we love to think of violence as something external, something that happens to us rather than through us. it’s easy to frame violence as a disruption—an anomaly in the otherwise smooth fabric of existence. but what if the world itself was violent from the very start? what if existence wasn’t merely punctuated by violence but was constituted through it? welcome to jean-luc nancy’s world, where the very act of “worlding” (that is, the opening of space for meaning) is inseparable from violence. and not just the kind of violence that makes headlines, but something far deeper: a primordial, ontological violence that underpins our very being.
nancy vs. heidegger: why the world is more than a playground for humans
martin heidegger had a rather exclusive view of the world—he saw it as something uniquely human, a space of intelligibility that only dasein (that’s you and me, buddy) could access. for heidegger, a stone doesn’t have a world. it just is. it’s not exposed to meaning, it doesn’t “sense” its relation to the ground, and it sure as hell doesn’t spend its days wondering about its existential purpose. nancy calls bullshit on this human-centered worldview. for him, the world isn’t just a container for human meaning—it’s an event, a process, something that happens between everything. a rock, a river, a cat, your ex who ghosted you—each of these “singularities” exist in a state of exposure to one another, forming the intricate web that nancy calls worlding.
but if the world is a network of exposure, what happens when one entity refuses exposure? what if a singularity shuts itself off, denies its openness to others, or forces others into a predefined meaning? this, for nancy, is where violence takes root—not as an unfortunate accident but as a fundamental part of existence. the world is violent because meaning itself is violent. it imposes, it disrupts, it breaks open the self-contained safety of pure being.
violence as rupture: why meaning is never gentle
when we think about violence, we usually imagine fists flying, bullets tearing through flesh, or nations waging war. but nancy zooms out, showing us that violence is baked into the very process of existence. when something comes into being, it doesn’t do so in peaceful isolation. instead, it disrupts the status quo, forcing everything else to adjust to its presence. imagine a new co-worker joining your office—suddenly, the fragile balance of inside jokes, shared routines, and unspoken hierarchies is thrown into flux. even if they’re the nicest person in the world, their arrival forces a reconfiguration of the social dynamic.
this is the kind of ontological violence nancy is talking about. every new singularity—whether a person, a thought, or a political movement—ruptures the fabric of what already exists. meaning doesn’t emerge from a calm, meditative state; it erupts. and in that eruption, there’s always a kind of violence. think of love: it isn’t a passive event but a force that tears through solitude, demanding exposure, vulnerability, and transformation. the most intimate experiences of our lives—birth, love, death—are all, in their own way, violent acts of rupture.
the two ways to destroy a world: transcendence vs. capitalist equivalence
if violence is fundamental to the world, does that mean all violence is the same? nancy doesn’t think so. he distinguishes between two different kinds of world-destroying violence.
- the violence of transcendence: this happens when someone (or something) tries to fix meaning, to impose a singular, absolute truth onto existence. religious dogma, totalitarian ideologies, and rigid social norms all fall into this category. they deny the fundamental openness of the world, forcing every singularity into a predetermined mold.
- the violence of equivalence (aka capitalism): in this scenario, nothing is fixed—everything is exchangeable. people, objects, and even ideas become commodities, reduced to their market value. it’s not that the world is too structured but that it’s completely flattened. nothing has unique meaning because everything is equally replaceable.
both forms of violence—one that over-determines meaning and one that erases it—are existential threats. they don’t just harm individuals; they erase the very possibility of worlding itself.
truth, violence, and why reality doesn’t give a fuck about your feelings
nancy’s work forces us to ask: is truth violent? after all, truth imposes itself. it doesn’t politely ask permission to exist; it shatters illusions, dismantles comfortable lies, and forces us to confront what we’d rather ignore. there’s a reason why people react to uncomfortable truths with such hostility—because truth, in its rawest form, violates the existing order. this is why revolutions are violent, not just in a physical sense but in an existential one. they force a new reality into being, often against immense resistance.
but here’s the kicker: not all violent truths are liberatory. some close the world instead of opening it. totalitarian regimes, religious extremism, and even cult-like ideological movements all present themselves as the truth, demanding submission rather than engagement. the challenge is to distinguish between truths that open the world and those that shut it down.
the ethical demand: existence as a struggle for the world
so where does this leave us? if violence is part of existence, does that mean we just throw up our hands and accept brutality as inevitable? not quite. for nancy, existence is an ethos—a continuous struggle to keep the world open, to resist forces that try to fix meaning or flatten it into nothingness.
this means justice isn’t about distributing resources in a neat, measured way, as if everyone’s needs could be calculated on a spreadsheet. justice, for nancy, is the ongoing measurement of the immeasurable—a struggle to give each singularity the space to be exposed, to make sense of itself without being forced into a rigid framework. this isn’t liberal laissez-faire tolerance, nor is it utopian idealism. it’s a call to action: to fight for a world where meaning remains possible, where violence doesn’t collapse into total annihilation but instead remains the productive rupture that allows new possibilities to emerge.
the violence of being here
so, existence isn’t a gift wrapped in a bow. it’s a shove into a crowded room where everyone’s elbows are out. to be is to be thrown into this mess, tangled up with others—people, objects, thoughts—in a way you can’t escape. imagine you’re on a packed subway car at rush hour. you’re pressed against some sweaty dude, your phone’s buzzing with notifications you can’t check, and the whole thing smells like piss and desperation. that’s existence: you’re with everything, whether you like it or not. there’s no opting out, no private island of selfhood. you’re exposed, raw, and that exposure is the only reason you’re anything at all.
but here’s where it gets wild: that same exposure, that openness, is violent as hell. it’s not just that someone might step on your toes or call you a dick. it’s that the very act of showing up—of a rock existing next to a river, of you existing next to me—tears something open. it’s like the world is a fresh wound, and every new thing that pops into it is another cut. not because it’s evil, but because it has to be that way. if everything stayed closed, fused together in some perfect blob, there’d be no world, no sense, no nothing. it’s the splitting, the spacing, that makes shit matter. and that splitting? it hurts.
the world’s own brutality
let’s flip the script. we usually think of violence as something we do—a fistfight, a war, a middle finger to your boss. but what if the world itself is violent? not in a cartoon-villain way, but in its bones? picture this: you’re trying to set up a new wifi router. you follow the instructions, plug it in, and it still doesn’t work. you’re pissed, but the real violence isn’t you smashing it against the wall—it’s the fact that the router, the signal, the whole damn setup refuses to just be what you want it to be. it’s there, stubborn, resisting, forcing you to deal with it. that’s the world: it doesn’t bend to your will. it shoves itself in your face, unapologetic, and says, “deal with it.”
this isn’t some poetic bullshit. it’s the raw truth of how things are. the world isn’t a blank slate waiting for us to scribble on it. it’s a force, a push, a constant eruption of presence that doesn’t give a fuck about your plans. a tree grows, a storm hits, your phone dies mid-call—it’s all the world doing its thing, breaking through whatever neat little box you tried to put it in. and that breaking-through? it’s violent because it doesn’t ask permission. it just happens, leaving you to pick up the pieces.
can we judge the mess?
okay, so the world’s a violent, chaotic free-for-all. cool. but can we say anything about what’s good or bad in it? can we point at something—a dictator, a corporation, a shitty breakup—and say, “that’s violent in a way that sucks”? or are we just stuck describing the mess without taking a stand? this is where it gets tricky. if the world is just this open space where everything bangs into everything else, how do we decide what’s worth fighting for?
think of it like a group chat gone wrong. you’ve got ten people texting, half of them arguing, one dude sending memes, and someone else just lurking. it’s chaos, but it’s alive—everyone’s got a voice, even if it’s a shitshow. now imagine one asshole takes over, mutes everyone else, and starts dictating what the chat’s about. or worse, imagine it turns into a corporate slack channel where everything’s polite, measured, and fake as hell. both suck, right? the first kills the openness by forcing a single truth; the second kills it by making everything interchangeable, meaningless. that’s the tension: the world thrives on difference, on friction, but when that friction gets locked down or flattened out, it stops being a world.
so yeah, we can judge. not because there’s some cosmic rulebook, but because the world’s own logic—its need for spacing, for exposure—gives us a yardstick. anything that shuts down that openness, whether by preaching a One True Way or turning everything into a soulless transaction, is violence against the world. it’s not just bad for us; it’s bad for what existence is.
humans: the fuck-ups and the fixers
here’s where we come in. humans aren’t special because we’re smarter or prettier than rocks (debatable). we’re special because we’re the ones who can see this whole mess and either amplify it or fuck it up completely. we’re like the DJ at a party—spinning the tracks, setting the vibe. we don’t make the music from scratch, but we decide how it hits. we’re exposed to the world, sure, but we also expose it, crank it up, make it louder. or, we can kill it—turn the party into a silent, sterile nightmare.
ever ghosted someone? that’s you closing off the world. you’re not just ditching them; you’re shutting down the space where you two could’ve clashed, connected, whatever. it’s a tiny violence, but it’s real—it’s you saying, “nah, no room for this.” now scale that up: a government censoring voices, a company reducing people to data points. same deal, bigger stakes. we humans can open the world wider—let more voices, more differences, more sense flood in—or we can slam the door shut. and when we slam it, we don’t just hurt others; we hurt the whole damn game of existence.
two ways to kill a world
let’s get specific. there’s two big ways we fuck up the world’s openness, and they’re opposites that end up in the same shitty place. first, there’s the tyrant move: forcing a single truth on everything. imagine your mom insisting there’s only one way to load the dishwasher—her way—and anything else is blasphemy. now make it cosmic: a religion, a ideology, a CEO saying, “this is the meaning of life, obey or die.” it’s violence because it crushes the gaps, the edges where shit gets interesting. no more friction, no more sense—just a suffocating oneness.
then there’s the flip side: everything’s the same, nothing matters. picture a dating app where every profile’s just a slight remix of the same boring bio—“loves tacos, dogs, and The Office.” it’s all interchangeable, swipeable, meaningless. that’s capitalism’s wet dream: turn the world into a giant vending machine where everything’s priced, traded, and stripped of soul. no edges, no difference—just a flat, endless churn. both moves—tyranny and equivalence—kill the world by killing what makes it tick: the messy, unfixable gaps between things.
the struggle for something real
so what do we do? we fight. not with guns or hashtags (though maybe those too), but by refusing to let the world close up. it’s like keeping a fire going in the rain—you’ve got to keep tossing logs, fanning the flames, even when it’s a pain in the ass. the world doesn’t stay open on its own; it’s a struggle to keep it that way. every time you let someone be themselves—really be, not just fit your script—you’re fighting. every time you resist the urge to buy the same mass-produced crap everyone else has, you’re fighting. it’s not about winning some grand victory; it’s about keeping the space alive, here and now.
and this isn’t abstract. it’s dirt-under-your-nails real. the conditions of your life—your job, your rent, your shitty internet—aren’t just background noise. they’re the stuff of the world, the texture it’s made of. if you’re too broke to think straight, too scared to speak up, the world shrinks. fighting for it means fighting for the concrete shit that lets you be—not some lofty ideal, but the raw, messy now.
justice: measuring the unmeasurable
let’s call this fight justice, but not the courtroom kind. it’s not about rules or scales or balancing some cosmic ledger. it’s about giving every damn thing—every person, every bug, every busted sidewalk—its due. not because it’s “fair” in some textbook sense, but because the world only works when everything gets to show up as itself. imagine a band jamming: the drummer doesn’t play the guitar part, the singer doesn’t hog the mic all night. they each do their thing, and it’s the clash, the overlap, that makes it kick ass. justice is that—it’s letting the world jam, letting the differences scream without flattening them into mush.
this isn’t easy. we love control, love pinning shit down. we want to say, “this life’s worth more than that one,” or “this is what happiness looks like.” but that’s the trap. the minute you fix it, you kill it. justice doesn’t pre-decide what’s meaningful; it makes room for meaning to happen, whatever fucked-up shape it takes.
the catch: violence is baked in
here’s the gut punch: this whole setup—the world’s openness, the fight to keep it that way—comes with violence built in. not just the obvious stuff, like wars or bar fights, but something deeper. the world starts with a rip, a break from nothing into something. it’s like birth: bloody, screaming, chaotic. you can’t have a kid without tearing shit up, and you can’t have a world without that first violent crack.
and it doesn’t stop there. that openness? it’s what lets truth burst in—new ideas, art, love, whatever—but it’s also what lets the punches land. you’re exposed because you’re in the world, and that means you can get hurt. think of it like hooking up with someone new: the thrill of it, the spark, only works because you’re wide open—and that same openness is why it stings like hell when they ghost you. the world’s generosity, its spaciousness, is a double-edged blade. peace only makes sense because violence is always lurking.
truth vs. brutality: a blurry line
let’s zoom in on that. there’s a weird dance between truth and violence. truth isn’t polite—it doesn’t knock and ask to come in. it kicks the door down. a new song that blows your mind, a realization that flips your life upside down—it hits you, changes you, whether you’re ready or not. that’s violent, in a way. it doesn’t care about your comfort zone. now compare that to some asshole screaming at you on the street. that’s violent too, but it’s empty—it doesn’t open anything, just smashes.
the problem? you can’t always tell them apart upfront. the world’s opening lets both in: the truth that frees you and the blow that breaks you. it’s like scrolling X—half the posts are mind-blowing, half are toxic as fuck, and you don’t know which is which till you’re in deep. that ambiguity? it’s the price of a world that’s alive.
but there’s a worse violence, the kind that doesn’t just hit you—it kills the whole game. it’s when we try to stop the chaos, seal the cracks, make the world “safe.” lock it into one truth, or turn it into a machine where everything’s the same—that’s the real killer. it’s like turning the dive bar into a sterile chain restaurant: no fights, no spills, no life. you don’t get hurt, sure, but you don’t get anything else either. the world stops worlding. that’s the violence that doesn’t just wound—it erases.
so where does that leave us? in the mess, that’s where. the world’s not a paradise or a hellhole—it’s a jagged, bleeding edge where shit happens. we’re not here to fix it or escape it. we’re here to be in it, to keep the cracks open, to let sense spill out. it’s not about finding peace or dodging violence; it’s about riding the tension between them. like dancing in a mosh pit—you’re gonna get bruised, but damn if it doesn’t feel alive.
next time you’re pissed at the world—your boss, your phone, the rain ruining your plans—remember: that friction, that push, is what makes it a world at all. it’s not here to coddle you. it’s here to throw you in, expose you, and see what you do with it. so what’s your move?
conclusion: the world will never be safe, but it can be just
nancy’s philosophy doesn’t offer comfort—it doesn’t promise a world free from conflict, violence, or existential uncertainty. instead, it demands that we embrace the inherent instability of existence and recognize that meaning itself is a struggle. the task isn’t to eliminate violence altogether (an impossible feat) but to direct it toward openness rather than closure, toward exposure rather than domination.
so the next time someone tells you that the world should be a safe, harmonious place, remind them: a world that is too safe, too harmonious, is no world at all. it’s a cage. and what’s the only way to break out of a cage? well—you already know the answer.
