Tiempos Violentos -

But why does violence persist? Psychologists and neuroscientists argue that our brains are wired for aggression. The amygdala, the reptilian core of our brain, responds to threat with a fight-or-flight response that bypasses rational thought. This biological inheritance, useful for survival on the savanna, becomes a curse in a hyper-connected world. Furthermore, violence thrives on “othering”—the psychological process of dehumanizing those who are not part of our tribe. Whether the division is based on race, religion, political ideology, or soccer team, the mechanism is the same: the “other” becomes a symbol of threat, and violence becomes a perceived act of self-defense. In tiempos violentos , empathy is the first casualty.

Throughout history, periods of peace have been the exception rather than the rule. The so-called “Long Peace” after World War II is a statistical blip in the grand narrative of human civilization. From the brutal expansion of the Roman Empire, to the religious wars of the Reformation, to the colonial genocides of the 19th century, violence has been the primary engine of change. The 20th century, heralded as an age of progress, gave us the industrial slaughter of the trenches, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb. When we speak of “tiempos violentos” today, we are not witnessing a new phenomenon; we are witnessing the same old phenomenon with new technology. The machete and the spear have simply been replaced by the drone and the cyberattack. Tiempos Violentos

Yet, to acknowledge that we live in violent times is not to surrender to despair. The phrase itself is a warning, a call to vigilance. If violence is a human constant, then peace is not a passive state but an active, difficult construction. It requires education that teaches critical thinking over dogma. It requires journalism that prioritizes context over spectacle. It requires legal institutions that replace revenge with justice. And most importantly, it requires each individual to recognize the spark of the “other” within themselves. As the writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn noted, the line between good and evil runs not through nations or ideologies, but through every human heart. But why does violence persist