A discussion of the problem in interpreting violence notes that there is no well-demarcated, widely accepted concept of violence. Thus, to talk of contemporary violence risks being all- embracing, of aggregating many diverse manifestations of the use of force and their effects; these might include all or any of criminal violence, public disorder, and military actions. Following a discussion of the parameters for defining violence, the author considers the association of violence with various types of states. In discussing political frameworks and social memory, the author argues that each generation tends to believe that the violence it is experiencing is distinctive and more serious than in previous generations, when in truth, group violence has been chronic and pervasive in both the European and American past. Another aspect of the rational reconstructions of violence is the symbolic dimension of violence. The German communication theorist Harry Pross developed the concept of "symbolic violence" to refer to "the power to make so effective the validity of meaning through signs that others identify themselves with it ... Symbolic violence is bound up with the materiality of signs." Symbolic violence may be viewed analytically through two concepts: that the symbolic domain is coercive with respect to those who live within a collectivity; and that symbolic violence offers an alternative to physical coercion where political circumstances permit. 32 references