Violence by Gilligan - Essay Example

Violence by Gilligan ‘Violence’, defined as the exercise of physical force to usually assault or abuse someone, has become an increasingly painful plague of our societies today. However it will be impossible for any society to overcome its failures until the disparity between the perception and the actuality of the problems is not diminished. It is high time that we, as a global society, realized that our methods for reacting to the increasing violence, not only in our respective cities and countries, but to the international violence of countries against one another, are flawed and need introspection. How do we react to violence or a violent individual or group physically hurting us or other members of our society? Dr. James Gilligan, author of ‘Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes’, using his experience of over 35 years in dealing with prisons and the criminals of violent crimes, explains how instrumental our perceptions and reactions to violence are in eliminating it. The concept of a harmoniously balanced society with ‘no violence’ is a resultant of mutual care and support between the members of that society (Duen Hsi Yen). This emanates from respect for each other, the absence of which internally hollows the structure of a society even though it may be apparently working harmoniously. The effects of this hollowing can be witnessed in the increasing violent crime rates, even in countries with efficient crime control agencies like the FBI and Department of Justice in the U.S. This implies a critical analysis of the different theories of Violence. The earliest theory by the founder of the field of Psychoanalysis, Freud himself, declares that violence is but a natural impulse in all human beings. But the first hand experience of Dr Gilligan with violent criminals reveals the opposite. Violence is caused rather than natural, and society may very well be one of its major causes (Gilligan 235). In his description of the different perceptions of violence and their affects, Gillian identifies three categories of reaction towards violence; pathos, moral plays and understanding violence as tragedy. Pathos meant here as enduring affliction or suffering, is resignation to the violent acts. In this approach, which is the norm in many societies of today, violence is treated as a force beyond control of the victim or the witnesses. No reason is associated with the violent behavior of the assaulter and the problem is dealt with just as a natural calamity is over which we have no human control. This obviously leads to no solution and the victim ends up pitying himself, justifying it by declaring life to be unfair. “The rain falls on the just and unjust alike; bad things--terrible things--happen to good people. The language and lessons of pathos have their place in our lives.” (Gilligan 7) The second category that Gillian talks about, which is often connected to the first in response to violence, is the radical division of the world into ‘good’ and ‘bad’, looking over the complexities of human behavior and condemning the assaulter to punishment for his act of violence. This is a simplification of human complexities into the ready moral categories of ‘good’ and “bad”. (D. J. Gilligan 7) The motivations behind his behavior are presumed to be ‘evil’ and the acts of violence to correct these forces of evil are thought of as heroic. The author gives the example of Captain Ahab of the famous American novel Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Captain Ahab’s pursuit of the whale Moby Dick reflects the approach of our societies to control violence. His conviction of the evil forces being physically embodied by Moby Dick, led him to the belief that killing him would avenge all mankind and restore ‘good’. The perception of violence as a resultant of ‘evil’, termed as ‘morality plays’ by Gillian relates to pathos in that it does not try to understand or identify with the motivations of the assailant, while differing in that it leads to so inflicting some sort of punishment on him. This punishment however does not always have positive results. Gillian himself states in an interview to ABC radio: “…Punishment far from inhibiting violence is actually the most powerful stimulant of violence that weve discovered yet” He relates to examples in which prisoners would repeatedly assault officers in spite of the most sever punishments and claim that the physical pain of the punishments is no greater than their need to reclaim their lost pride (J. Gilligan) and suggests that ‘Guilt-ethics’, which refers to the practice of making the criminal feel remorse for his acts by humiliating him, “merely changes the direction of the violence that shame has generated, it does not prevent the violence in the first place” (D. J. Gilligan 236). Gillian, throughout the rest of the book, and in other works, promotes the approach of treating violence as a ‘tragedy’ for both the victim and the victimizer. Perceiving a violent crime as a result of a deeper cause would better help understand the factors that affect the increasing violence in our societies and help us in countering them. Duen Hsi Yen in ‘Understanding Violence’ signifies the importance of the six interconnected states namely care, duty, shame, anger, rage and violence and the progression of an individual from one end to the other. He also declares that ‘violence is… an act communication’ of the helpless victimizer who himself is subject to injustice and needs help. Similarly Gillian asserts “Understanding violence ultimately requires learning how to translate violent action into words” (62). In order to break through to the root ground which is inciting violent behavior, it is instrumental here to understand the inner conflicts of the human mind and for this the views of the assailants themselves are imperative. Gillian explains the responses of the criminals he studied saying: “Time after time, they would reply "because he disrespected me" or "he disrespected my visitor [or wife, mother, sister, girl-friend, daughter, etc.]." In fact, they used that phrase so often that they abbreviated it into the slang phrase, "He dised me."” (J. Gilligan). The often repeated event a man beating his wife when she points out his failures to fulfill his responsibilities, gives us a clear example of what exactly incites violence. In Gilligan’s words: “I have yet to see a serious act of violence that was not provoked by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed, and that did not represent the attempt to prevent or undo the "loss of face"--no matter how sever the punishment, even if it includes death...” (J. Gilligan) He also conveys that the criminals often reported to be feeling ‘dead from inside’. Mortification, used for humiliation, disgrace, dishonor, literally means ‘to make dead’ in Latin. When an individual is humiliated, his self esteem or self love is damaged and the continuous exposure to such shame in childhood, or by the society, leads to ‘dying of the soul’, leading to a lack of feelings, and general pessimism for people. There are numerous examples of acts of violence provoked by shaming or humiliation, on different levels of the society forming a viscous cycle. Starting from the household where parents might humiliate or abuse their children to societies discriminating groups on the basis of ethnic or economic inequalities, to nations. To eliminate violence from our societies it is essential that Equality, of all forms is established. Quoting Ghandi : “Poverty is the worst violence” as it leads to suppression of individual growth at the hands of constant humiliation at the hands of substandard living conditions. REFERENCES: Cabrero, El. "Like Captain Ahab but not as cool." Goat Rope. 2008. Blog. Gilligan, Dr James. Violence; Our Epidemic and its Causes. 1996. Gilligan, James. Shame, Guilt, and Violence. " Social Research. 70.4 (2003): 1149. , 2003. Print. Professor James Gilligan, Professor Bandy Lee, Professor Pieter Spierenburg. Murder in Mind Natasha Mitchell. 9 April 2011. Audio. Speyrer, John A. "Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and its Causes by James Gilligan." n.d. Document. "Theory of Violence." n.d. Research Assistant. Document. 25 March 2012. Yen, Duen Hsi. "Understanding Violence ." 2000 . Document. Read More