Structural Violence - Cultural Violence

Cultural Violence

'Cultural violence' refers to aspects of culture that can be used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence, and may be exemplified by religion and ideology, language and art, empirical science and formal science.

Cultural violence makes direct and structural violence look or feel "right," or at least not wrong, according to Galtung. The study of cultural violence highlights the way in which the act of direct violence and the fact of structural violence are legitimized and thus made acceptable in society. One mechanism of cultural violence is to change the "moral color" of an act from "red/wrong" to "green/right," or at least to "yellow/acceptable."