Reasons for violence

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 anger and violence. Violence is ritualised in play, in religious symbols and in art. Children can explore violence in games of make believe and in stories. Competitive games, too, provide safe structures for competing and expressing anger and frustration.

Finally, societies develop regulations that penalise violence and prevent people from dismantling the inhibitions against violent self-expression. So in times of interracial tension, the gathering of mobs will be controlled. Extremely violent videos and films are restricted.

These reflections suggest that in order to deal with violence we should first ask how it is encouraged and discouraged in our culture. The broad answer is encouraging. There is general agreement that the individual's body is inviolable.

But some aspects of our culture, and particularly the priority given to commercial gain, weaken the inhibitions against violence. It puts a high priority on individual choice and privileges the desire for consumer goods.

The emphasis on what can be bought leaves little space for higher goods. It also marginalises those deprived of stable upbringing and education. They can rarely attain these goods. The emphasis on competition further alienates those without the resources to compete.

The result is a high level of frustration and a thinning of the hedges that protect us against violence.

The commercialisation of play and popular art also hinders their use as a catalyst for exploring violence and anger. Indeed they often celebrate violence. Elite sport emphasises competition, massive financial rewards and the view that losing is shameful. In junior sport frustration will naturally express itself in violence.

In many television shows and films the appropriate response to violence is seen as further violence. Tabloids and shock jocks focus on violence, demanding the punishment and humiliation of wrongdoers. All this is commercially profitable. But it diminishes the sense that perpetrators and victims of violence share a common humanity and make it more likely that the violence they condemn will be perpetuated.

The approach to alcohol in society expresses the same priority given to individual choice and commercial values. Alcohol clearly reduces inhibitions to violence, and so makes it more likely. But the right of the individual to drink as they please and the economic profit to be made from selling alcohol make effective regulation impossible.

So we return to the remedy of more intensive policing. It makes as little sense as it would to distribute matches to children on a north wind day and then call for more firefighters to extinguish the blazes.

Violence does raise large questions about what we value in society and whether those values promote a non-violent society. In Australia there is a large conversation to be had.