Stop the Killing

Violence lives in all of us, no matter our background or upbringing. If you’re human, you have a violent nature informed by your DNA. The growth of civilization has sprung from the intelligent management of these emotion-driven strategies of destruction. When cornered, stressed, frightened, angered, confused….all healthy humans will consider violence as a survival strategy. It doesn’t mean that violence will be our choice.  Often it is the least wise choice.  This “cave man” defensive reactivity is a vestige…a hold-over from a darker, more desperate time in the world. When dinosaurs roamed the earth, the need to meet violence with superior violence was prevalent and useful. Survival-mode living was a full time job.  It isn’t any longer, but long ago, weapons of war and destruction were essential to have on hand and practice using. There were great geographic distances between families and then tribes. Radical self-reliance, war-like tribal alliances and a readiness to destroy predators including humans were necessary elements of this early lifestyle.  Surely, there are fewer and fewer among us who still believe these threats still exist?

Our changing planet

We live in a different time.  Our planet gets exponentially smaller every day with the rapid pace of information exchange and the exploding growth of populations.  Geographic distances no longer matter as much. We stand, literally, shoulder to shoulder with others on the earth, many of whom hold vastly different beliefs, thoughts and feelings, especially about survival and violence.  We truly live in a time where our human inter-connectedness is no longer disputable.  Fear is a natural response to this kind of crowding, as those who have less are left wondering if they will ultimately be overpowered and destroyed.  And as those who have the most grow mistrustful and wonder if their way of life will be threatened.  Fear is a vulnerable state.  When scared, we fold our fear beneath our anger.  Men, especially Western men are taught to deny their fear.  Lashing out with hostility feels empowering and serves to deny our fear and helplessness.

Dialogue

Killing people and breaking things shuts down communication.  It is the definition of war.  It is a one-way journey all too often taken by those in our margins seeking to be heard, validated, understood, accepted.  A journey that so often these days results in an explosion of emotion: tragedy and great sorrow.  Baton Rouge.  Dallas.  Columbine.  Charleston.  A most intelligent response came recently during a nationally televised forum.  It came from a president who insisted that dialogue was more essential than it’s ever been….that there are still wide discrepancies in how classes of people are treated based on race and ethnicity.   In a small crowded room, or on a small crowded planet, the noise levels will rise when fear is prevalent.  And then anger will ensue.  Let us pray fervently that our global response to that anger will ever more frequently be dialogue and shared understanding.