In my life, I have encountered far too many people who seemed quite comfortable to act in violence. They enjoyed violence. They consumed it like coffee and soda on television and in film. Some were actually friends of mine. Others were simply bad people I encountered who sought to do violence to me. More than a few exploited athletics and the opportunity of contact sports to test the extremes of violence. And most tragically of all, some seemed quite peaceful and lacking in aggression in public, yet enacted cruel aggressive control and harm to members of their family that were smaller or less able to defend themselves. These were the greatest of sinners. Men who would physically abuse their wives or punish their own children with the viciousness of a farmer disciplining a cow or horse.
I am more at peace in today’s day and age where the tolerance for such idiocy is lessening. I do not ponder the good old days where not sparing the rod reduced how spoiled a child could become. I don’t sit in a rocker and marvel at how bad children control their own parents and wish for the days where a good beating would make me more comfortable with that situation. And the reason is, that that is the easy way. The stupid accepted way of the past. It is the way of an aggressor larger and stronger violently shaping the will of a weaker person.
What is the reason that violence is still so shiny? The KJV version of the Old Testament of my bible is chock full of violence. It flows with regulations and advice to subjugate those who are weaker. It tells women to serve their men. It tells parents to freely punish their children. It also tells people to pick up stones and murder someone accused of adultery. Since we don’t find time to do this last bit for obvious reasons, perhaps we are missing the obvious reasons why we should abandon the less damaging forms of violence. They are designed for power holders to exert their power. They were not and have never been the will of God. They are in the Bible because they are rules written by men.
Similarly, in other texts the subjugation and control of women and children is equal to the control of dumb animals. Why abandon behavior that keeps a simple man in control of other people? It’s easier to justify when male religious leaders claim that it is the will of God. They write that it is the will of God to tell a wife how to wear her clothes and what type of covering to hide her hair with. These bogus laws do not come from God. They come from man.
In dealing with men and women who thrill at violence and find power in using it I have always found one thing that is certain. If a larger more powerful person uses the same violence against a person who loves violence, they tend to lose courage. They tend to react much as a whipped child or a beaten wife. It is that reflection that proves that the value in violence is only the power a violent person has over others. Certainly, not a positive value for anyone but the violent one.
As a nation of seemingly civilized people continues its intellectual evolution you would tend to hope that the fascination with strongmen, strongwomen and powerful people would rely less on their perceived toughness and more on their intelligence. Perhaps this will eventually be the case. For now, the act of dropping a multi-million dollar bomb on 75 human enemies is perceived by some to show that we as a nation are no longer “leading from behind”. This is as stupid as claiming a man is great because his wife and children remain quiet and afraid due to threats of physical violence. Using military technology on an enemy dwelling like Neanderthals in a cave is not leading from anywhere other than from military technology.
As a nation, we flex muscles and violently respond. To our weak allies, they sigh a sigh of relief since it relieves them of cleaning up their own security mess. To our enemies, we simply stir the hornet’s nest within every beating heart that has ever been whipped or violently beaten by someone rightly or wrongly who is nothing more to them, than bigger than they are. We increase our entire enemy by stomping on a portion of those that are visible.
How then can we personally reduce violence in our world? Stop supporting, voting for and exalting the antiquated dinosaurs that look in the mirror and practice the tough guy and tough gal myth. We have soldiers for violence. We no longer need fathers, coaches, and political leaders to threaten violence as a trait of power. It is time to let that class of fools move quietly closer to their graves. In the next generation of fathers and leaders we pray for wisdom and compassion. With them we can usher an end to violence.