Violence and Trauma as “Weak” Concepts (in the Perspective of Glossematics)

Abstract

Thispaperinterrogatesthe conceptual entanglementof ‘violence’ and ‘trauma’ as so-called weak concepts. Rarely is it evident what acts designated as ‘violent’ have in common, nor how they differ in a principled way from related behaviors. Violence is intimately linked to another ‘problematic’ concept: trauma. The latter is constructed metaphorically, historically deriving from a medical notion of trauma as an injury — the application of force upon the body with destructive effects — and thus remains tethered to an idea of violence through figurative association. In a manner akin to violence, the boundaries of the concept of trauma are themselves elusive: it is frequently unclear what differentiates trauma from other events that might trigger a neurotic symptom or provoke decompensation in a psychotic patient, and why only trauma has been granted a distinct conceptual identity. Drawing on Hjelmslev’s glossematics, it is argued that both ‘trauma’ and ‘violence’ function as recursive semiotic systems in which compounding layers of recursion and weakened inter-element connections diminish analytic precision and raise systemic entropy. Through a return to classical psychoanalytic psychopathology and a critical analysis of recent empirical data, the study re-articulates trauma: its core lies not in the effects of some form of violence, but in the weakening of ego functions — most notably, temporalization. The article demonstrates that by reducing these recursive entanglements — particularly the metaphorical conflation with violence — trauma may be rendered a stronger, more operationally robust concept. Accordingly, the text serves a dual demonstrative purpose: first, it offers a glossematic illustration — using ‘violence’ and ‘trauma’ as paradigmatic examples — of how weak and strong concepts are structured; and second, it shows how glossematics may be employed not only as an analytic resource but also as a creative instrument for the production of concepts capable of operationalization in research and practice.