Where Does Our Potential For Violence Originate?

© 2008 VVeasey Publishing

11/17/12

Where does this desire in humans for brutality, violence, to maim and hurt each another originate?

In our infantile emotional states.

By infantile emotional states. I mean the basic, self-protecting survival instincts. we share with animals.The predatory, "dog eat dog" instincts that keep us alive.We’re all born, little potential, infantile sociopaths.(I know that may be shocking to some of you, but it’s true.)

But, It’s not pathological and normal, for the stages of infancy and early childhood development, before we go through the process of socialization, by other humans, who've been through the process of socialization.

When you were born, you had no idea of right and wrong, good or bad, no idea of morality.

You didn’t know anything. You were taught your name, ethnicity, race, religion, nationality, personality and everything else, you now take for granted as being associated with you. Biologically, we’re all born human, but socially, were animals, until we are socialized by other humans, who’ve been through that process. Up until that point, we’re on the same social level as chimps.

When we learn to speak, understand and use language, we start to separate ourselves from chimps and other animals. Speaking, provides us with a way of expressing, articulating and objectifying our feelings, and a way of controlling them. It provides us with a method of objectively reasoning about, and comprehending concepts, like law, individual rights, and ownership, which before, we had no conceptual way of understanding.

When we were infants, anything that touched our hands, we’d immediately grasped. At two or three years old, if we wanted a toy that some kid had, We would immediately try to take it from him! If our efforts were resisted, we may have hit the kid, or even bopped him over the head, with the very toy, we were trying to take from him.

We had to be taught that, “no you can’t have little Johnny’s toy, it’s his toy not your toy”. We probably screamed bloody murder, if we didn't get his toy.

We had to be taught to respect others, as well as what belonged to them. It took a long process of social learning and development, to get to that point, and some of us still haven’t gotten there.

So when you read or hear about, some sociopathic adult, committing horrendous acts of violence, remember, the roots of it started in their infantile emotional states, and that those states are still alive, active and overpowering them, as adults.

Can you imagine, a dictator, with access to weapons of mass destruction, who’s motivated by infantile emotional states! Humanity, has suffered at the hands of individuals of this type, throughout history.

Individuals or groups who display infantile emotional states, are always a potential danger, to all of us, because with them, as with animals, might is right. And Be damn the rights of others.

Ironically, If you’ve been the victim of brutality, you may exhibit sociopathic tendencies and behavior yourself.

You may become so fixated, on your own suffering and feelings of "justifiable anger", that you feel minimal or no sympathy, for the suffering of others, and may even take out your anger, on those, who have nothing to do with, your “suffering” (Going postal).

When your mind becomes so carried away by emotion that it affects your perception of reality and ability to judge correctly.

You’re in an infantile emotional state, and a state of emotional possession.

This is characteristic behavior for those who are controlled by infantile emotional states.

Infantile emotional states are impulsive, unstable, changeable, and hostile (especially when frustrated) and demand instant gratification.

As long as there are adults who are dominated by their infantile emotional states.

Is how long there will be adults and societies of adults, carrying out acts of brutality against themselves and the rest of us.

So where does our seemingly human need to brutalize, to hurt and maim each other come from?

From the dog eat dog, infantile survival instincts, we share with the animals, that we haven't outgrown, that are still affecting us as humans.

Well you've heard my 2 cents worth, now let’s hear yours?