Love Leads

I believe that, deep within, each of us inherently knows love is a meaningful and valuable virtue. I say this, despite the evidence that there seems to be an abundance of loathsome and dreadful behavior taking place on the part of humans, all over the world. The propensity for the media—as well as every one of us—is to put an inordinate amount of attention to the harmful things we humans do, rather than to our caring and helpful side. Negative press (or gossip about a neighbor) is noticed far more than positive press.

I do not think that our species would have survived to this point, had not love been a natural instinct of ours. Every one of us desires to experience love and willingly offers it, particularly in positive and healthy relationships. Similarly, we inherently prefer peace to violence—given the choice. I am convinced that only confused, fearful, and deluded people commit violence and act with hatred. People who are happy and fulfilled to not do these despicable things.

As a result of what I believe to be that innate potential to lean toward love and peace, we have established communities and religions that emphasize these virtues. At the core of every legitimate religion is the conviction that peace and love are vital virtues. These values have for millennia provided sustenance and moral support, which have helped their adherents to thrive and survive. No rightful religion teaches hatred and violence.

So why, one might reasonably ask, is there so much suffering and evil going on in the world? Why do the media feature so much of what seems to be bad behavior? Why do some supposed followers of various religions commit such atrocious actions against believers of other religions? I have no definitive answers to provide. These are perennial questions that philosophers, sociologists, civil authorities, and theologians have pondered and debated for eons.

The human record is not a pretty one. Aside from the media's fixation on violence, we have engaged in countless wars and destroyed so many of the structures, societies, and institutions that were lovingly and beneficially created. Our negative attributes have so often seemed to overshadow our positive attributes.

It appears to me that what's going on is that something gets in the way of our acting upon what I consider to be our natural and beneficial instincts. What might that be? I believe that fear is the primary barrier to wholesome behavior. Those in power—who wish to maintain their grip on power—find it useful for them to sow fear, which is an emotion that is often augmented by anger, selfishness, ego, and laziness.

It is a ceaseless struggle that we humans seemed doomed to face. Do we go to the dark side—fear, anger, hatred—or do we encourage our inspired and instinctive side? The jury seems to be currently deliberating on the opposing faces of humanity.

A Problem with Pinker—Part 2

Last time I described my disagreement with Pinker's proposal about the decrease of violence in society, and how Johan Galtung helped me to see why I objected to Pinker's proposal. Galtung is well-known for describing three forms of violence—as well as their alternative forms of peace. The forms of violence are:

1. Personal or direct violence—in which the violence is perpetrated by an actor, upon another person. This is the type of violence that usually comes to mind when we think of physical force or brutality. Examples are killing, murder, and physical assaults such as battery, bullying, and rape. Direct violence is the kind that Pinker primarily addresses in Better Angels.

2. Structural or indirect violence—in which there is no specific actor but occurs because it is built into the structure of a society. This form of violence prevents people from achieving their full potential, often through laws and institutions. It results in inequalities of both power and income—exhibited in racism, misogyny, and homophobia. Structural violence can be as deadly as personal violence, but it is usually not as obvious, because it's part of our social and political world. It often even insidiously seems to be normal or acceptable to many people.

3. Cultural violence—which is the beliefs and behaviors of a culture that undergird and perpetuate the other two forms of violence; especially structural violence. Cultural violence can even cause people to view the first two forms of violence as permissible. It warps morals to the point that personal and structural violence are sometimes not even seen as violent.

Galtung went on to describe three kinds of peace that oppose these three forms of violence. Direct peace is, of course, the absence of killing, bullying, and rape. Structural peace gives us a vision that violence can be eliminated, when we discover pockets of equality here and there. And finally, cultural peace can come about when we promote conflict resolution and change society's beliefs and behaviors. Ideals of cultural peace can be found in various documents and proclamations written by nations and organizations—although they too often remain lofty intentions recorded in praiseworthy documents, rather than seen in practice.

I believe that Galtung has helped me to clarify my objections to Pinker's thesis that the human world has experienced gradual and significant reductions in violence, and thus we should feel good about where we are and where we're headed. Indeed, personal and direct violence can be shown to be on the decline, as his prodigious statistics demonstrate. He shows that violence perpetrated by an actor upon another person—whether murder or mass war—has indeed been significantly reduced.

Yet I feel that both structural and cultural violence remain a major factor in society. They may not account for large body counts, but they sure cause much misery. And as Galtung points out, these types of violence are not nearly as obvious; they too often can become accepted as normal or even tolerable—they are almost invisible to many people, who have come to see them as either inevitable or natural.

In the last few years we have seen a large increase in intolerance. Polarization and social media feed the problem. It has become acceptable to attack others online and even in confrontational public displays of contentiousness and fanaticism. We have a president in the US—as well as an increasing number of autocrats around the world—who proclaim and tweet polemical accusations. Their actions embolden prejudice and bigotry. These are not Pinker's direct forms of violence, but the cultural and structural types of vehemence and savagery they exhibit often promote and condone direct violence.

While Pinker casts his glance over centuries of human conflict, I am addressing here current events. It may turn out that we are witnessing a temporary spike in structural and cultural violence and that soon things will calm down and continue inexorably toward peaceful times, when our “better angels” wield their beneficial influence. Maybe so. I hope so, but I still think Pinker is missing the terrible impact of the less conspicuous forms of structural and cultural violence.

A Problem with Pinker—Part 1

About seven years ago Steven Pinker—a prolific thinker, author, and psychology professor at Harvard—wrote a book that has received much attention: The Better Angels of Our Nature. Pinker's main thesis is that, while many of us feel violence is pervasive in today's world, we are in fact living at a time when violence has been significantly reduced. The world today is safer and much less threatening than ever before in human existence. Yes, there are many people being subjected to violence and dying today, but Pinker argues that proportionately speaking, the extermination rate of people is far less in today's societies. We are all safer.

My first reaction to Pinker's thesis was skepticism. How could he propose that violence is on the decline when it seems that the opposite is true? Aren't we being exposed constantly to myriad examples from the media of the savagery of human culture? Aren't we repeatedly reminded of the threat of terrorism, as we shudder at the latest brutal attack on innocent people? No, Professor Pinker, the world is growing worse, not better! How can you justify your stance?

The response to his book was very diverse—with some writers expressing agreement (“Thanks for pointing out the truth, professor.”), and others jumping up in fierce opposition. I favored the latter reaction, but also had to acknowledge the validity of many of his central theses. After all, Pinker is known for his exhaustive research. After reading the book, over the next few years I continued to feel of two minds—most of me disagreeing, but the rest of me arguing to hold back on my judgment, as I read additional reviews and reactions that agreed with him or took issue with his stance.

Over time I came to feel that my disagreement might be centered on how differently Pinker and I define violence. Violence is a very broad concept. One person's violence is another's harmless forcefulness, or even tough love. One person's violence can be life-denying and destructive, but another's acceptable behavior towards others.

So let's take a step back and look at the definition of violence. My Oxford American dictionary describes it as “behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone.” As I pondered that definition, I came to see that my opposition to Pinker was not about the level of violence in today's society or where it might be going, but about how he defined violence. He was primarily concerned with killing, with the kind of violence that results in the death of another—such as in a war and various forms of homicide. Yes, the proportion of killings has been dramatically reduced—especially in the wake of two world wars and the implementation of smarter policing programs—but has violence really been curtailed and thus can we conclude that we are on the path toward a kinder and more benevolent future, as we rise to our better angelic actions? I continued to balk at accepting Pinker's thesis, and I recently came to an understanding that my disagreement is because of my different view of what violence is.

It helped me to clarify my feelings when a few months ago I came upon Johan Galtung's definition of three forms of violence. Galtung is a Norwegian sociologist who has written extensively on peace and conflict. He founded the Peace Research Institute in Oslo in 1959 and has held professorships at numerous universities all over the world.

More on Galtung's ideas next time...