Jesse Love 

Celestopea Times Editorial Columnist

Violence Begets Violence

We live in a violent world. Pick up any mainstream newspaper or watch any nightly network news and you will find stories about gruesome acts of war and terrorism, savage rapes, senseless murders and a wide assortment of other violent atrocities that will assault your senses while subtly imbedding themselves in your mind.  What brings people to so easily commit such horrors instead of finding a more peaceful solution to their needs and desires?

Consider that violence as a means to obtain what you want is taught by both precept and example in wide ranging, multiple ways from a very early age.  When a parent yells, swears or hits a child to get them to obey their dictates, does that not teach the child that by vocal or physical violence you can make people do what you wish?   When a parent insinuates that painful, dire consequences will follow if a child does not do as they are told, does that not teach the child that by intimidation you can get what you want?  When the parent later tries to teach the child the propriety of peace, respect and harmonious co-existence with other people and cultures, which lesson is the child going to imprint the strongest: the one the parents spoke of, or the one the parents showed them by example?

Though the parental relationship may be a child’s first exposure to violence and intimidation, the lesson introduced- that it is an acceptable method to obtain your desires, is repeatedly reinforced by an endless succession of graphic depictions on video games, TV and popular movies. 

Nor do most religions offer a refuge, instead sending a distinctly mixed message.  On one hand, there are many references to peace, even one of the Ten Commandments speaks of not killing, yet so too are there many examples of the most dreadful violence.  The prophet Mohamed quickly expanded Islam throughout the Arab world through force of arms with captives given the choice to either convert or be slain.  Today’s Muslim terrorists justify their atrocities and murders through their religion even as the Crusaders who killed Muslims in the name of God in the Middle Ages justified their horrors.  In the Torah and the Bible, there are many instances that speak of God’s wrath and punishment. Multiple examples in the book of Deuteronomy including 2:33-34 and 7:2, detail God’s command to the Israelites to dispossess other people from their homes and property and to “utterly destroy” every man, woman and child.  The teachings of multiple faiths all describe how God himself willfully and torturously destroyed almost all life on Earth with a flood, including billions of innocent animals, simply because mankind was not behaving in a way he liked.  If the very Gods we embrace teach us that violence is an acceptable solution to our problems, what hope has our society to find an enduring road to peace?

Despite pious and kindly words many people speak and noble ideals many people hold of peace and harmony for all, the reality is that we unwittingly allow ourselves to be continuously programmed that violence is an acceptable and even righteous way to get what we want by virtually every pillar of influence and authority in our lives.  Until we can take charge of our lives and begin to consciously decrease the programming that we receive each day to accept violence, we will continue to be slaves to our baser instincts when the right cues are keyed and as a society fall short of the glory we could be.