Reflection one

Violence

Many people have classified and defined violence in different ways. To me, violence is anything that causes harm, intentional or not. Peoples actions, words, attitudes, and feelings have the capability to cause harm to others weather they mean it to or not. That could range from people making comments without thinking how it will affect people around them, to people physically harming somebody.

Studying criminology I have read many different perspectives and theories on why people behave violently and most of them have all revolved around a central theme. According to the majority of theorists (Or at least the ones I have read/studied) violence comes from stress and the ability one has to cope with stress. When there is something blocking you from achieving a goal stress is created. For example, if you study really hard for a test and you receive a bad grade you feel upset about it. If said person does not have proper coping capabilities violence is likely to occur. Continuing with the example I just used, normally when you get a bad mark you can tell friends/peers about it or ask the teacher how you can improve your mark in the future. Without those coping strategies you will most likely lash out in a violent way towards your teacher or someone else in your life. Lashing out can be anything from insulting your teacher’s abilities, or picking a fight with someone. This of course is a mild example of how these types of theories work but they can be used for almost any situation where someone lashes out with some type of violence.

As of right now, I also believe that every person has the capability of becoming violent. It is a part of human nature, of all animal nature. We all have strive for safety and for survival and when threatened I believe every person would use some type of violence to get out of a compromising situation. Animals, all have an inherent fight or flight response that we cannot control. Our autonomic nervous system induces hormone releases; increase heart and breathing rate, all to prepare our bodies to fight or to run away. (I am in no shape or form a biologist so that’s a very basic explanation of the fight or flight response but for the purpose of this reflection paper it is a sufficient explanation). Therefore I believe that when threatened all humans do have the capacity to engage in violent behavior that normally one would never think they are capable of.

Jumping back the beginning of this paper, I mentioned that violence could be anything that causes harm regardless of the intent. I just wanted to further explain myself using an example. Someone is being mugged on a dark street corner and a passerby tried to jump into the situation to help the victim. In doing so the passerby gets between the victim and the mugger, but when they do that accidently hit the victims face. In doing so the innocent passerby who meant no harm to the victim, ended up breaking the victims nose. Did that passerby commit an act of violence? In my opinion they have committed a violent act even though the intent was not there. People get hurt physically, psychologically, and emotionally no matter what peoples intentions are. A seemingly innocent comment has the capability to really damage someone’s emotional well-being.

This semester most of my classes revolve around the topic of violence. I’m sure that with new information my opinion may change. As my last semester at Lakehead University I’m thoroughly excited about this course and having many debates and seeing other peoples perspectives on issues that will no doubt affect our everyday lives.