Among anthropoid societies, male baboons are extremely prone to violence. Whereas most monkeys, gibbons, and great apes, one could even argue the majority of humans, retreat and scatter when threatened or when sensing fear, baboons will usually stand their ground and either fight back or aggressively attack. Zoologists have also noticed that baboons pay comparatively little attention to their environment, even when they are in an open plain and far from trees, and live in what is known as acentric and centripetal societies. These societies consist of highly individualistic and loosely structured groups which are organized around one or more alpha-male leaders.(1)
This came to mind as Aurora, Colorado is still mourning and reeling over the tragic loss of life. Twelve people were killed and sixty others wounded when a 24-year-old doctoral student, James Holmes, went on a shooting rampage at a midnight showing of "The Dark Knight Rises." Dressed-up as the Joker of the entertaining and very popular Batman movie series when he randomly massacred innocent victims, Holmes also booby-trapped his apartment with deadly explosives. He has been described as a clean cut and brilliant scholar who had just graduated with highest honors in a neuroscience degree. Evidently, he was raised in a loving, church-going family in a upper-class San Diego enclave.
Already, Democrats and Republicans have politicized this random, episodic massacre (which is becoming more common!) Democrats announced the shooter was influenced by the Tea Party Movement and had easy access to guns and bomb making materials. Republicans claimed he participated in the Occupy Wall Street Movement and was an extreme radical. It might be more beneficial, however, to socialize and psychologicalize this horrible atrocity by asking what triggered it and what were the underlying motivations. In other words, exceedingly individualistic behaviors and unregulated groups, concentrated around select alpha-male leaders, are not the only causes of violence.
Undoubtedly, today's Americans, including children and youth, gain more frequent and vivid glimpses of violence and evil from movies and television.(2) Modern and violence-prone shows have become extremely entertaining and addictive. A common theme is the creation of fear through the invasion of the abnormal into the world of the normal.(3) Peaceful, ordinary life is turned upside down through chaotic and violent destructive behaviors, not to mention the invasion of evil. Human villains are often made to appear as victims while unregulated acts of revenge are justified, even glorified. Other idolized motives are pride, egotism, and unwarranted greed for either power or money.
But it is not enough to perform harmful acts. The truly evil villains derive pleasure from merely inflicting harm.(3) Sadly, and due to an overly narcissistic celebrity culture and unregulated mass entertainment industries that amass billions of dollars, younger generations have been schooled into believing, and internalizing, that pleasure is derived from hurting others and destructive chaos. War, money, and power not only gives one meaning, but inflicting pain and causing random acts of violence do too. In most cases, then, law, orderly thinking, regulated behavior, internal psychological and emotional controls, even goodness and beauty, are all to be sadistically shattered and destroyed.
From a historical perspective and at a subconscious level, one must also acknowledge the "other" unspoken, but idolized, Second Amendment "rights." America was founded on revolutionary violence and vigilantism. American Exceptionalism, with its genocidal campaigns against Indigenous Peoples, not to mention perpetual and extremely violent preemptive wars and military occupations-many of which have been random and chaotic and destructive, has triggered many Americans to sanctify violence, even massacres. An addictive mass media, one that dehumanizes and demonizes the "Other" while causing desensitization, has all but destroyed inner regulations and a respect for "life."
These narcissistic and injurious narratives, destructive myths, and chaotic narratives have been mistaken for "rights." They are deeply embedded in politics, economics, even religions. They are reflected and taught in an all pervasive electronic, virtual, mass media that has a socializing, physiological, and epistemological effect. They have the same impact as substance abuse. They retard neurological endings in the brain's prefrontal lobe inhibiting thought patterns and self-control. When combined with pampered and coddled individuals, ones unable to cope with disappointments and rejections and raised on feelings of superiority and "shock" images, expect more worlds to be turned upside down.
Violence, chaos, destruction, and hurting others has become an end in themselves (both domestically and foreign). Feelings of superiority and inflicting pain through the use of weapons are associated with masculinity. In view of a rapacious market economy and an unemployed "look at me generation," which desperately wants to be noticed and popular just like their cult-like celebrity idols, there will unfortunately be many more "just wait until you get a load of me!" And like baboons that have little awareness of their environment and surroundings, and which are dominated by aggressive alpha-males, the American species will be no joking matter.
When ethnologists record the history of America, instead of writing "eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die" they may very well record: "eat drink and be violent for tomorrow we kill others." Another twist will be that when victims were killed in the totalizing mass media, they died in reality. In American culture and society, there are many destructive forces and fatal ideologies loaded and cocked. America's collective imagination and narratives are filled with violent images. All that is needed is for a trigger to be pulled. Sadly, it appears the curse of Cain will only get worse for more peaceful and loving Homo sapiens, including the primate world.
Dallas Darling (darling@wn.com)
(Dallas Darling is the author of Politics 501: An A-Z Reading on Conscientious Political Thought and Action, Some Nations Above God: 52 Weekly Reflections On Modern-Day Imperialism, Militarism, And Consumerism in the Context of John's Apocalyptic Vision, and The Other Side Of Christianity: Reflections on Faith, Politics, Spirituality, History, and Peace. He is a correspondent for www.worldnews.com. You can read more of Dallas' writings at www.beverlydarling.com and wn.com//dallasdarling.)
(1) Morgan, Elaine. The Descent Of Woman. New York, New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1972., pp. 181-182.
(2) Baumeister, Roy F. Evil, Inside Human Violence And Cruelty. New York, New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999. p. 63.
(3) Ibid., p. 64
(4) Ibid., p. 66.
Source: http://article.wn.com/view/2012/07/26/Are_Some_Species_More_Prone_to_Violence/
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