By: Errol A. Gibbs (18/07/2012)
Violence:
Problem or Symptom
Our youths are turning against each
other in a deadly game of gun violence, fuelled by broken homes,
fatherlessness, low self-esteem (low-self
image + low-self worth = low self-esteem), anger, revenge, bravado, greed, disrespect
for the law and human life, and lack of empowerment. They derive feelings of
empowerment through weapons, and for many, a way to (falsely) boost their self-esteem. Nations must place its
‘faith’ and resources in the ‘expediency of law enforcement’ as the principal response
to violence, at the same time, the sum total of human experience teaches that even ‘capital punishment’ (the ultimate
deterrent) cannot mitigate ‘human compulsion’ for greed, hate, or revenge. This
is truly a complex proposition for any justice system.
The violence that we witness in homes, on the streets, or
in schools, is a symptom (terrible as violence is) of deep and underlying
challenges that some youths are ill equipped to manage, likewise some adults.
If we were to incarcerate every youth between the ages of 15 - 21 years; will the problem go away? Certainly
not! Future generations of youths will display similar —and perhaps greater tendencies towards violence, because we
have not mitigated the root causes. Yet, we know by intuition and empirical
evidence that the root cause of youth violence can become more dominant in our
modern society. The modern family is struggling to cope with various forms of
abuse, fatherless homes, one economic onslaught after another, loss of
investments, loss of employment, loss of homes, coping with multiple low income
jobs, and job stress, etc. Some of our youths are trapped in a “concrete
jungle,” and need regular outings to complex manufacturing plants, nuclear and
thermal power plants, power dams, and great architectural monuments to expand his
or her ‘range of vision’ of what is possible. What is more troubling is that we
have come to accept violence on television and in movies on a grand scale. This
is a paradox of our modern age, as we strive to mitigate violence on the
streets.
Our noble efforts by governments, community and religious
organizations can only develop strong roots, when we examine the challenges of
youths in the context of the larger society that establishes the agenda.
Millions of dollars in funding over the past decades to help marginalized
communities may have been too narrowly focused, dispersed and relegated to the
‘periphery’ and not at the deeper underlying issues that underpin youth
violence. There is a need for a deeper dive by community and church
organizations into the depths of the underpinnings of youth violence. What
exactly are those pillars that uphold youth violence? Notwithstanding, this
writer is not inferring that violence is endemic in our society. These sporadic
outbursts by no means define a decline in the civility of our great city of Toronto , Canada
There is also a need for great nobility in the
mobilization of governments and industry to foster the creation of macro-level job sustainable infrastructure
solutions to challenge our youths. My question is: “Is there truly a need for enlightened
nations to construct super-prisons?” Perhaps society ought to be better informed, if violence
begins within the family? This should heighten the burden on the family as a
mitigating element. There is also a need for our great religious, political,
academic, economic, industrial, and intellectual minds to commission a
“different” round table discussion with governments, and business and industry
on the critical issues of youth violence. It would be a sad day for all of us
if enlightened Western nations accept the incarceration of our youths as the
“final option” Rather than stigmatize communities as “at-risk”, perhaps “empowerment zones” or
“zones of excellence” might be more positive. Where are the voices of religion,
the academics, and the intellects of our modern age, I ask?
We also need to determine the right spiritual balance for
disciplining our children (not violently —God
forbid). Lamentably, we are reaping the benefits of some parental neglect, and fear
and trepidation (founded or unfounded) by the expediency of law hence the inadvertent
surrender of parental discipline. Ought we to be surprised by the ‘unbridled’
autonomy by some of our youths, and even children?
On the grand scale, six thousand years of recorded history of
violence, presents a sad human legacy of genocide, wars, slavery, colonization, apartheid,
and general injustice, often to the weakest of God’s creation. Sadly, violence
has become institutionalized, as the response to disagreements by, and among
individuals, nations, and the international community. More importantly, is the
continuation of these atrocities into the twenty–first century, and in various
parts of the world. Violence causes human anxiety, family breakdown, fear,
reciprocal violence, stress, depression, loneliness, and other ills in the
crucible of the twenty–first century.
Nations have demonstrated some capacity to suppress violence using
measures such as: capital punishment; incarceration, and rehabilitation, but
these measures do not reach the ‘root causes’ of violence on the front end. They
are appropriate legal remedies on the back end of the justice system —necessarily so. There are two perspectives on the laws that
govern human behaviour: (1) God’s law that liberates (proactive), and (2) human laws (reactive) — a legal mandate. God’s law can
accomplish what tens of thousands of human laws, and billions of dollars, can
only partially comprehend in the light of the nature of human behaviour. Moral
enlightenment enables human laws that appeal to moral motivation, underpinned
by the immutable law of God. God’s law appeals to higher moral imperatives such as: love, kindness, humility, sharing,
caring, compassion, empathy, mercy, meekness, forgiveness, repentance, moral
persuasion, and moral discipline as well (human laws).
Human
laws are essential, but obedience to human laws largely cultivates compliance,
based on fear of censure or punishment by other human beings, rather than fear
of God as a first imperative for human behavior (Psalm 111:10). Religious and
secular laws are distinctly differentiated by the ‘Separation of Church and State’. These two conflicting states are
essentially problematic, because of incongruence in managing nations.
Whenever violence occurs within
a society, there is a call for greater authority. This call diverts resources
and human capital from other critical investments in five foundations of human
development. When a society makes investments in human development such as: spiritual,
moral, social, intellectual, and physical development, it is better able to aid
secular authority.
Violence threatens the
survival of the human species as World
War III looms in the panorama of our minds, and the labyrinths of our
thoughts and memories of the unmitigated violence of World War I (1914–1918), and World War II (1939 1945). World War II was the
single deadliest conflict the world has experienced, causing many tens of
millions of deaths to both soldiers and civilians alike. Paradoxically, World War I was called the war to end
all wars. Why is modern civilization still standing, transfixed, in our
modern era, without any semblance of a solution to violence?
Errol Gibbs is a former project management and business
consultant; engineering technologist; process designer; project management
analyst; and planning and scheduling engineer/officer. He relinquished his
technical career to research and write about human development from spiritual,
moral, social, intellectual, and physical perspectives. You can reach Errol at
Website: www.ffhdwritersinc.com/Email: info@ffhdwritersinc.com/Tel:
905-875-4956.
No comments:
Post a Comment