"Why are we violent?"

Why are we violent? Because
 we have to be!

Brian Lynch

Surprised by the question? I am a bit. But also hopeful as only by facing this fact will we be less violent.

This is to articulate what I have come to see as an elegant way of viewing all violence, yet the concepts need to be repeated many times to reduce what has been made too complex into its more simple elements. Society eschews the basics for more complex, often erroneous solutions.

The basics are: we desire pleasure and avoid pain. We accept that we are flesh and blood creatures that cannot vanish into thin air when times get rough. We accept, for the moment, that we all get “hurt”, and damaged. If we are hurt. If we are emotionally hurt, say humiliated, shamed, or in a state of shock or grief what can we do? We cannot be perfect.

We are not Gods, all-knowing and powerful, able to solve all problems at the moment. This being the case we have to do something. If we cannot in our humanness solve the problem in a positive way then we will have to do something. That will be some way of processing the pain with the means at hand. 

We do not have a hundred, a thousand, or even ten choices. We only have, in a generic sense, five choices. They are: we can 1) try to run away from the problem 2) blame ourselves for the problem 3) blame someone else for the problem or attack, or finally 4) drown our sorrows in some activity. Finally, we can try and face the problem and come to some resolution. Any of the first four will in some way do at least some damage to ourselves or others. 

If you look at the first four choices we can contemplate how all four are types of violence in our daily lives. To “withdraw” from the world is a violent act. It denies the world of our skills and services. The parent who abandons the child is said to be more violent than the one that actively abuses. That is if the parent is present at least the child feels they exist. To abuse ourselves is violent and affects all those around us just as withdrawing or drowning our sorrows does.

There is a famous saying “He who does nothing can do everything!” Many talented people will spend a lifetime skirting the edge of success and look like they have a career when all along they have been living off on the edge of that career. Avoidance and shame keep them away from full participation in the world meanwhile often forcing them into a web of lies and thus doing violence to themselves and others.

I guess you are waiting for me to speak about war, murder, and domestic violence. These all come under blaming or attacking someone. These modes of violence can be addressed later. I address violence here in this way to emphasize that the larger manifestations of violence are often consequence of the the more hidden forms of violence.

 But I started by saying we are violent because we have to be. Yes because we have to engage in all four of the activities of withdrawal, avoiding or attacking the self or other, because we are not perfect. As a friend said in a beautiful essay if we start to “lower our standards” we just might get somewhere. We just might be less violent to ourselves and others if we don’t expect perfection from ourselves or others.

Brian Lynch