Dr. Madeline Daniels

Senseless Violence?

For many people, just using the terms “senseless violence” equates with “evil.” They don’t see their anger or bigotry as evil because they see through the filter of their own biases. Their rage is justified; their violent actions have reasons. Whether they swat a fly or burn a human, they will tell you they had their reason. 

Actually, using the term “senseless violence” just mean that the violent action doesn’t make sense to us, the viewer. After nearly forty years of working with the most bizarre, in prisons and in jails, in closed wards (when they still had mental hospitals!), in short, with every variety of strange and “senseless” behavior that can be observed, I have had the chance to observe many “reasons” for violence. None of them really make sense to me. 

Please let me be clear that I do not condone or excuse violent behavior. No matter how strong the emotion, the action is still a choice. No substance use or psychiatric disorder, in my mind, excuses the wrongness of behavior that hurts other people. In fact, it is exactly that element of choice upon which this article is focused.  

Many academics have written about the idea of innate aggression as a characteristic of being human. Anger and rage are seen as built-in responses to threat, with aggression and violent actions a result. I am convinced that, while the emotions may be a natural part of the human response to fear, the actions we do are always a choice we make. Whatever your reasoning is, you still have a choice of how you express it. 

I have found over the years that to help people heal, it is necessary to understand the internal pattern behind their seemingly bizarre behavior. Only then can you help build a path out of the morass and into healthier patterns. But when it comes to anger and people who commit horrible violent acts, I have seen a growing tendency to skip the more difficult path and just retaliate with vicious vengeance. 

The problem is that this only continues the cycle. The consequence of acting with venom against those who hurt us only creates a world with more violence and more venom. So what would happen if we tried to figure out the twisted trail that leads to aggression so that we could turn it in another direction? I’m not talking about simply getting into the criminal mind, with the corresponding danger of getting lost in that landscape. No, I’m talking about actually trying to understand. 

Understanding the seemingly twisted logic of another doesn’t excuse evil. Hopefully, it might give us clues as to how to prevent similar destructiveness in others in the future. But the first step is a comprehension of the rationale behind the violence. If common sense means widespread, then, as the saying goes, common sense isn’t all that common. But understanding the un-common reasoning of the violent may lead us to some ways to stop it.  

When it comes to violence “common” sense just doesn’t seem to exist. The reasons humans give for acting badly boggle the mind. Thank goodness everybody doesn’t think the same way or the human race would have destroyed itself by now.  But there are moments when I feel the species is headed in that direction.  

My professional experiences with violent felons over the last fifteen years, as well as my personal experience of the last five years, has made me want to explore the topic of why people do bad things in more depth and with more objective analysis of all its parameters. I feel like I’m just beginning on a jigsaw puzzle and I have to admit that there are pieces that completely elude me at the moment! There are problems in this whole area of study that totally baffle me.  

For example, some people cannot resist the temptation of the delusion that causes others to suffer equals “power.” In my writing and teaching over thirty years ago, I defined power as the capability of getting things done. All these years later, I still see more sense of achievement in actually accomplishing a project than in just being able to force people to do things. I assumed that over the years more people would come to this realization. (Well, I never said I wasn’t naïve!) 

With all the misconduct and theft in government and financial officials growing daily, 

Trying to understand why some people want power and money and will hurt others to get them makes my head ache. I understand wanting to make a living and provide for your family and future, but conspicuous consumption just seems so boring to me. At some point, enough is enough. At any point, forcing others to suffer should detract from your self-esteem not bolster it! 

Then there’s the problem of people who crave anger. I’ve written a lot over the years about how to manage anger. But I’m finding there are people who don’t want to manage their anger. Instead they just want to feed it. They say things like “I get my energy from being angry” or “I don’t feel like myself if I don’t get angry.” Of course, I don’t understand! That’s because I’ve always felt that I get my energy from love and sex, art and play, life-nurturing rather than life-destroying activities. 

That’s the kind of statement that really worries me because if there’s one thing I’ve learned in sixty years, it’s that fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to destruction and suffering. In the last fifteen years of turning more and more into the study of how to prevent gangs and how to prevent terrorism, it’s clear that just responding with anger means turning into the evil that one is trying to avoid.  

There has to be a better way! As a therapist I’ve helped people survive the evil done to them by others. I’ve studied evil itself. In individual cases, I’ve been asked over and over to assess the effects of trauma and the risk of re-offending. Over and over I’ve tried to create and facilitate ways to repair damage. I thought I had come to some understanding of the extremes of good and evil. 

But now I find that the gray area between the extremes is even more dangerous! I want to find an antidote, a tonic, that will ameliorate the damage poison and venom can do. The horrible middle ground between pure good and pure evil is composed of the lazy, mean, and petty actions that ordinary people choose every day. Hypocrisy and selfishness do as much to nurture violence as does anger itself. 

I refuse to believe that most people choose evil. Rather I believe they simply don’t think of the consequences of their actions. Thinking takes energy, and sometimes it appears that too many people don’t spend their energy on solutions. While the news media focuses on the extremes of bad behavior (such as children beating children and people raping and murdering) I believe it sometimes fosters a complacency about the petty forms of bad behavior (such as people lost in legal and medical systems they don’t understand and whole generations lost to our nation due to lack of education, health, and employment.) 

I know some of this echoes the themes I explore in my new book. But I know that simply reliving a trauma is not the same as getting over it. Simply remembering the worst can just re-traumatize. But finding a way to build a world that discourages evil – now that’s a way to heal! 

And it starts with individuals! If each of us begins to look at what we are actually doing, that’s a way to begin. If one small voice starts pointing out what needs to be fixed, others will join in the repair job. At least that’s my hope.  

Can we create a world in which Evil is discouraged? Yes, we can! But it’s going to take many small steps from each of us to get to that place. Because first we each need to acknowledge what can be done better in our daily lives. Then we need to take those actions that will accomplish that. Big plans are useless without little actions. The architects needs the carpenter’s hammering or there’s no house to live in. And I’d like to see this planet be a good and healthy home to live on! 

(Explorations & thoughts to be continued.)