to assume the failure of an evolutionary process, of psychological nature, for the young people involved in the murder of D.Z. On the contrary, we seek to generate reflection, which, considering the challenges of studying adolescents, enables highlighting the importance of processes of historicization and transgenerational development, when examining the interrelation between the psychic processes of adolescence and the situation of the youth within the society.

The approach of our analysis focuses on the importance of developing during the adolescent passage the narrative dispositions of a society that introduces violence, discrimination and control as valid forms of social interaction. Accordingly, this case has a great interpretive value, not only because of the particularity of the experiences of precariousness and vulnerability experienced by the young people involved. But also because it allows to represent the tensions, both individual and collective, produced by social imaginaries that constitute violent forms of subjectivation, in which the other figures as a potential enemy or an antagonist to be disqualified or humiliated.

Considering the above, our interpretation is organized through the following references. On the one hand, at the level of psychological instances concerned in the process of adolescent development, in our opinion it would be possible to situate these narrative dispositions in the demands and imperatives of the cultural superego with respect to the subject. On the other hand, our reading is based on the developments on the interrelation between the ethnic-political dialectic and the ethic-moral dialectic, present in the Theory of Mediation.

The notion of cultural superego, mentioned in the work of Freud (1929/1978) in Civilization and Its Discontents, recognizes the importance of this psychic instance in the processes of transgenerational transmission, as well as with respect to the association between the state of the collective prescriptions that organize a particular social environment and the superego of the individual. Freud’s reference (1929/1978) to the notion of cultural superego admits, within the conscious and unconscious demands exerted by the superego, a source connected to personal and family history, another that imprints, through cultural work, the characteristics of a time and a source that updates the conflicts between culture and the world of pulsions. Thus, the superego of culture would express the ethical demands that regulate the social practices and relations, constituting the source from which the ideals of a society are nourished. Therefore, through the association conjectured by Freud (1921/1978) in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, between the collective dispositions and the psychological mechanisms underlying the subject’s identification with the group, it is possible to differentiate between the drive towards the idealization of the subject--which guided by infantile narcissism and ambivalence, constantly introduces new demands for the subject--and the processes of sublimation. In addition, it is possible to emphasize the impact of these psychic processes and mechanisms on the ethical formations that regulate individual and collective actions.

Now, the authors who develop the notion of Adolescent passage emphasize the understanding that, in the association between the subject and the superego, are expressed the tensions between the discursive order of an era or culture and the work of subjective transmission and positioning faced by the adolescent subject. Firstly, J. J. Rassial (1996) examines the concept of cultural superego, referring--not without some ambiguity--to the notion of collective superego, in allusion to the interrelation between the subject and the Other. Thus, through this notion, this author will refer both to an exterior, archaic authority, which allows the entry of the subject into the social bond, and to the discourse of the Master, as device founding the social tie. Secondly, O. Douville (2005) observed the correspondence between Lacan’s structuralist formulations, concerning the formation of the unconscious subject, and the participation of the subject within the system of language and social exchanges; legal, economic, mythical or religious, which constitute his cultural universe. So that, in the formation of the unconscious subject, the psychic instance of the superego will be, according to this author, the space where the subject will experience in inverted manner the discourse of the other. Serge Lesourd (2006), based on these indications, referred through the notion of cultural superego to a production representative of the set of ethical requirements that regulate social relations, for a certain time and that would integrate both small and great stories, of mythical or collective order. Consequently, the figure of the cultural superego comes to represent within these analyses a set of ideas, imaginaries and imperatives that, occupying a place in the psychological interiority of the subject, would also demonstrate the place of exteriority occupied by the social narratives, to the subject. It is highlighted, in this sense, the logic that relates the subject to the sociocultural dispositions and that coordinated in the form of the superego organizes the positionings and elaborations of the adolescent subject within the discourses that provide specific forms of social bond.

The dialectical approach proposed by the Theory of Mediation of Jean Gagnepain (1993) seeks to highlight the cultural behavior of man--at the level of language, tools, social law and norm--, mediated by a series of logical times--natural condition, formal analysis and positive investiture-- that allow the individual to establish a distance with regard to his relation to the world and initiate a reflective process that, however, constantly introduces negativity as a fraction unsolvable by these cultural mediations.

Within this model, the ethnic-political dialectic or dialectic of the person aims to elucidate the mediations that allow to understand the relation of the subject with the bonds and discourses that institute his sociocultural horizon. Within this dialectic, therefore, are observed the modalities according to which is expressed the interrelation between the singularity of experience and the collective order, through a continuous process of subjective appropriation of the instituting order. It should be noted that, according to the Theory of Mediation, this process that allows repositioning the adolescent within the social logics admits emphasizing the recognition of the historicity and arbitrariness of the social bonds and the emergence of the individual’s responsibility concerning his generational and intergenerational positioning. On the other hand, the Theory of Mediation recognizes in the ethic-moral dialectic or dialectic of the norm the individual’s capacity to analyze his behavior, establishing the restrictions and permissions that, during childhood and later in adolescence and adult life, are acceptable within the context where it is developed. The scheme proposed by Jean Gagnepain (1993), enables, therefore, to differentiate the scope of relationship of the individual to the social Law and the individual’s capacity to analyze his own desire and regulate his behavior. Therefore, it will be in the interaction between the processes that allow the relativization of social requirements and the human capacity of self-limiting one’s behavior where emerges the potential to submit to analysis the imperatives and ideals, representative of the cultural, family or group horizon in which the individual lives.

Thus, based on the Theory of Mediation (Gagnepain, 1993; Quentel, 2011, 2015), at the level of the dialectical processes present in adolescence, we highlight the importance of the psychic and intersubjective work promoted by the interrelation between the dialectic of the person and the norm, which: (1) allows to understand the relative character of the social organization and of the different social narratives (but also those related to groups); and (2) encourages adolescents to analyze their own actions, thoughts and discourses, taking into consideration the need to give them meaning and legitimacy.

It is possible to emphasize, therefore, that the proposed construction has for purpose the investigation of the possible interrelations that, within the time of adolescence, would be possible to recognize within the process of subjective positioning in relation to the cultural superego and the individual’s capacity to delimit the influence of social and group codes, in one’s behavior. Certainly, it should be noted in this regard that, at the epistemological level, it is necessary to recognize the specificity and particularity of the conceptual horizons that mobilize the notion of adolescent passage and the developments of the Theory of Mediation. In fact, the models of psychoanalytic interpretation about adolescence have as primary analytic scope the human symbolizations that allow the situation of the subject at the level of desire and lack, during the work of adolescence. While, with regard to these issues, the analytic model present in the work of Jean Gagnepain seeks to understand the individual and intersubjective mediations that adolescents develop with respect both to the social order and to their own behavior. As a result, the proposed association between the two models highlights the power of social ideals--which reject the symbolic and historical horizon of human bonds--on the processes of subjectivation and subjective appropriation of adolescence . Aspect whose importance is emphasized by both theoretical models.

Thus, we propose an approach to this event of violence that is capable of interrelating the psychic and interpsychic processes of adolescence and the subjectivation processes that constitute the social experience of adolescents and young people of today’s Chile.

There is, however, another aspect intervening in the understanding of this propensity to violence present in contemporary Chilean society, which is associated with the idealization of violence as psychological phenomenon and mechanism. Effectively, in the testimony of these young people, in the manner of torturing and humiliating D.Z., something is found that can be described as a fascination for the power that can be exercised on the other². A sort of association between violence and virility that is represented in the choice of a juvenile aesthetic or style, in which strength and aggressiveness are insignia that represent these young people for others. In this sense, it would be possible to think that violence also operates as a figure, an image or a narrative, which prevents autonomous criticism with respect to the ideals of the group.

It is observed in this respect that the idealization of violence, understood as psychic process aimed at attributing to the idealized object (historical and social narratives about violence, the other, the social hierarchy, etc.) the totality of perfections, prevents the opening to sublimatory processes capable of re-establishing a distance with respect to the demands of the superego and interrupts the creation of a time and space for the psychic work of deconstruction of the reference systems of the subject (Gutton, 2002; Lesourd, 2004; Mijolla-Mellor, 2012).

An interpretive effort: the relation between social exclusion and the idealization of imaginary figures of total power and domination

In the information collected and analyzed to understand the acts of the young people present in the murder, a strong drive to commit acts of violence is observed. As if from the power of the identitary references which these young people choose to embrace a spiral of imaginary references finally opened, through which they recognized themselves in a patriarchal, authoritarian and phallic light. It should be noted, however, that the ambiguity of these references would lie in the need to cope, through them, with the fragility of experiences tormented by losses, abandonments and violence.³

Thus, it would be possible to infer: the idealization of the violence emerges as a psychic and intersubjective resource. Idealization of a confusing violence, which one could suppose is introduced as a supplementary element within imaginary scenes of total power and control, through which these young people transform their own experiences of precariousness and vulnerability. However, it also could be argued that through these processes of idealization these young people hamper the work of elaboration of their stories and ghosts and the process of appropriation and historicization of group and social narratives. Therefore, instead of the work of identitary elaboration that is characteristic of adolescence, we would find an excess of heteronomy, an excessive complacency in relation to superego imperatives that lead to the repetition of acts of violence and to contempt for others and their difference.

It should be noted at this point some details of the interpretive framework proposed for a proper consideration of the argumentation. The dialectic of the person, as expression of the human rationality present in the bond of the individual with the collective order, designates a permanent and somehow timeless process. However, as observed by J. L. Brackelaire (2009), this dialectic also designates the openness to the construction of a temporality and a spatiality, characteristic of individual and social processes, which results in the deployment of a permanent work of appropriation and reappropriation. From this perspective, this author proposes to understand by suspension of the person, a form of alteration of this disposition to historicization, the cause mainly of the deep emphasis on the individualization of the contemporary sociodiscursive order, which prevents a true openness to otherness. Therefore, this suspension is neither individual nor collective, but involves the implicit structuring and the organization of these relationships. Concerning the psychoanalytic elaborations, it is worth noting the observations made by Olivier Douville (2001) with regard to the neutralization of the processes of transmission between generations. In fact, this author uses the notion of melancolization of the social bond to highlight the subjective impediments present in subjects who within their experienced or inherited history have been confronted with figures of total power, which prevent the assignment and the translation of the belonging, as well as the construction of symbolic alliances of reciprocity and exchange with the otherness. These impediments, consequently, will demonstrate the imaginary bond of the subject with the collective history and discourses: mode of relation with one’s own history and with the collective history, enabled to forge an impasse in the subjective work of historicization during the adolescent moment of the ghost, in the processes of transgenerational transmission and positioning in the social bond.

Therefore, the point is emphasizing, within the dialectical processes that allow the adolescent subjectivation, the impediment of rediscovering the otherness and of transmitting one’s own history and the collective history. In this sense, it is proposed to understand this impediment of the processes of subjectivation and subjective appropriation as product of the interrelation between ultra-individualistic social discourses and psychological and social traumas, caused by continuous experiences of vulnerability and abuse, at the level of both personal and collective history. Thus, it would be possible to argue that the subjective impasse that these young people undergo would be the expression of a sort of imaginary encapsulation of the work of adolescence. Which prevents the dissolution of infantile narcissistic anchors, reinforces the detachment with otherness, and encourages a real propensity to idealization of discourses capable of relaunching the ambivalence and the aggressiveness of these subjective positions, mainly of narcissistic character.

Following this line of interpretation, at the collective level, our examination of this episode of violence would situate us before a superegoic logic that is doubled through the incitation of an enjoyment that discriminates and excludes the very discriminatory Subject. This sadistic figure of the superego, it could be inferred, would re-introduce social and cultural narratives that are expressed in the repetition of the dominator-dominated/abuser-abused scheme, underground for a marginalized youth that must support the ideal of being part of a model of society that operates through the imperative of segregation and social hierarchy (Canales, 2007). It is possible to conclude in this sense that the murder of the young homosexual man at the hands of marginalized young people allows to observe the operation of a superegoic logic, of cultural nature, that triumphs when it redoubles the dynamics of segregation and that is reinforced by means of the demand of violence. Thus discerned, the attack against and torture of the young D. Z. would demonstrate an excessive hatred towards what this young man conveys as figure of the outcast, as if, within the extreme characteristics of this crime, the young attackers had tried to trace the imagined borders of their own exclusion.

A hypothesis on the relation between the work of psychic transmission and the subjective positioning before the cultural superego during adolescence

It is possible to indicate that the development of the historicization and transmission processes during adolescence are associated with the construction of thirdness figures open to symbolic exchanges, so that the development and construction of this narrative space would involve, on the one hand, the possibility of transcending the imaginary characteristics of the infantile world and, on the other hand, the possibility of creating new discursive figures, through which establishing a certain subjective distance before the mandates of the social Other, thus promoting the examination and deconstruction of the group superego.

At this point we let ourselves use the notion of group superego, in order to emphasize the interrelation between the processes of social marginalization and segregation present in contemporary Chilean society and the creation of closed groups or sects that are organized in the form of an uncritical acceptance of particular norms. In this respect, in accordance with the perspective of analysis developed by L. Sciara (2011), we consider possible to recognize in these forms of group bonding the proliferation of imaginary identification mechanisms, which are established in opposition both to the unity of social Law and to the limitations inherent in the symbolic condition of the man. In this same perspective, as indicated by Dany-Robert Dufour (2003), it is not possible to recognize in imaginary formations such as the gang forms of subjugation of the individual to identitary ideals and traits, capable of erasing individual peculiarities. Consequently, we use the notion of group superego in order to recognize the emergence of superegoic dispositions that, without acquiring the character of a grand story capable of appealing to the whole society, promote ambivalent and aggressive forms of bonding with the otherness among individuals belonging to the group. Thus, we believe that alienation to group micro stories would be one of the forms of expressing the imaginary destinations that delimit the processes of subjectivation of contemporary adolescents and youth.

In this sense, it should be admitted that the possibility of differentiating the own actions with respect to those promoted by the mandates of the group also requires the opening of a work of singularization of the ethical-moral positions of adolescents, guided by the efforts of appropriation of the personal, family and social history. Based on this reading, the incapacity of opposing the imperatives and ideals of the reference group would be consistent with the hindrance of the historicization process present in the dialectic of the person, so that this incapacity would demonstrate the adoption of a sort of language of the group, which would be expressed through the repetition of acts of violence. Thus, the impossibility of initiating a work of moral empowerment capable of singularizing the positions of these young people before the group superego would also demonstrate their serious difficulties to position themselves as individuals and before others, in narrative spaces of elaboration, at the same time intergenerational and intersubjective.

Therefore, it should be noted the clinical importance of the issue of legitimation of the social and group norms, ideal or imperatives, as part of the process of building a personal discursivity that positions the adolescent before the social Other. Accordingly, the exercise of questioning the norms and imperatives of the group superego would enable the creation of a rupture between the positions of the subject and the social imaginaries, which, on the one hand, would enable the consolidation of the dynamics of psychic transmission and, on the other hand, would enable the constitution of new subjective positions representing movements of subjectivation open to alterity. In this perspective, the processes of historicization of adolescence would depend, on the one hand, on the possibility of alienation in relation to the demands and ideals of the group superego and, on the other hand, on the implementation of sublimatory processes aimed at recognizing the incompleteness of the Other and the negativity inherent in processes of symbolization.

Conclusion

The work of adolescence associates the individual and the collective, allowing to recognize the creation of a symbolization and mediation space between the singularity of the subjective experience and the collective order. Thus, during adolescence the individual and the collective reconnect, revealing the importance of combining the work of psychic structuring of the subject with the social and intersubjective treatment of the imaginary references of society.

In this perspective, it would be possible to indicate that the violence and aggressiveness, for the group of young men who murdered Daniel Zamudio, can be explained as a manifestation that, adjoining between the psychological and the social, allows assessing the difficulties to constitute an identity outside of a social environment permeated by narratives that legitimize violence as a mode of action and expression. Therefore, these difficulties, it could be inferred, would express the impediment of analyzing the instituting social order in a way that allows avoiding a simple reproduction of the subjective and social coordinates within which they emerge as juvenile subjects.

Consistently with this perspective, the developed proposal has sought to contribute to the creation of an interpretation scheme capable of investigating the forms of interrelation between the structure that commands the symbolizations of the subject and the individual and socio-symbolic mediations, in which the adolescent conquers his particularity, before collective requirements. Thus, the crime of the young homosexual man, which has enabled us to support our reflections, could eventually establish certain axes of reflection for other cases of youth violence in which the intervention of social factors can be observed, such as poverty or segregation, and family and individual aspects, such as the precariousness of the symbolic positioning.

In this sense, it could be reaffirmed, in conclusion, the importance of designing interpretive models that do not reduce the analysis of expressions of youth violence to a level of interpretation that is only sociohistorical or psychological. In this regard, on the one hand, is should be noted the symbolizing character of the historicization processes initiated in adolescence and their importance for the appropriation and transmission of discursivities present in society. On the other hand, is must be emphasized the importance of understanding the notion of group superego, based on an approach that does not reduce it to a moral consciousness, while also mobilizing the significance and drive of the ideals that force the subject to imaginary identifications that hinder the historicization and subjectivation processes.

In fact, as can be observed through the study of this act of violence, the serious difficulties of the young people to position themselves and question the legitimacy of the requirements of the group superego are found in the alliance between the enjoyment that is recovered by the individual superego and the segregating and hierarchical ideals of Chilean society. Thus discerned, these manifestations of youth violence are not supported only on the contradictions of the historical and social order--in this case on the contradictions of the post dictatorship modernization process of Chilean society--, but are mainly fostered by a spirit ashamed of existing (Douville, 2013, 2015), which shows us the precariousness of the situation of many contemporary adolescents and young people in the order of symbolic and intersubjective exchanges present in the contemporary societies.

Therefore, the point is assessing before these issues the interrelation of many factors that together make possible if not understanding at least envisioning the deep root of these youth violences. Violences that demonstrate a strong drive toward the dazzlement by ideals of destruction and nihilism, and which, in contradiction to the elaboration process opened by adolescence, are blurred into imaginary representations of total power and total enjoyment, preventing the openness to otherness and the symbolic foundation of human relationships.

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• 1
  The purpose of this article is to discuss the possible interrelations between the sociohistorical processes that define contemporary Chilean society and this event of violence; therefore, we will not delve deeply into the personal history of their participants, limiting ourselves to present only some elements necessary for the analysis of the case. Therefore, we do not seek to investigate explicit motives or psychological motivations shown by those involved about the event that is attributed to them, when, in fact, with respect to this point, the statements of the young people are zigzagging: three of the suspects denied during the judicial process their participation in the event, while one of them recognizes the participation, but declares that this would result from insurmountable fear of suffering treatment equal to that of the victim. However, we recommend to the reader interested in investigating into more details on the individualization of the suspects in this case, as well as on other relevant data to ponder this event of violence, the following public access documents: Individualización de audiencia de lectura de sentencia: https://bit.ly/2Mdkp1d, Daniel Zamudio, hiciste historia: https://bit.ly/2yxx7WA, Estándares conceptuales y cargas procesales en el litigio antidiscriminación. Análisis crítico de la jurisprudencia sobre Ley Zamudio entre 2012 y 2015: https://bit.ly/2K8iiuV

• 2
  The reader can ponder this assessment on the actions of those involved in this event of violence through the allegations made by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the reading of the sentence for this crime. In this sense, we refer to the following paragraphs of this reading, which we consider as conveying the excessive force exerted on the victim and the lacking empathy toward his suffering. The names of those accused have been omitted in order to protect their privacy. It should be noted, however, that the reader may find the complete sentence reading in the following online reference: http://www.movilh.cl/documentacion/Sentencia-Daniel-Zamudio-Vera.pdf “Daniel leaned back on the floor and fell asleep; A says he’s going to wake him up and hits him with the heel in the temple and neck, then B. The two started hitting continually, jumped on his head and nose. They said to him that he could not go, sat on a tree which was in the same slope, then they beat him, they sat, continued smoking. Subsequently, B stood up and urinated on Zamudio’s mouth and chest, then A did the same, also urinated over him, then they continued beating him; A broke a bottle of Mitjans rum on Zamudio’s head and B took the bottle neck and made three swastikas, two on the stomach and one on the chest and performed two”punzazos” (stabs) on the left side of the body” (Cuarto Tribunal de Juicio Oral en lo Penal de Santiago, 2013, p. 63). “A and B beat Daniel again, brutally shook his head holding it by the ears and slammed it bouncing against the ground, seeing that C also hit him, but in a softer manner, as if forced to do so, then A broke another bottle on Zamudio’s head and told B to learn how to make the cuts and made other two swastikas on the back, then B made another cut on the neck; A said to him that this cut was better. Then A and B took a “camote” (large stone) and threw it on the head and the body constantly” (Cuarto Tribunal de Juicio Oral en lo Penal de Santiago, 2013, p. 64).

• 3
  We would refer in this respect to the work of R. Fluxá (2014), which within the framework of a journalistic investigation gives an account of the important insecurity and intense experiences of disaffiliation, experienced by the young people involved in the assassination of D. Z. The author points out in this regard that all the youth involved present within their family relationships strong conflicts, which refer, depending on the case, to lack of recognition of paternity, family dissolutions, or domestic violence.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  May-Aug 2018

History

• Received
  14 May 2017
• Reviewed
  06 Dec 2017
• Accepted
  16 Mar 2018