Violence Itself by Paul Nyklicek

I didn’t know much about Charlie Kirk before he was murdered. I had a vague sense that he was politically very conservative but not much else. I was surprised to find out how young he was, married with young children. While I believe that my perspectives on society and humanity are very different from those that he expressed publicly, as a husband and father, I feel awful about his murder. His life was stolen from him, from his family and friends, and from his wife and their children. How he might he have grown as a person? He might have become the next David Duke or the next Adrianne Black. We will never know.  

Unfortunately, tragedy often becomes the pretext for revenge, but that’s not a comfortable word for many. Most prefer euphemisms like “justice” to maintain a veneer of civility and virtue. Nevertheless, in our society the meaning of justice becomes retribution. Someone or some group of people must pay the price for what has happened. The response is to label them as “subhuman” and therefore undeserving of humane treatment. Not surprisingly, this is a process designed to consolidate materialistic power with those who wield it and most crave it.

What emerged from Kirk’s death that is so disturbing is the attempt by some to use it as an unassailable justification for ending any remaining tolerance for legitimate dissent. Kirk’s murder is being attributed to the “radical left.” There are even those who frame the situation as an open “war” between themselves and “the left,” a nebulous group being characterized as “terrorists.” The dehumanization of a portion of our society is now occurring. It’s the new version of “either you’re with us, or you’re with the terrorists.”

Violence itself is the problem. It is the corrupting force that simultaneously over-inflates the human ego and darkens our hearts and minds. It uses humans as both its hosts and its pawns.

So much has been said in recent years about how divided we are as a people and as a nation, and about the political polarization of our time getting more and more extreme. The real division in our society is between those who believe that violence is both an acceptable and appropriate way to solve problems and those who reject that premise. Both groups will contain conservatives, liberals, members of virtually every faith tradition, culture, ethnicity, and profession.

Violence is often an act of revenge. Kirk’s assassination can certainly be seen in this light. The perpetrator seeks to “settle the score” because some grievance has been intolerably neglected. The perpetrator’s fantasy is that violence will make things right again, when the reality is just the opposite.

We must have a more expansive understanding of violence beyond the narrow picture of shooter and victim. We don’t as easily recognize violence as the cause of death that results from healthcare insurance denials, or the opioid crisis, or the suicide epidemic amongst veterans and active military personnel. Poverty and illiteracy are similarly not typically understood as forms of violence. Racism, sexism, and pollution of the biosphere are forms of violence that all too often escape recognition. Yet all of these are examples of actions that significantly violate the natural integrity of an individual or a social group.

We are embedded in a matrix characterized by a belief in materialistic separateness. This is our briar patch. In this framework, reality consists only of atoms and molecules interacting with electromagnetic radiation. Life exists only as a consequence of physics and chemistry. Reality is merely a collection of things, including us. In this particular matrix, every living person is just a random creation, and we are all fundamentally separate from each other.

Our politics and our economy are manifestations of this paradigm. It’s our survival-of-the-fittest, winner-take-all way of life where profit and property are valued over human life and dignity. It’s our kill-or-be-killed world. Many benefit from this system, but a great many more suffer from it.

When considered in these terms, it becomes clear that any alternative to this system of materialistic separateness will be met with hostile opposition by those who most enjoy its benefits and privileges. This faction has been identified as the ruling class, the 1 percent, the oligarchy, the elite, and so on. They erroneously believe that any movement toward functional equality and cooperation is synonymous with losing. Believing that losing is shameful, they fight very hard to maintain the status quo that keeps their advantage intact and their shame at a safe distance.

Violence can be viewed metaphorically as a parasite. This parasite is as invisible as the wind; and, like the wind, it has the capacity to cause highly visible destruction and great suffering. All parasites feed on other living things, and parasitic violence feeds on the suffering and fears of human beings. It also creates the very conditions in us that produce its food. It dangles the hope of justice, relief, and safety like someone tempting a child with candy just before the abduction. We take the bait and become its prisoner.

How we can stop being such hospitable hosts to this parasite that keeps gorging itself on our pain and fear? It keeps fooling us into believing that if we participate in enough death, destruction, and domination we will finally be able to escape the briar patch we’re trapped in.

Since parasitic violence feeds on pain and fear, we need to cultivate the opposite conditions within ourselves and in our relationships with each other. We have been given practical instructions on how to accomplish this. We’ve been directed to love our enemies. We have been told that the truth will set us free. We are to be compassionate and merciful. We are called to cultivate lovingkindness toward ourselves and everyone else. 

The human ego, with its limited vision, thinks that these instructions are naive, unrealistic, or just plain crazy. Like someone who believes that the world is flat, the ego thinks that following such instructions is tantamount to running off a cliff. It scoffs and laughs at these instructions because it is afraid, and it is afraid because its vision is so limited. Much humility and perseverance is required to see clearly with our hearts that which our myopic egos cannot.

In order to accept the truth of who we are and our profound connectedness to each other, we must begin to actively reject what is not true. We must reject the idea that we are locked into competition with each other for scarce resources. We must reject the notion that planet Earth is owned by human beings who can use it as they please. The truth is that there’s enough here for everyone, and we can cooperate effectively so that our actual needs will be met. The truth is that we are all guests privileged to live in such an amazing and beautiful world. The truth is that we have the freedom to choose a courageous and compassionate love that heals us and makes us whole again.

This is our way out of the briar patch. ♦

Paul Nyklicek is a husband and a father. He works in Farmington, Connecticut, as a psychotherapist and is an associate member of Veterans for Peace.

Image: Alex Noriega / Unsplash