Violence

I'm one of the lucky ones on this planet. Violence tends to be something I read about in the paper rather than experience in daily life. The last time I experienced violence was long ago in high school. Back then, I was a victim. I had an incompetent teacher in gym class who did not have a conscience. There were many hurts that I received because of him. When I was fourteen, I used to consider the possibility of vengeance. In our modern world, vengeance can be easily obtained and does not require any skill, training or even maturity. Vengeance has a point-and-click interface. It is too easy. That is why certain headlines one reads about are not that surprising or uncommon, although they are sad, yes, sad to me, even if I understand more than I want to understand. I did not consider my old gym teacher to have more importance than any other cockroach I might encounter. I didn't step on and crush him, because I did not want to get my shoe dirty. Clean shoes are more important to me than stepping on cockroaches. There will always be cockroaches. One has to live one's life and forge a life that is about more than just cockroaches.

Impulses occur to many people, sometimes primitive impulses. I wonder whether it is so that everyone has thought of killing someone else at some point in time. Maybe that is not true of everyone. I have met many people in my life who seem exceptionally good. I think they have more goodness in them than I do. I am in awe of them and think they are holy, so I want to do things for them. I cannot say that they have ever thought of harming anyone else. I am not sure.

Certainly by listening to the lyrics of popular songs, watching television shows and reading books, it is clear that the thought of doing violence unto others is not uncommon in the general population. Some people lack sufficient impulse control. They would not make good chess players. They do not pause to consider all of the consequences of their actions. What good fortune I have, because I have good impulse control. But not everybody does.

I'm reminded of my good fortune in living a life free of violence whenever I read about the situations in the Middle East or Africa or read about the deeds of desperate criminals. For me, local crime hits home in a way that the conflict in Syria cannot. Where local crime is concerned, I know the city, I know the streets, I may have met some of the victim(s) before, and I may have even heard the sirens or moved my car aside in order to let emergency vehicles pass.

Some people are natural criminals. That is, they were born that way and don't seem very capable of doing anything else. Or maybe they are capable of doing something else, but we have not discovered the secret yet to directing their energies into more productive lines of behavior. It is too much to ask of society, at this point, to expect it to find the perfect answer for everybody. Society has many problems that remain unsolved. Those who create new problems are put away, either in prison or the cemetery. Even if a violent criminal is successful at one or more heists, I would not envy such a person. They are bound to get caught eventually, because law enforcement is the most advanced it has ever been. The money and manpower available to law enforcement in the U.S. is staggering. Any person, whether criminal or not, would have the odds stacked against him at the very outset of any endeavor that aroused the slightest suspicion.

Last night, I thought to myself how lucky I am compared to the criminal I read about in the local newspaper, who has been apprehended and is facing a sentence of well over a hundred years. Yet I suppose even he is luckier than some, because he did not kill or hurt anyone, though not for lack of trying. His was an old-fashioned crime that reminded me of the movies I used to watch in the 1970s. He was in a car chase from the police and fired a gun many times. Fortunately, he missed. But that will be attributed only to his being a poor shot. I don't think that he will get out of prison until he is very old, if ever. I cannot say that I have any sympathy for him, although I do feel pity.

From the documentaries I have watched, it seems to me that the worst thing about prison is not violence, but mere boredom, the monotony and irritation of seeing the same faces, the same clothes, the same building every day, all year around, possibly for life. I think prisoners resort to violence due to boredom. I suppose the only escape from boredom in prison would be found in reading books, if the warden is kind enough to permit well-written books, but it seems many prisoners are not that keen on reading.

Beyond the near-certain prospect of consequences for a crime, there is the even more important philosophical aspect to consider. The thought of harming others is repugnant to anyone with a philosophical viewpoint. I think conscience can prove an even greater consequence than law in such cases, at least for those individuals with a fully functioning conscience. I have met individuals that seemed to lack a conscience, or their conscience, such as it was, seemed tattered and ineffective. That is why I say that some people seem like natural criminals, because they don't really care about the consequences to other people of their actions. They only care about their own welfare. They do not perceive the connectedness between people, the network that joins us all together. Even in the lyrics of some popular songs, especially rap songs, I perceive this viewpoint. I think people who listen to such music are reinforcing a tendency that they were born with. They are trying to reduce the influence of their conscience, because they feel morality is a weakness, rather than a strength, and that to be evil is to be strong. I see the same philosophy, if it can be called a philosophy, and I suppose it can, in Putin, the strongman in Russia. He, too, believes that might is right, and that to be evil is to be strong. I don't think that such a viewpoint merits a response. The rebuttals are self-evident. China is no better. Both China and Russia are case examples of kleptocracies, or government by thieves.