The article aims to contribute to a reflection on the problems of "cruelty" in Brazilian contemporary context, registering malpractice radicals, involving the body of victims who do not have obvious explanations, condensing peculiar and radical uses of violence. The theme treated in other fields of knowledge (art, psychoanalysis) in which are several formulations and reflections is a challenge for the sociological reflection. Based on native uses of the term cruelty article verifies the way she is treated in the media, on the common sense and the legal field. In diffuse violence the inhumanity seems to express practices from different orders in which explanatory enrolling both the distinctive marks of actors like the repetition of tragedies or unexpected reactions that are part of the history of mankind. In summary, the article articulates inhumanity and diffuse violence, noting some symbolic brands featuring unexpected reactions of crimes that occur outside a situation of social equity. More than complete about the causes of the occurrence of the phenomenon of cruelty, the article opens up the possibility of establishing a research agenda.
cruelty; diffuse violence; crime; media; body