During modernity, in the last two hundred years, there was a gap in social theory, a space that was visible to contemporaries, but that was not firmly integrated into the center of reflections on the social: we refer to what here we call the dark matter of modernity. This article aims to highlight this gap, the way in which it was approached and has been approached, as well as to propose a definition of this concept. In a second moment, we (...) will carry out an analysis of the European traumas of the 20th century and the relationship of both with the dark matter, underlining the importance of the intensive accelerators of violence. (shrink)