Our culture of violence

For a long time I've been amazed at the level of cruelty humans are able to inflict on each other. From unnecessary teasing and bullying as children,  to road rage as adults and wars as a society, the lack of desire or ability to control ourselves and the intensity of our lashing out continues to astound me.

Being fully aware of the reality that a lack of self-control or a belief violence can be a viable solution is pervasive across ethnic and class lines – I still found myself slammed by the shooting of professors in a faculty meeting on Feb. 12 by another professor.

Colleges – which I thought of as institutions of thoughtful engagement in the pursuit of solutions to the world's problems (OK, so maybe the problem is with my rose-colored glasses on this point) – are places where people are supposedly looking at the bigger picture, sharing ideas, proving or disproving theories and enhancing the whole by providing a better understanding of the parts. So when a professor, a person who by title is supposed to be looking for better ways, begins shooting her peers in a dispute over tenure and the non-renewal of her contract, I'm moved to ask: "What is wrong with us?"

It's not as though our hands have only recently gotten dirty. From the earliest days of humanity, we have been using violence to address our problems, but it seems, especially on an individual to individual basis, to have gotten worse as of late. We seem now to care less about others and not enough about ourselves.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his Nobel Lecture, said: "I am not unmindful of the fact that violence often brings about momentary results. Nations have frequently won their independence in battle. But in spite of temporary victories, violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones. Violence is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding: it seeks to annihilate rather than convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. "

Dr. King was speaking about racial violence, but his statements are no less true about the kind of violence that confronts individuals and communities every day; a violence we seem to be complacent about or accepting outright. When we seek to eliminate instead of understand and convince, we devalue and dehumanize. That leaves us all diminished and each subsequent generation less empowered to improve it. We must work to change it now, before it's too late.

Complete your 2010 Census form when it come to your home in March. Be counted to increase funding for needed community initiatives.  

A luta continua ...

Talibah Chikwendu is the Executive Editor for the AFRO-American Newspapers and a former columnist for the newspaper.