Violence breeds Violence
Psychoanalytic thought tells us that abuse and trauma are damaging to the psyche, and to a person’s development. In simple language, we often say that an abused person “has problems.” It is often considered that an abuser was him or herself, abused. Here’s Alice Miller:
“It is very difficult for people to believe the simple fact that every persecutor was once a victim. Yet it should be very obvious that someone who was allowed to feel free and strong from childhood does not have the need to humiliate another person. “
Therefore we are often baffled when some person commits acts of violence, and we often note that no abuse or violence was committed against the offender. This situation brings up theories of video game violence and TV/movie violence, or genetic predisposition etc., but I think the explanation is much simpler.
Punishment, a staple of civilization, a common practice in nearly all societies used to encourage acceptable, moral, and responsible behavior – is violence.
We've almost all been subjected to it as children, and some of us as adults. Although not all have had physical violent abuse in their childhoods, the exercise of punishment, in any form, can be shown to be a form of abuse. The theory of punishment makes the exercise of punishment necessarily, let's say, unpleasant. What is the "Theory of Punishment," then?
Simply put, it is the idea that to discourage unwanted behavior, parents and authority figures somehow make things unpleasant for the person or child engaging in the unwanted behavior. Fair definition?
This unpleasantness can take many forms. Violence, certainly is the most obvious, and is for many people in these times, perceived as wrong. Most of us rightly perceive that violence is one of the wrongs that they are hoping to correct, rather than a legitimate tool of correction. There are also many others: the removal of a desired object, temporary restriction of the child or person's freedom to go about as they wish, or a display of disapproval, which may include the threat of violence, or the suspension of affection (withdrawal of love) from a parent for a child.
The success of the use of punishment depends on the subject’s knowledge that the unpleasantness is coming, so that he or she may alter their actions to avoid the consequence. Therefore, there must be a warning, an explanation of the process, “you do this, you get that.” The explanation, and/or simple repetition connect the behavior to the punishment, and the person or child learns to change their ways, and so the child or person's behavior is improved, hopefully in the long term. Again, fair definition?
I think what we see in many cases, however, is the dark side of the equation.
Often noted, but rarely appreciated, is the following: many methods of corrective punishments, indeed, all of them, qualify as crimes if used upon undeserving adults! Acts such as theft, assault, battery, intimidation and confinement, this is what these acts are called, when perpetrated by private citizens, upon adults, or upon children but when not spoken of as "corrective" or "educational." These acts, the punishments and the crimes, often appear identical. In fact, to the person on the receiving end, it’s often only the explanation associated with punishments which differentiates the act at all.For the punishers, it seems the difference is in the intent. More on this later.
This brings me to define two types of violence, the “authorized” and the illicit, or “unauthorized.” Illegal, unauthorized violence is fairly self-explanatory, the kind the police are there to stop, the kind that gets you put in jail. The authorized kind is the kind the police and the courts deal in themselves, the kind parents and authorized adults are routinely permitted to do to children – punishment, in a word.
"Violence breeds Violence" is a widely accepted psychological tenet –but a truism whether the violence is of the unauthorized variety or not. The idea holds true either way. Here's a sort of "truth table" for it:
1. Unauthorized violence breeds unauthorized violence
- how everyone understands the expression now, criminally abused people growing up to be violent criminals.
2. Unauthorized violence breeds authorized violence
- like a criminally abused child growing up to be a prison guard, a policeman, a prosecutor, a soldier, or simply a "normally" punishing parent.
3. Authorized violence breeds unauthorized violence
- like a "normally" punished child, or someone who’s paid a debt to society in jail or prison, becoming a violent criminal.
4. Authorized violence breeds authorized violence
- like an ex-convict becoming a policeman, a soldier, etc., or simply the repetition of "normal" punishment by successive generations of parents.
Psychology has put forth the idea that abuse and trauma are damaging to people, particularly developing people, that is children. I think this broad idea is largely accepted among the majority, at least in the western world. There is a lot of material about it, and types of abuse and its effects are many and well documented.
So, if we're being scientific about it, on the theory that ‘action speaks louder than words,’ we would think it's the acts that hurt, the acts that cause any damage (emotional, physical, psychological) to victims, irrespective of the name given to the acts. So, authorized violence would be as damaging to people, and by extension, to society in general, as the illegal kind of violence, modified of course where there is a difference in a matter of degree, or of frequency.
It is probably true to say that the degree of violence in cases of the unauthorized kind, is higher, but it would also be true, and quite significant, to realize that the frequency of the authorized type of violence, especially in child-rearing situations, is also higher. I hope to make this clearer later.
That's all for today. Anybody still with me this far?
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