A journey through Freud and Lacan’s work to clarify the concept and usages of the terms aggressiveness and violence leads to the conclusion that those terms are not superposed, although they are related. The context in which they appear always suppose some sort of renouncement on the part of the subject, resulting from the treatment civilization gives to enjoyment. On the other hand, aggressiveness is circumscribed to the ego’s constitution process, while violence organizes itself according to a logic which implies men’s entrance into language, a process that is not without consequences. Contemporary issues are discussed, as the capitalism discourse and its implications to subjectivity.
aggressiveness; violence; Freud; Lacan