Violence is much in the news. Stabbings, bashings and glassings are recorded and deplored. And now the violent video game Left 4 Dead 2 has been banned. Premiers, columnists and correspondents all deplore violence and propose remedies. In such a heated atmosphere, it may be worthwhile to reflect more broadly on violence and on the strategies which societies, including our own, develop in order to deal with it.
Violence goes with being human. It may be avoidable, but it is not likely to be avoided. So in the Bible murder is one of the first human actions described.
The raw materials of violence are simple, although the way in which they come together are complex. Frustrated desire, usually detonated by anger, expresses itself in violence. A child wants food, and on being refused by parent or thwarted by her brother who competes for it, lashes out in anger. States want another nation's territory, and when frustrated go coldly to war.
Here the desires are simple and the frustration direct. But children may be raised in brutal families, their desire for love and respect continually frustrated. Their accumulated anger may lead them to displaced violence against strangers.
Because unrestricted anger and violence will destroy a society, all cultures develop and communicate ways of addressing desires and of responding to anger and frustration. They usually commend to their young a response to life in which the natural inclination to violence is understood and inhibited.
Most cultures propose a view of human life in which desires for immediate things like pleasure and possessions are weighed against higher desires, whether for conversation, beauty, harmony, love, knowledge or for God. A bored child who demands to go home from an extended family dinner will learn that relationships with family outweigh his desire. So we learn what really matters, and are able to bear frustration of our less deep desires.
Many cultures encourage us to place a high value on other human beings. They are not simply obstacles to our desires, but people like ourselves. They deserve respect. We learn this as children by the way in which we are required to address other people, to greet them, negotiate our conflicting desires and handle our angers. Other people are not primarily competitors but people who make a claim on us. Our relationships shape who we are.
Cultures also develop ways of reflecting on