‘Man has certain attributes that make him more dangerous than other species. The most important are his ability to develop and use weaponry, which enormously expands his destructive capacities, and his relative lack of inhibition against turning his power against himself and his own kind.’
Violence: Dr. John Gunn
There is little doubt that we live in a violent society. And the violence takes myriad forms. In this little nation there is sanctioned and unsanctioned violence – capital punishment an example of the former and the Burma Road Riot an example of the latter. “He made me so mad I could have hit him” is the cry of the frustrated. A school of psychology has developed a theory that aggression is always the consequence of frustration. Ordinary experience tells us that frustration is an important factor in making us angry and perhaps behaving violently. Consider for a moment the frustration many of our young people experience when having left high school; they have applied for a job without success.
Then there is anger. Anger or “hot displeasure” as the dictionary calls it is regarded by the psychiatrists as a “primary emotion” one that is typically provoked by frustration. It is not to be confused with hate, which is a much longer-lasting sentiment. Anger is a short-lived feeling that often accompanies aggression and violence.
Hatred – To live in groups it is necessary for attractions – or bonds, as biologists call them – to be set up between members of the group. Positive bond feelings towards others are pleasant and we seek them; we call them love, friendship, affection, fondness. As with any attractive force, however, there is an opposing or negative force. Characteristics that do not belong to the “in-group” must therefore, being to “them” – the “out group.” Take our attitude to Haitians for example. It is on this basis that hatred is built.
Learning – – Human development is always dependent upon the nurture and education provided by the experienced adults in any given society, especially by the parents or substitute parents. There is much evidence to suggest that babies born into deprived situations where they are handled cruelly or in a variety of conflicting ways, or where they are starved of adult affection develop “neurotic” problems as adults. In particular they find it difficult to get on well with other people and to adapt to the conflicting and strenuous demands made by adult life.
Our complicated social structure requires very powerful bond making mechanisms. We depend utterly in our first years on other people, so we need to be attracted to them; but as we grow, this love, affection or friendship must be a two-way process – we must give it as well as take it and at all times we must take into account the needs of others. This is a highly developed skill if the school for love in our early years is a poor one, teaching us incorrect methods or perhaps no methods at all. We shall be deficient in this skill. We shall not consider others sensitively: We shall put our needs first in the short term, even if this is deleterious to our best interests in the long term. And we shall not know how to fit into a social hierarchy: nor how to abide by the rules of that hierarchy so as to advance ourselves within it. In all we shall be subject to an immense amount of frustration.
But do we really live in a particularly violent age? One of the most vivid historical accounts of widespread sanctioned violence is given by Hibbert in The Roots of Evil. He quotes example after example. Often from contemporary writings of hideous daily violence during previous centuries of torture of burnings, of highway robbery, of the brutality of armed mercenaries, of widespread drunkenness with associated violence and of merciless cruelty to children and animals. Of the very recent eighteen century he writes.
Senseless murders… were as common as riots. For violence was still an accepted part of everyday life and it was not to be expected in an age which set so little store by human dignity that it could be otherwise .Men accustomed to paying two pence to go and laugh and jeer at lunatic in Bedlam; to watching women knocking each other about with bare fists in the boxing ring; to throwing bricks at defenseless people in the stocks and pillory: to be given a holiday on the day of a hanging so that they could go to the fair at Tyburn and cheers as men and women slowly died at the end of a rope; to seeing their fellow human beings whipped and burned and disemboweled andcut into four pieces; to passing the putrescent bodies of highwaymen suspended in iron cages near the scenes of their crimes – men accustomed to a life in which these things were commonplace were not likely to come to the view that brutality was inexcusable.
By: Maxwell Turner. Originally published in The Bahama Journal, November 22, 2004.
