A Violent Reflection
Humans are physical beings. Before the human species developed the ability to think abstractly our existence was primarily physical. Early humans hunted other animals, ripped edible vegetation from the ground and killed anything that appeared threatening. Physicality was, and continues to be, basic to human survival, but is violence?
The part of our brain known as the amygdala processes the various emotional responses we experience as human beings, which includes our fight or flight response in times of danger or stress. Considering this, I think that violence is a choice. A choice that can be made consciously or unconsciously, but a choice nonetheless. In life-threatening situations when we lose the capacity to think rationally, our bodies takes over for us and decide if we will fight or run for our lives. Alternately, if we find ourselves faced with a frustrating scenario we make the choice to tackle the problem or to give up. Violence is a choice similar to many of the others we make on a daily basis. People are not born violent, instead they become violent people based on the kinds of choices they make throughout their lives. It is our actions and decisions that dictate where our lives will go and what kind of people we become. A person born from two violent people can make non-violent decisions and be a non-violent person, and vice versa. Violence is not a black and white concept as some may believe; it is a very grey area that a person cannot just simply choose a side of.
Violence is a spectrum ranging from mass murder to flicking a lady bug off of a table. And that’s just considering violence from a physical perspective. I think that every person on Earth has made or will make a decision leading to some act of violence. So I think it is impossible for someone to take the righteous path of complete non-violence. Instead, I believe it is much more beneficial to look at it in grey and use that to decide whether or not one wants more white or more black in his/her life.
Although I do look at violence as a spectrum of grey, it is important to note that my perspective of violence may be affected by a slight bias. I come from a family with a deep love for contact sports. My father and a number of my uncles were avid amateur boxers in Ireland and Canada. My uncle Walter continued with the sport professionally, becoming the first Canadian athlete to win a medal at the PanAm Games and fighting in two Olympic Games. His passion for the sport rubbed off on me and my brother who took up boxing and kickboxing respectively. In addition to boxing, I grew up experiencing hockey, rugby and various martial arts. While I do not condone the act of criminal violence I believe that participation in sports or exercises that are deemed “violent” can be an excellent stress reliever. After all, is it not better to punch a heavy bag when one feels stressed than to punch a wall or another person?
A number of people feel that participation in a sport like boxing makes the athlete more violent out of the ring, but I completely disagree with this idea. Boxing gives athletes quicker reflexes, not quicker tempers. Contrary to popular belief boxers do not live to bash other people’s heads in. Boxing happens in a controlled environment with a referee, a judge and a medical team on standby just in case. Although it’s possible to win by knocking out your opponent, the victor is usually decided by who can avoid the most hits and who can stay on their feet when the hits can’t be avoided. Boxing is about agility, precision, strength, and speed; it is not about brutality, rage, or sadism.
Boxing and other contact sports are just another point of grey on the spectrum of violence, but where does that point sit on the spectrum? Exactly how long is this spectrum? I know that our generation’s definition of violence is different from the definition of those from the 1800s and I expect that 200 years from now the definition of it will be even more different. Perhaps one day violence will not even exist and it will only be discussed in history class.
