Why anyone should wonder that Americans are such a violent society is beyond me. Most of us grew up in everyday sight of Christian crosses.
And, because the cross became such a ubiquitous object of worship and veneration, society is blinded by a whitewash of respect for it.The incredibly brutal graphic depiction of the crucifixion, real or imagined, is with us every day of our lives as an ever-present reminder of the violence woven into the consciousness of our social fabric.
The story behind the cross represents a literal pictogram of the worst characteristics of human nature.
For generations the Christian cross represented a dead white man hung naked and nailed to a cross, who was brutally beaten, stabbed, crowned with thorns and had his legs broken. To help explain the violent, racist and sexist associations with the cross, the fact that it wasn’t a woman, or an Asian or black person on the cross meant that they had no chance to be worshiped on high. So try to imagine for a moment white Americans or Europeans kneeling before a black woman or an Asian man on the cross, would Christianity be alive today?
Retired Harvard biologist and naturalist, Edward O. Wilson, in his recent book, “The Meaning of Human Existence,” writes in a direct and unambiguous way, “The great religions are sources of ceaseless and unnecessary suffering. They are impediments to the grasp of reality needed to solve most social problems in the real world.”
How we view and treat violence, therefore, whether as a criminal matter or mental health issue amounts to scratching in the dirt, when in fact, human violence is a bottomless pit.
If violence is a mental health issue then I need to inform you that we are faced with the norm. If violence is a criminal matter then we are all guilty as charged.
No matter how we positively equate our culture with human development and progress, without violence there would be no civilization.
Vidda Crochetta
http://www.reformer.com/letterstotheeditor/ci_28977131/letter-human-violence-is-bottomless-pit
Brattleboro Reformer
POSTED: 10/15/2015 10:48:32 PM EDT
Human violence is a bottomless pit
don't cross him
But what of the other cultures who don’t have this iconography? There is violence elsewhere, too. (I’m not sure how the Lotus Sutra ties in with violence in the east exactly.)
I think we do have a choice in the matter, though. Many of choose not to be violent every day of our lives, even with good reason and opportunity. Perhaps the question isn’t how to reduce violence so much as increase non-violence?
We seem to increase non-violence when our needs are met, we’re happy and healthy, and have a purpose in life. And, when we have been taught skills necessary for problem solving without violence.
It’s hard when our government LOVES to use violence as a solution to problems, and we use violent language to describe simple, ordinary things, such as “Jon Stewart DESTROYS Fox News,” or “I was ATTACKED for a comment made on a web site.” Nothing was destroyed. No one was injured. Language matters.
As for the cross, I’m not sure that it is the wood that people are worshipping, nor can I say with any certainty what people think when they see it. I always got a kinda sad vibe from seeing it, but I know others find power and inspiration in there.
No civilizations can grow or exist without violence
This is a fascinating comment beginning with “don’t cross him” Naturally one might ask, “don’t cross who.” We can’t ask “don’t cross her” as her was not stated.
We continue with “Lotus Sutra” and one finds oneself in the illusive big bellied Buddha. Perhaps, all one really knows about The Buddha is that the poor diabetic dear liked to drink and eat a lot. Usually a well fed creature such as The Buddha when ‘he’ is at his most docile, is feverishly writing about, don’t you know it…’peace, baby, peace.’
In furtherance, is the belief, “we do have a choice in the matter.” I can see the seething, angered patron saint reciting “she loves me, she loves me not” while he destroys the dandelion.
Okay, on to problem solving. Don’t you just hate it when then they throw science in your face.
Nonviolence is the cause of our obesity epidemic.. “when our needs are met, we’re happy and healthy, and have a purpose in life.” Aren’t we really a nation of mostly fat people who gladly turn over our defense of the ‘homeland’ to the poor, idealized and marginalized who have few jobs and even less opportunities, much less can really find the Holy Grail of a “purpose in life” when there is no Holy Grail except ‘survival of the richest?’
Oh no, why my government is ‘not’ violent. It’s the media, not the government. ‘War on Poverty’ ‘Fight for your Rights’ ‘If it bleeds it leads.’
“Language matters.” Yes, it does. But language when “we use violent language” where “Nothing was destroyed. No one was injured.” ?? Language is so important that it controls events. It makes or breaks a treaty, it diffuses or ignites a confrontation. Language, body language is the symbology of war, the declaration of peace, the beginning of love, the end of days.
The wooden cross??? Has “power and inspiration?” To do what? To kill in the name of a god; to turn women into second-class people who are unclean, who are filled with original sin and blood, who play devil to the man, and to twist them into subordinate playthings?
The question has always been’ what can be good can also been used for evil.’
There are, very conveniently I might add, two-sides to every story. Sometimes more. But make no mistake. Violence is the winner takes all. History is written by the victors.
Our culture, our societies, our nations, exists at the pleasure of violence.
No civilizations can grow or exist without violence. If you don’t believe me, try building a nation with peace. Ha!
“But what of the other cultures who don’t have this iconography? There is violence elsewhere, too.”
Yes, indeed, so there is “violence elsewhere, too.” But. what we also have is the most pervasive, ubiquitous religion of proselytizers and missionaries ever known in the history of “man’s” religions. Thanks to the Christian zeal to spread their Christian zeal, very few countries have been left clean from the infection of the ‘new testament.’
In short, there are few cultures left that are untainted by the Christian cross. Go figure. These views are entirely mine and do not represent the views of this station.
No es nada personal
I’m sorry that I will never compromise about religion and related matters…not because my uncompromising is wrong, but because it’s us individuals who end up having to discuss it. Then it can’t be helped that it seems like its personal when it’s not. I would prefer to debate 7 billion people I don’t know, then even one person I do know.
en garde!
I don’t take it personally. But I do like to think and debate.
I’ll go further in this one. We would not be here today if it were for the peaceful actions of people within our civilizations. We are civilized DESPITE our tendency toward violence.
If all we had was violence, we wouldn’t have lasted. It was the people who said stop that war, end that conflict, learn to get along, and so on that made the difference.
Violence was a simple-minded solution to temporary problems that gained traction because, in the immediate sense, it works. “X is a problem. I fix problem.” Thump!
Peace is a higher-level solution that requires extra work, and trust. One cannot negotiate a treaty via drone.
Violence is a remnant of our cave person days.
I would say the goal is still to increase peaceful interactions, and put effort into dialing back the violence. It may be wise to admit a usefulness for some forms of violence – I can’t think of any, but I know we get angry – but the human goal should be to keep it in check. Be restrained. Take the higher road.
Peace is not the norm
One of the problems is that people tend to believe that violence is an aberration. It is not. The violence norm is equal to or greater than the peace norm on the continuum of what is normal.
The easy part for me is to try to assign humans their peaceful side. Therefore, I do not think that “all we had was violence.” Nothing is that unilateral without some opposing parts. Neither do I think we have cavemen remnants of violence. Violence is pervasive throughout this species and our cultures and the US of A is the leader of the pack.
Violence inundates of media, armaments is the number one corporate interest here and abroad, all religions on Earth have been, in human memory and is now embattled, with no lasting peace in sight.
On the whole, we are a predatory species who, at its worst, prey on our own kind that’s unmatched with our fellow animals. We not only cannibalize ourselves but we also wantonly destroy important habits.
When the US negotiated an ‘unconditional surrender’ it was via two atomic bombs detonated in Japan. We frequently negotiate treaty with violence.
In today’s world, we use torture widely, both known and unknown.
Peace is neither “a higher-level solution,” nor is the “the higher road.”
Peace is not the norm. Peace is an act of desperation to buy some time from the norm, which is violence.
Peace is Everywhere
Everywhere I look I see mostly peaceful things and people going on. My neighbors get along, the town is pretty friendly and helpful, the state does well. Even the cats are getting along today.
All across the country there are people being peaceful right now. They have no inclination or desire for violence. They are the majority, too.
Around the world, there are millions upon millions being peaceful at this very moment. Some are fishing. Some are sitting and talking. Some are doing errands.
Those being violent are in the minority, and are aberrations to the norm. They do get a disproportionate share of attention, and we do have a curiosity about them that the media enjoys feeding. Those stories, too, are out of the ordinary. Look at how “ISIS” tries to outshock people with each new video. A simple beheading will no longer do. The violent may be getting more violent, out of desperation.
News sites filled with stories of people doing not much at all, getting along fine, thank you, would not have many readers. Stories of being peaceful are everyday, ordinary, and common. (“Tell us something new!” says the public.)
By sheer number, the peaceful outnumber the violent. It is a learned behavior, and so it can be taught more widely.
Peace is a byproduct of war, not the other way around.
There’s a Kind of a Hush, All Over the World, Tonight…
I do not know you well enough to know if you are a student of history or even of the last century of current events. You may be right that the majority of sheep are reported as being peaceful, indeed, content with their playthings, perhaps content with their sheer survival. But few if any make decisions of life and death themselves concerning others, and therein lays the delusion.
If it’s true that peace is a learned behavior and can be taught more widely, then we are in worse trouble than any of us can imagine. How many years, how many lives have been lost while the peaceful sheep have been left to their grazing? How many years, centuries, millennia more do we need to undo the perceived view of the unholy but outnumbered violent by the peaceful public?
Peace is a byproduct of war, not the other way around.
The crucifixion analogy and symbology I write of here is where the waters run deep. And the currents are fast and deadly.
The great philosophers
The great philosophers of the 1960’s, the Beatles, became all-knowing and all-powerful with a message of love and peace. They used music to teach.
Thinking of them, how far would they have gotten with the opposite message?
Hate, Hate Me Do
Can’t By Me Guns
Let It Perish
All You Need Is Violence
True, you say, but they also wrote that Happiness is a Warm Gun, and two of the fabs were attacked violently. But those are the aberrations. Violence took out Lennon, and contributed to the demise of Harrison, but we have Ringo and Paul. Two of the apostles are still with us.
All the world is suffering, but there is path from that suffering. And the last century is but a blip in the long lines of history.
There are certainly forces working in the opposite direction. They get more attention, but are not the true spirit of the people. Unfortunately, we grant them special status to guide us (protect us?) and it goes to their heads.
If only there was a way to quickly rid us of them…
“If only there was a way to quickly rid us of them...”
The reason why I placed violence on the “norm continuum” along with “peace” is that violence goes back for generations long before the advent of the Jukrislims with their Abrahamic monotheistic violent slaughter of people who didn’t believe or do as they do (which continues to this very day).
If you use 10,000 years as the start of what we euphemistically call “civilization” – how many generations will it take to “rid us of them?”
I used the Cross” in my article in part because it affects our societies (good and bad) down to this day, but mainly because when it comes to violence they do it better than even the Muslims and has done so for 2,000 thousand years.
I am so sorry, but there is no way to “rid us of them.” No matter what the causes of violence are, it is here to stay. It’s more a question of in what form, how much and for how long (it’s the same for peace).
Therefore violence remains on the “norm continuum” along with peace where I have placed it.
the dot and the line
I think we’re now getting somewhere. Perhaps neither is the norm, it’s a continuum they share.
If we go back even further, to the initial formations of clusters of elements forming cell-like entities, it was very much just those two things. One either floated around peacefully, or engaged in a game of eat or be eaten. Not much else, other than a bit of growing.
As perceived resources become scare, the stakes rise.
Much to think about. : )
Not even Francis can save Christianity
Yes , I think you might have much to think about, although your clarity is established.
I don’t have any unresolved issues in this discussion, however. I do have conclusions and because of that I have no interest in changing anything so much as establishing culpability.
As I wrote in the beginning, “Why anyone should wonder that Americans are such a violent society is beyond me. Most of us grew up in everyday sight of Christian crosses.”
And that connection is firmly established now and for generations past, and unfortunately, the foreseen future. Not even Francis can save Christianity from itself.
White man?
That always bugs me. Jesus is portrayed in most art as a very Northern European looking white guy, often with blond hair and blue eyes. How about portraying him more believably, as a Middle Eastern Jew?
Ch..ch..changes
A long time ago, when Eurail passes were a bargain, I once travelled from Scandinavia to the Middle East. One of the big revelations for me was seeing that the image of Jesus morphed throughout that trip to reflect the ethnicity of the country he was propped up in.
What bugs me the most is that a tremendous amount of people, including those in high positions of power, still have a notion of a being on a throne in the clouds calling shots, and see no problem with that, psychologically speaking.
Belief-dependency, psychologically speaking
That’s why, psychologically speaking, most humans are essentially clinically insane.
Portraying him more believably
Hence, you have the element of racism in the portrayal behind the cross.
Sexism = man on a cross, not a woman.
Violence, is self-evident.
Sexism?
The Jesus of the Bible was a man. Why would anybody put a woman up there?
“gender worship” as “man worship”
Because it’s “gender worship” as “man worship.” It is an artificial elevation of a man as a god. Therefore, human worship of a man-god is an explicit form of sexism.
Moreover, it represents the biblical continuation of “gendercide” that began with Genesis. The greatest holocaust in human societies wasn’t black slavery or the Jews of Germany – it is women.
A sidebar read about the evolution of violence...
http://www.newsweek.com/evolution-made-human-fist-fit-punching-386426
Humans have shorter palms and longer, more agile fingers and flexible thumbs, compared with other primates and apes. But researchers at the University of Utah wanted to understand how this hand composition makes for a more efficient punch.
“The human hand presents a biomechanical paradox. It is critical to most human behaviors: foraging for, preparing and ingesting food; crafting and using tools; building shelter; playing musical instruments; producing art; communicating complex intentions and emotions; and nurturing,” the researchers write in their study. “Yet, the hand is also our most important anatomical weapon, used as a club to threaten, beat and sometimes kill other humans.”