The news and history books are full of violence. War in Ukraine, fighting in the Middle East, gun murders, stabbings and sexual violence are portrayed as the norm and it seems it has always been this way. Why are humans so violent towards each other, and if we understood why, could the knowledge be used to eliminate it? Certain writers (Pinker) have pointed out that in recent times the number of wars have been on the downturn, but the risk of this trend reversing and the unacceptable high levels of gun, knife and sexual crime mean human behaviour is not improving significantly. There is still much work to be done, in order to make the world a better place.
To tackle this subject, it is necessary to recognise the various different forms of violence, whether it be at individual, societal or international level, and then decide if there are non violent alternatives.
A) Violence as protection.
If some one threatens you or attacks your close friends and love ones, they will definitely be doing so because they think you are no threat to them. No one starts a fight thinking they will be the one who ends up being worse off. However, for you, the target of these threats and violence, there are three well know options open to you. 1) take a beating (turn the other cheek) and hope it stops quickly, and seek justice later 2) Run away (flight response) or 3) use violence to stop violence ie fight back. Options 1) and 2) are non violent on your part, but are risky; as they leave the aggressor in a position to commit further violent acts. The aggressor may later reflect on their behaviour and realise they acted selfishly and apologise, but usually more violence will follow. Option 3, fighting back, will lead to less violence if you can beat the aggressor, but if you lose, you will have taken a beating for nothing and the aggressors violent tactics will be rewarded. And even if you do win, it will always be at a cost to yourself and the defeated are unlikely to revert to peaceful ways and will probably seek revenge much later.
Are there other non violent options? Of course there are. Firstly you could project an image of superior strength, so no aggressor ever thinks he can win, so peace ensues - but this is still peace by threat of violence so doesn’t really lead to a relaxed peaceful society. The cold war is an example.
No, I would say the best non violent response to aggression is to get all your friends to stand with you and face down the aggressor. If someone picks on you, call on others to stand shoulder to shoulder and send the message that the aggressor will have to defeat many, if he wants to defeat you. This is the strategy used by kids getting the assistance of their big brother and also used by Nato concerning Ukraine. Standing with Ukraine gives them a chance against Putin, but if Nato truly backed Ukraine and committed all of Natos forces, then Putin would back down. This explains why he keeps use of nuclear retaliation in the minds of everyone, as so far this keeps Nato out of the war..
B) Violence as Punishment
Humans live in societies, and to live successfully together, societies create rules and laws so individuals don’t make the society worse by acting in their own self interest at the detriment of others. And with rules, comes enforcement and punishment, so that future bad behaviour is deterred. Historically, this punishment was some form of violence, whether it was a parent hitting a child, getting paraded around the village as a shameful offender, being banished, mutilated or executed. Societies around the world used violence as an acceptable method of punishment for the good of the whole. Today punishment is less violent, as children are taught how to behave by reward, verbal punishment and temporary banishment of smart phones or friends; and adults are fined or locked up in prison, but violence is still there in the background, as the ultimate threat.
Could humans live in a world with only non violent punishments? To a certain extent this has already happened but if a prisoner is violent to the guards, force will be met with reasonable force, which is deemed acceptable by the law. But in this situation both the prisoner and the guards are worse off, so violence is futile but happens anyway.
Perhaps if rules could be explained and understood as being fair and for the good of all, and that violence makes everyone worst off, perhaps then societies could ditch violence once and for all. But I suppose there will always be rules, laws and therefore law breakers and the need for punishment. The aim should be to keep these to low levels through a culture in which violence is not seen as acceptable or beneficial to anyone, and an absolute last resort.
C) Violence as an outlet to frustration
When some one of higher status, such as your boss, does something you don’t like, you may feel powerless to do any thing about it. You will be frustrated and it is all too common to take out anger on someone of lower power who cannot strike back. Domestic violence is an inexcusable example. However, recognising your frustration, the unfairness of taking it out on innocent others and not accepting you are totally powerless in any situation, results in non violent solutions. Bush and Blair invading Iraq after 9/11 is an international example of a violent response to frustration. They went to war with a non nuclear nation, when the organisation and people behind 9/11 were criminals, not a country.
I suspect the mass shootings common in the USA are this form of violence. People of low status, empowered by easily available weapons, who think they have no options to improve their lives, take it out on innocent unarmed bystanders.
D) Violence as a means to increase social or national status (power)
Recent research (Harvard Study of Adult Development) into happiness has concluded that the happiest people have lots of friends, which they call high Social Fitness. For example happy people are popular and have a high social status and therefore social power and also social support. As my previous essays describe, the reasons relate to life’s basic need to reproduce with some one else’s good genes in order to ensure successful offspring in future generations. If you are popular and have many friends, the choice of partners will be so much greater and better.
Most of us choose to work hard, be nice, helpful, entertaining and generous in order to get friends and increase our social status. However this takes time, effort, self sacrifice and personality that some people of low status do not possess, or just can’t be bothered with. Instead they may choose to get violent as a short cut to leap up the social ladder.
Want to get rich quick - just threaten and steal and then share your ill gotten gains with your rapidly increasing circle of friends. The police will be after you but if you can get away with it, you can live like Royalty. it’s a short cut to increase social status and once you have established your self; your increased power means you can start ordering others about to do the dirty work. As long as the money keeps coming in and you keep being generous, your position will be maintained or enhanced. Of course you have to ignore the pain and suffering inflicted on victims, but why care about them when you are doing so well?
Putin’s war in Ukraine is fundamentally about maintaining or increasing his social status. Before the war he was losing popularity, but annexing Crimea was one of his popular successes - so why not annex all of Ukraine and boost his popularity even more. Unfortunately this has not proved successful and as he is now fighting a long war that he cant back out of or win, all he can do is put as best a spin on it as possible and show how popular he is with North Korea, China, India and some African States, who’s leaders also have popularity problems of their own. If citizens realised that wars only benefit the elites, who keep well away from the danger, whilst wasting national wealth and people, perhaps they would stop following orders and only fight in matters concerning self protection.
Violence is also manifesting itself at an international level in an attempt to increase the respect and standing of one nation over another. China, that for past historical reasons wrongly has an ingrained inferiority complex, is toying with the idea of using war and aggression to gain the respect of the West and teach the world a lesson that their way of doing things is as good as, or superior to theirs. It’s a shame that they don’t understand, that what would really gain the respect and admiration of the west, is if they could develop a country, that has excellent health and education systems, a thriving sustainable green economy, fair, tolerant and respected law and order, free citizens and superior wise leadership. But instead, it is far easier to bomb and invade Taiwan or so many in China think.
Wars fought over resources, such as Israel / Palestine wars over who has rights to occupy the land, fall into this category. After the second world war, Israelis kicked the British out of Palestine, when the Colonial Power became alarmed at the high number of Jewish people migrating into the area. War weary Britain didn't put up much of a fight and no one considered the views of the powerless Palestinian who already lived there. The violence has never stopped since, as one side sees a Bronze age story as evidence of their right to the land, and the other side says we are here now and always have been. Neither side forgets the history, nobody is talking and neither side works for a better integrated, respectful tolerant future.
To counter violence at an individual level, the culture of society especially for our young people must be one that abhors any form of violence against others. If a clear message is sent that using a knife or gun will cause suffering to others, turn you into a target of violence, will not increase your social status and there are plenty of other non violent opportunities to progress in life, we will see less gun crime, knife crime and sexual crime etc. But this will require a complete change of mindset, from reducing violence in films, games, sport and music as well as education, celebrity endorsement, as well as youth development programmes to bring about a change in culture.
E) Violence as an alternative to tolerance and debate (failure of politics)
Everything you think, you believe to be true, because you wouldn’t think it if you knew it to be false. Therefore it is easy to conclude that anyone who thinks differently to you is wrong, but because you can’t prove otherwise or can't back your ideas with indisputable evidence (or don't want to risk finding out you are wrong), you just punch them in the face to shut them up.
Other people of differing ideologies, faiths or beliefs, who to you are obviously wrong and therefore inferior, can be dismissed as stupid and sub human. You in your correct mindset are superior. Such warped thinking, taken to extremes, leads to violent oppression of minorities, wars of religion, holocausts and genocides. Beware when anyone who starts talking about others in a dehumanising, prejudiced, ignorant or biased way, it could be used as an excuse for violence against them at a later date.
If we could just accept that some questions have no right or wrong answer, and others think differently to you or I, we are all continually learning and violent intolerance just leads to more violence, perhaps humanity may be judged as making progress.
F) Psychopathic or Evil violence
Psychologists working with mass murderers, sex offenders and very violent people report that there is no such thing as an evil person. There are evil acts and if we are truthfully with ourselves, we are all capable of such acts. It all depends on context. I would shoot Putin if I had a chance and would justify this to myself as destroying a cancerous cell for the health of the body of humanity - but such an act would probably just start an international war or send Russia into chaos, so wouldn’t I be as evil as I see him? (Perhaps it should be the Russian people who deal with Putin.)
Forensic Psychologists, such as Rabecca Myer and Gwen Adshead, who endeavour to treat offenders to prevent more victims, have written books based on their experiences with violent serial killers and sex offenders, (of which I have only read reviews). However what I understand they write of is many normal people who have done terrible things. This form of violence is thankfully rare, but Myers and Adshead says that risk factors for violence are, no where to live, substance abuse, child hood abuse, paranoid mental illness, no sense of purpose, depression, disorganised lives, fear, disillusionment, no self worth and no relationships, so perhaps its all about attempting to increasing social status, but by the wrong method. Fundamentally, they point out there is no gene for violence, therefore such behaviour could be drastically reduced given sufficient resources. But its quicker and easier to just lock them up rather than address the causes of the problems..
G) Sexual Violence.
To realise the enormity of the problem of sexual violence, principally rape, I would encourage everyone to read Disgrace, Global Reflections on Sexual Violence by historian Joanna Bourke. This book gives an unbiased, non political and scholarly overview of the problem, and recent attempts to reduce it. The last chapter calls for a rape free world but (as all historian do) fails to develop the knowledge gained into a practical strategy for future action beyond calling for solidarity. Having just read the book, the following are my preliminary suggestions on how to reduce sexual violence, which at a fundamental level is the failure of one individual, to recognize that the wants, desires and life of another individual, is of equal importance to their own.
a) Rape, whilst it does not end a life, destroys a life. Therefore legal systems should treat rape the same as murder.
b) Boys and girls should grow up and be educated together, never separately. If they learn to live together as soon as they are born, the more chance of respect of the other sex, will be a life long trait.
c) Male masturbation must be de-stigmatized and become culturally acceptable. Consensual Homosexuality gives males access to (and if measures are taken against sexual disease) unlimited harmless sex. For heterosexual males, it is a cultural norm (I would say myth) that sex can only take place with a woman. However if masturbation is seen as an acceptable and equally pleasant alternative, this gives an outlet to the male sex drive and the basic genetic programme of the urgent need to reproduce. Such a culture change would eliminate the need for comfort women, prostitution and perhaps rape.
d) War, which reduces social behavioral constraints and hence lead to more sexual violence, must be consigned to the history books.
e) Religions, with their in built assumption of male domination over women, must be tackled with humanism and atheism.
H) Delegated Violence or State approved violence
Here in the UK, the law says that use of "reasonable force" is acceptable to counteract violence. However in other societies the definition of what is reasonable will be different. If those in power, give orders to those lower in the hierarchy, ie go arrest that trouble maker, or go fight that war, then they are not being violent themselves and those who obey the orders can think that they are not responsible for the violence, as they have the excuse that they are only following orders. History and the Miligram experiments the 1960's show how important the context of a situation is to the level of violence a person will carry out.
Obeying authority is drummed into us from the first moment we are born. We are taught for good reason to obey our parents, as children know nothing of the dangers of the world. This trait stays with us into adulthood as society works best if everyone obeys the rules that make life easier for everyone. However because of this and the basic drive to be successful in our society, individuals rarely stand up to power when rules or those in power are bad and promote violence. And because those in power gain by delegating the violence, and reward those carrying out the violence, it is very difficult to change the culture.
To prevent this kind of violence, someone has to stand up and say this is wrong, followed by many joining until the majority overthrow those in power. I can highly recommend Bystander Society by Mary Fulbrook concerning what can result when people take the easiest personal path, and just look the other way, even when they know what is happening around them is wrong.
Conclusion
Human societies and international relations are based on violence and it appears that we cannot live with out at least the threat (and occasional use) of violence to enforce acceptable behaviour.
Could this change in the future? Is the abandonment of violence just a dream?
Well, the Banded Mongoose Research Project (please bear with me) studies how the social banded mongoose lives in groups that frequently fight battles with neighbouring groups in order to gain territory. They attempt to drive other groups to extinction by killing young female pups. “Humans and Banded Mongooses are among the most warlike animals on the planet” says Michael Cant the Project leader. This is all very interesting and makes for an entertaining read. However, what the article I read mentioned, but didn’t highlight, is that the Banded Mongoose is one of 25 species of mongoose in Africa and that most species of mongoose are solitary whereas the Banded Mongoose lives in colonies called bands. Therefore most other species survive by more peaceful means. Perhaps if the researchers studied those more peaceful species, rather than the war like species, we might realise that violence as a strategy has alternatives that can be equally, if not more successful. As Peter Kropotkin highlighted back in 1902, peaceful co operation, sharing and mutual aid is very much a part of nature and a much more productive strategy, especially in a tough environment.
Other research in to violence in apes is highlighting the importance of females moderating male violence (kit Opie of University of Bristol). Primates, who live in groups where only females leave the group, where males form coalitions, males are dominant over females and males are exclusively responsible for defending the group, all trend towards increased levels of violence. So perhaps increased sex equality in human societies could lead to decreasing levels of violence.
An educational strategy is needed, and this is to get any potential aggressor to reflect on the long term implications of violent behaviour. If everyone considers what their future life will be like if they adopt a strategy of violent behaviour, and by using examples from history and personal experience to make them realise that violence only leads to more violence, which is to theirs and everyone's detriment, perhaps we will see less.
So, I conclude that humans don‘t need to base their societies on violence. Violence is a learnt behaviour that can be unlearnt. It happens because some one or some group thinks they can benefit from its use, which in the long run is unlikely to be true. There is an alternative way to live and (despite what is reported in the news and we encounter on the internet) most of us have chosen that path of peace, it just needs the majority to convince the minority that it is so. Perhaps if Russia had a First Lady and the Chinese Government was 50/50 male female rather than 100% male and everyone shunned anyone gaining from using any form of violence, we might see a better world.
If we recognised we are one global tribe of humanity, all living on the same planet, perhaps we would realise there is no "other" to fight, and through out history, we have only been harming our selves.
