Viciously attacking another person with no regard for their life when they haven’t attacked you.

Killing another human being.

Killing a race or large group of people.

At first read, these most likely look like all horrible acts to most of you.  For the rest of you, you are what are known as a psychopath or sociopath….or you know where I’m going with this article. So, let’s add context to these seemingly horrific acts of human nature.

Viciously attacking another person with no regard for their life when they haven’t attacked you:

  • The person viciously attacking another is doing so because they want to steal your money or other items.
  • A parent see’s her child being abducted or attacked by an adult stranger that has bad intentions.

Killing another human being:

  • A murderer killing another human being over a verbal argument.
  • A home owner shoots and kills an armed intruder who clearly had intent to kill.

Killing a race or large group of people:

  • Committing genocide because they don’t believe that race or group of people are equal or deserving of life.
  • Killing a group of people that you are at war with to secure freedom and protect your country.

All of these scenarios are considered violent.  But the first scenario is considered bad while the second good or necessary.  Yet when society speaks of violence, it always seems to be in a negative view, as if the second scenario’s listed above aren’t violent.  I assure you, they most definitely are.  Our society tells everyone that we need to eliminate violent behavior and that all violence is evil.  I know a lot of people don’t want to hear this, or don’t want it to be true, but to eradicate violence, is to eradicate ourselves.  We are a viciously, violent species and it was, and to an extent, still is, necessary.  Without it our species would never have survived, nor our country (or any country for that matter) survive and flourish.  It’s in our nature, every one of us, to be violent.  I don’t care how peaceful you think you are, it resides in you.  Don’t believe me?  Let me give you a quick overview of an experiment that was conducted back in 1971 by Philip Zimbardo.

Zimbardo conducted the Stanford prison study in which 24 clinically sane volunteers were randomly assigned to be “prisoners” or “guards” in a two week mock prison scenario.  This study into prison life was cut short after just six days due to violent behavior and emotional trauma.  The volunteers knew they were being used in a study, but they did not know when the study was to begin or what role they would play in the scenario.  Half of the participants were suddenly arrested one morning and put into prison.  The participants that were assigned as guards were allowed to do whatever they felt was necessary to maintain order in the prison.  This free reign of authority quickly spiraled out of control as did the erratic behavior by the prisoners who were unfairly stripped of their freedoms.  Both the guards and the prisoners were noted as exhibiting “sadistic” behavior during the experiment.  As the experiment was halted as emotional trauma set in and physical violence was shown to be the next step.  Remember, these were proven clinically “sane” and average individuals that were participating!

While this study shows how even good people can do “evil” things, which Zimbardo stated as “The Lucifer Effect”, there is something more important here.  Zimbardo also concluded that people can do violent things due to situational influences and power given from authority.  He also stated that, “They can also be led to act in irrational, stupid, self-destructive, antisocial, and mindless ways when they are immersed in “total situations” that impact human nature in ways that challenge our sense of stability and consistency of individual personality, of character, and of morality“.  Essentially, we’re all capable of violent acts, but it’s not violence that is bad, it’s our intentions, situations and what society deems “bad” that makes our violent nature either “good” or “bad”.  This also means we can control our violent behavior.  “The power is in the system.  The system creates the situation that corrupts the individual.  The system is the legal, political, economic, cultural background.”  … “If you want to change the person, you have to change the situation, if you want to change the situation, you have to know where the power is in the system.”  – Philip Zimbardo

The best way to understand ourselves and our natural tendencies and emotions is to study our history and human nature throughout evolution and why we’ve become who we are.  Take away violence from the human species at any point in history and we don’t exist, we become extinct immediately.  We have, however, become more peaceful as a society compared to our history, but that is due to the lack of need of violence in everyday use.  But that doesn’t mean that part of us suddenly disappears or even diminishes, it’s still there, and it must still come out.  Also understand that it is due to our violent nature that we have a more peaceful world now than ever before in our history.  Our military is a big part of this reason.  They are trained to tap into that violence and use it in a way that the rest of us don’t want to or are afraid of.  Yet at the same time our society looks down upon them when they return home and tells them their violent ways are wrong and we begin to punish them for being one of the few that understand the need for our violent nature and for being trained to use it.  I’m not saying we need to allow violence to occur here at home because they deserve it, once again, I’m saying we need to teach them, and our society, how to control it when it’s not needed.  We fail miserably at this.

So how do we control our violence?  In my opinion, the same way we control our emotions.  We’re told not to hold in our emotions, but to let them out in a proper manner.  Yet we are told to never let out our violent nature.  How is this any different?  Holding it in only leads to frustration and it always finds its way out…but without your control or desire to let it out.  The violent nature we hold in will be pent up and find a way out, and usually it’s not in the good way.  While I’m sure there are numerous ways of getting this violence out, such as art, writing, and physical exercise, I’m a firm believer that martial arts training is the best format if done correctly.  Emphasis on the words, “done correctly”.  Not done correctly and we are just providing tools of destruction to an already untamed beast.  While I’m an advocate of protecting our children from viewing or experiencing violent acts, in particular the “bad” kind, this alone is not enough to control our violent nature.  Simply protecting or ignoring it will not keep it from happening.  I speak with my youth student’s everyday about their actions and go to great lengths to control these spurts of uncontrolled violent actions, whether it be yelling in anger, shutting down and separating themselves from others or physical actions such as pushing or striking another out of anger or retaliation.  Even the best students have moments of “acting out” in a bad way as they simply don’t know how to control it otherwise.  The physical training MUST be accompanied by the mental training of understanding of oneself and others in order to control our violent nature.

Yes, times change and society and our rules and our thoughts on what’s morally correct change, but our physical being hasn’t changed at the same pace.  Even if we find peace throughout the entire world in the next 100 hundred years, our violent nature will still remain.  It could take hundreds of thousands of years to evolve out of something like that.  So until that time comes, embrace your violent nature as a gift that has helped you survive, and train it properly so it never goes beyond your control and destroys you or those around you.  Only through violence have we found peace in our history.  It may not be what we want or what we are proud of, but it is what it is, and we must understand it better than we do now to progress towards further peace.