THE ROOTS OF VIOLENCE

This is my list of what I believe are primary factors at the root of violence in our culture, followed by methods and interventions I believe can be effective to counteract them. There will be a longer exposition on these factors available at a later date. JF

1- The loss of exoskeletons in our culture:  church and state have been increasingly compromised, attacked and undermined, and the structure they provide for societal integrity has not been replaced or repaired.  Legalism and morality no longer have the power they once had, especially for the younger generation.

We seem to forget that many people depend on exoskeletons for their direction, morals, and leadership.  They can't realistically be expected to provide this for themselves -- that's what leadership is for.  Not everyone is an "individual" with their own personal, fully developed, and dependable set of morals or ethics.  Advertising promotes this idea of individuality (so you each buy one) but the majority of people function best in community, as part of a group.  Modern society, along with pushing everyone to have their own Smart TV, washer and dryer, vacation trailer, and computer, wants everyone to be their own individual with government and business functioning primarily as vendors.  Psychologically speaking, it's utterly unrealistic. 

When the doctrine of individuality fails, we know enough to recognize that the solution to the problem requires structure, so we set up boot camps and build tons of prisons to try provide an exoskeleton.  At the same time, fewer and fewer leaders are willing to make the personal sacrifices and journeys of character necessary to provide their constituencies with a stable exoskeleton or sufficiently honor the ones that currently exist.

2- The "derepression" issue:  many individuals have a need to hate, which has to be taken seriously as it will be expressed one way or another, whether we acknowledge and work with it or not.  Trauma installs hatred, anger, pain and rage in our core.  Simply releasing the pressure is not sufficient.

3- Psychological factors that are disowned by the culture become random acts of violence.  Actually, they only appear to be random.  If they could be traced back to their source, the place a volatile issue was flushed away or disowned, the act of violence might actually make sense.  This would not legitimize the violence, or make it acceptable, but it would help us understand how it came about and possibly how to prevent it happening again.

Erich Neumann states that we create the semblance of morality by repressing and suppressing those issues and dilemmas we don't care to deal with, or don't know how to.  But, as physics makes clear, energy can't be destroyed and what is pushed down one place will come up another, possibly in a more vulnerable spot, a place more susceptible to violence.  Random violence may be a prime manifestation of our own failure to take responsibility for violence, anger and disruption within our own skins and communities.  It is not somebody else's business or problem -- it is ours.

"If you deny the terrorist timespirit in yourself, if you allow yourself to live only as a nice person and repress your spontaneous tendency to conflict, confront, and stand for your highest principles, if you avoid potentially fiery interactions, then others will have to occupy this timespirit.  And there are no guarantees that they will do it more consciously than you.  Racial problems cannot be solved only where they are most obvious." Arnold Mindell, Ph.D.,

THE LEADER AS MARTIAL ARTIST

4- Many forms of institutional, corporate and governmental crime which go undetected and unpunished often do damage to the fabric of society.  The damage may be the limitation of funds for social, educational and environmental services; the deterioration of life quality through various forms of pollution; the subverting of the democratic process through lobbying and special interests;  the unsafe foods created through certain agricultural processes and forms of food preparation.  These and other factors, even though denied and unacknowledged, combine to create a pressure on ordinary individuals which may well contribute to or increase the likelihood of their "acting out" through crime and violence.  (A Justice Department study, now at least 20 years ago, showed street crime costing us $19 Billion and Corporate Crime $470 Billion -- yet street crime gets the largest focus, political attention and furor by far.)

5- Many young people are being "raised" by parents with a lower core maturity level than themselves.    People are driven by their psychological age, which is separate from, and usually regressive, compared to their chronological age.  This creates a psychological glass ceiling for many young people. These young people need to understand this dilemma and be allowed to create strategies for dealing with it.  As Alice Miller points out, this doesn't have to be destructive:  as long as parents don't prevent their children from getting essential needs met elsewhere, all will be fine.  But if their wounded pride prevents this -- watch out.

6- The lack of community available for young people frustrates a deep and essential need.  Gangs are not an accident -- they closely resemble tribal organization and provide for many of the same needs:  maybe not as consciously, maybe the attempt often fails and takes others down with it, but the need for community, like any need, will seek a solution for itself, for better or worse. 

7- People need mirroring -- they need activities that reflect back to them their power, attractiveness and value.   Mirroring is an absolute need that needs to be understood and can't be underestimated.  Mirroring activities are those that reflect back on one a self of self-worth, positive or negative.  Sex usually provides positive mirroring, unfortunately, often short-term.  Domestic abuse can provide mirroring as the victim's look of terror mirrors the abuser as a powerful person, the opposite of how he feels internally.  Whether the mirror image looks hostile or adoring, crime and violence may be the only way some people get mirroring needs met. 

Obviously, many of these key factors inter-connect and compound each other.  Some of them are well known and others are little known.  We believe that young people (and old) need solid information about each of these key factors and that the culture as a whole needs to respond to, as well to help meet, the needs that are identified through these key factors.  It is a society's responsibility to provide for the needs of its members and most of the needs noted above require a humanitarian response, not a checkbook.

8- Too many people in positions of power, leadership or authority are unconscious of their rank and privilege and how it effects other people.  This lack of awareness contributes heavily to racism, prejudice, arrogance, indifference, and various forms of abuse.  It is very difficult to defend one's self when interacting with people who lack awareness of their rank and privilege, especially since your concern, pain or complaints further diminishes your value in their eyes.  Even the use of language, the words and meanings we utilize, become part of this problem.  Most Americans have no awareness of the arrogance they display by learning no other languages but expecting translations and English-speaking "natives" when they travel.

We can't escape our skin color, our education, our sexual orientation, but we can work to be more aware of how much slack that cuts us, how much it insulates us from various forms of abuse and prejudice, and how much it masks our internal reality which may be at odds with our apparent rank and the privileges that engenders.

9- Violence provides a momentary freedom for the repressed self and core.  Violence can become addictive when viewed in this context.  Violence offers some people more than any other experiences available to them.

THE ROOTS OF VIOLENCE:  tools, methods and processes for impacting them directly in treatment and in the community.

1- Imagination is the most powerful tool the non-violent have to counteract violence in the world.  Skills of drama work, imaginal work and theatre need to be applied to violence, actual and imagined.  As people's imaginations are valued, they begin to realize the power they have to change themselves and society.  An essential ingredient of this are characters such as The Würm, The Toad, Psychokiller, and The Weaving Woman that can be used interactively in the educational process.  (See my "Lawrence Thornton's IMAGINING ARGENTINA:  An Exploration.")

2- Using HERMES’ WEB to demonstrate and explain the dynamic structure of violence via the flip (possession of the ego by the unconscious contents during a criminal or violent act), the shift (the movement of the identity from the ego to the psychological core), and the two levels (how the ego-level and the psychological core are typically disconnected and non-congruent, dramatically increasing the likelihood of violence when stressed).  See the section on Special Educational Components for more detailed explanations of each of these concepts.

3- Offering education about the basic components of the criminal mind to aid individuals in identifying and confronting the rampant and invisible criminality in our midst, taking the primary focus off street crime and putting it into a broader spectrum or societal responsibility. 

4- Morality and goodness can’t be taught.   Goodness is really about choice, democracy and being informed.  We need to question what it is about our culture that doesn't want to trust people with choice.  An operating definition of "goodness" we are experimenting with in our organization is that "choosing to do good in the presence of the opportunity to do evil."

5- Offering a structure in which an inner and real experience can happen by utilizing Process Psychology and drama work to change hard wiring and shift the orientation of destructive parts of the personality.  As Thomas Ogden, MD, points out in his work, THE PRIMITIVE EDGE OF EXPERIENCE, you can't change certain parts of the personality, but you can change the context they operate in, moving a destructive element from a central driving force to a parasitic and peripheral component.

6- Teaching people how to acknowledge internal diversity.   The refusal to acknowledge internal diversity, more than just being good or bad, prevents the recognition of external diversity and the ability to handle it.  It also means people can't manage their own personality problems other than through repression or suppression, which sets up all kinds of other problems.  Dealing with internal diversity also affects self-hatred.  This is crucial because projected self-hatred is a major source of violence.

7- Explaining what underlies the need for TV, cinematic, and heavy metal music's violent images and how those images bring into the open the hidden part of our culture, thus providing a paradoxical form of relief.  These images are an ignored but vital source of information that is rejected because it is literalized, repulsive and regressive.  However, it speaks about the inner condition of the soul, a condition to which we are largely anesthetized.  Learning to decipher and honor these images could have a surprising and positive effect.

8- People would trust people into positions of power more if they went out of their way to be aware of their rank and privilege, how they use it, and how it affects others.  People rebel against authority in part because people with rank who are unconscious of it end up abusing a person, and that person can't defend themselves against that abuse if there is no awareness.  Awareness of rank and privilege would eventually make many well-intentioned efforts by those in power more effective because the attitude behind them wouldn't be so likely to trigger a negative response.

9- Alternative experiences that involve a mixture of emotion, physicality, meaning and challenge must be provided to young people if we want to help prevent violence.  Midnight basketball programs, theatre programs, and other recreational and artistic outlets have the potential to engage the "whole psyche" of a client, offering a true alternative, one which will potentially lessen or eliminate the need for violence as a form of self-expression and self-discovery.

"On Thanksgiving Day, we set aside our daily routines to acknowledge the bounty and mercy of Divine Providence...and we reflect on the challenge, responsibility, and privilege that are ours as citizens of these United States.  It is our great fortune to live in a country of abundance and promise...Take responsibility for bringing harmony and hope, peace and prosperity to all of the inhabitants of our world.  Share the privileges of freedom and the challenge of working for a better world."
President Clinton's 1994 Thanksgiving Day Address