Reflection Paper #1: Violent Food for Thought
What I know now of violence is merely through personal experience, research, courses that have touched based on the concept, and the few ideas we have discussed so far in this course. In just a few short weeks, I have come to understand violence as a more complex issue. These are my strung together thoughts with the bits and pieces of information I have so far.
I would argue that violence has a simplistic and non-extensive dictionary definition in order to serve the greater authority. However, who is the state to ultimately decide what an individual should deem as violent on a personal account — why should some other authority deem an action as violent or not — is it based on the amount of harm done? How can they speculate what kind of harm is done if it is purely psychological? What if a person does not feel something is violent — why should the state have the authority to deem it as so.
In my opinion, violence instills fear onto another person. If a person is fearful of your actions or potential actions, then those actions must be considered violent. However, even if it is considered violent, the state may not reflect your views of violence and thus ignore the harm done to you. Again, the state ultimately decides, and that is more or less, personal opinion.
Violence can occur unintentionally. Detonating a bomb, that results in the deaths of tens or hundreds of people, whether accidental or not, the consequences of that action are still violent.
With narrow definitions of violence — an individual may not know they are engaging in violence when committing an act, or an individual may not know a violent act has been committed against them — therefor, do we opt for a wide definition rather than a narrow one? A wide definition of violence consequently leaves violence open to interpretation, however a narrow definition excludes many aspects of violence. Where do we find balance? I know this question is not simple to answer, and may never be answered, but after engaging in class discussion about wide and narrow definitions of violence, it seems to be a reoccurring thought I have in relation to violence.
Is violence merely a conflict between two individuals? If not, what other aspects must be included for an act to be considered violent? Why is the depiction of violence in media accepted, but when an individual engages in violent behaviour they are shamed? When both the depiction of violence, and a violent act can potentially be harmful to and individual? Ever heard of the learning theory? Where behaviours are learned through exposure? Through news and other media related outlets we are constantly exposed and desensitized to violence.
Violence is a continuum, and violence as a child will likely result in violence as an adult. It is more true than not that children who grow up in violent households tend to be violent as adults. This brings us to the cause and effect argument. Are the causes to blame for violent behaviour, or do we just consider the fact that violence happened and the individual who committed it is to blame?
However, children exposed to violence do not always grow up to be violent, and I question, if violence is in human nature then why are some people so easily personally driven and controlled by violence and others have it under control?
Every living thing can be a victim of violence — but on different levels. For example — to squash a bug or shoot a cow causing instant death for consumption purposes is not a high level of violence, as we have to draw the line somewhere and consider that there is a food chain. However someone torturing bugs or animals is exhibiting a higher level of violent behaviour. Although torturing bugs is not deserving of a prison sentence, but definitely deserving of some kind of mental health intervention. Considering this, violence can be thought of as a scale.
By taking this course, my goal isn’t to simply find a distinct simplistic definition of violence, but to critically think and engage about how it can be defined differently to many people. The definition we have of violence has a lot of potentiality and room for improvement. I would like to understand the complication of this topic of violence and I assume I will have a more comprehensive, coherent, well-organized idea of violence by the end of this course.
