Hi Ashley,

Interesting thoughts! I’m inclined to disagree with you — I don’t believe that violence is good OR bad. I think it’s entirely bad. As you mention, it’s perpetuated in media through a variety of means, allowing us to become desensitized to the actual physical, mental and emotional effects it imposes upon victims. I come from a more ‘all or nothing’ mindset, like Ghandi, who claims total nonviolence is the only longstanding and functional response to a world full of hate and suffering.

In his Nobel lecture, Martin Luther King Jr. notes “in spite of [these] spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance.” I think MLK is right, and violence contributes to furthering the ‘poverty of the spirit’ because it does not respect the intrinsic connection all humans have to one another. We are ‘connected’ by email, cell phones, etc., but we have covered up the bond of being humans on this Earth. We have allowed racial, national, cultural borders to define an exaggerated border between us, rather than viewing a shared humanity as a bonding opportunity.

Violence can’t solve anything, I think, and it requires a discipline and intelligence to move past physical imposition of our emotions to instead voice our concerns calmly. Words are a better weapon than fists! Words last centuries.

Thanks for a thought provoking read.