ONE inevitable fact that human beings had to deal with throughout known history was the phenomenon of violence, and this phenomenon seems to exceed pervasively in PNG societies today.
Regular newspaper readers will confirm the reality of violence, and those living in our community have experienced this behaviour as a common occurrence, for some a daily spectacle.
Increasingly, violence has become the accepted manner of coping with life’s demands. Violence expresses itself in many forms, be it verbal, physical, psychological, social or religious.
Despite the mechanism people employ to contain violence, there seems to be an unending current of this compulsion placing people and societies in a precarious situation.
More at the global level, billions of dollars have been invested either to bolster or to restrict the phenomenon of human violence.
Indeed, violence is, scientifically, a distinctively human act uncommon among other higher animals. However, this is not to deny that all creatures possess what is called aggressive urge used instinctively for the purpose of self-preservation against possible dangers.
Predatory feeding common among carnivorous animals, though brutal in appearance, may not even account for the act of aggression. Aggression is used by animals as a defense mechanism to protect progeny, food security and territorial gain. Thus, it is incorrect to say that we have inherited a tendency for violence from our animal ancestors.
Although fighting occurs widely throughout the animal kingdom, only a few cases of destructive intra-species fighting between organised groups have ever been reported
Normal predatory feeding upon other species cannot be equated with intra-species aggression. Violence is a peculiarly human phenomenon and does not occur in other animals.
Human violence is distinct from animal aggression and suspends itself from the natural and biological realm.
Experts hold that during the process towards hominisation (becoming human), humans have lost powerful behaviour commonly possessed by higher mammals which were regulated by physiological systems. Thus, a radical discontinuity exists, and of significance is the function of aggression.
For instance, in intra-species fights, the aggressive urge of the stronger animal is suppressed when the weaker animal displays a posture of defeat and submission, which usually result in the fight automatically broken off. There is no longer any urge to continue, unless renewed aggression is exhibited.
However, the danger with human beings is that they have lost the braking mechanism that regulates animal aggression, which means that any fight among the human species could lead to the dead of one of them.
With the assistance of bipedal structure, the human hands are free which allows for the use of weapon in the act of combat. Thus, early hominoids were faced with a very serious life-threatening situation. Unlike animals, humans face the possibility of annihilating each other, if no exterior mechanism intervened to substitute for the loss of the biological braking mechanism animal species possess. Hence, a brief excursus on the discontinuity of animal aggressive urge and the intervention of the phenomenon of violence among hominoids will be given an exposition some other time.
However, another phenomenon in human species that contribute to the escalation of violence is the capacity for imitating another’s behaviours.
Experts do agree that what separates human species from other animals, is their more elaborate and refined capacity for imitation. Thus learning and education depend greatly on the fact that we have the capacity to learn from others. Even the increase in the volume of the brain is so rapid to attribute it to the normal process of biological evolution.
With the rapid increase in the volume of the brain, which arguably enhances the greater capacity for imitation, may have broken strong biological programmes placing the human species in a vulnerable position - an urgency to swiftly redesign an alternative mechanism.
Violence compounded with imitative behaviour means that violence can be emulated, thus creating a vicious circle of unrelenting violence among the human species.
An aggressive urge without braking mechanism and the capacity to imitate a violent behaviour may have created a situation of bellum omnium contra omnes (the war of all against all) among human primates. Theoretically, the situation calls for an exterior intervention which is a sine qua non for the survival of human primates.
Few scholars hold that the intervention did necessitate the conditions for primal peace conducive for human social formation and of cultural development. Space does not allow for an extended treatment in this area. However, my doctoral thesis titled Demystification of Sacred Violence gives a detail theoretical exposition in this direction.
What is the practical suggestion for a country like PNG experiencing problems of violence of all kinds, one may ask.
Violence is latent in everyone; each individual is indeed a lethal weapon of destruction, and carry within a deep-seated potential to eliminate the other. That suggests that anything to do with managing violence among humans must be dealt with at the deeper level, where all the energetic stock of human anger and aggression reside.
The psychology of violence is so complex and intertwined, and any superficial techniques employed for temporary relief of violent tempers do no justice to the overwhelming force of human aggression.
The second aspect is that losing powerful instincts of animals and acquiring the capacity for imitation, human species have acquired faculties that no longer depend on the biological systems.
Experts concur that in the process towards hominisation, there was a radical leap from the biological sphere to the noosphere (the realm of idea). Thus, humans may have employed this new acquisition to plan their societies, to supplant for the loss of biological systems.
Of significance in the new acquisition is the communication system that human beings were able to develop. Thus, one powerful tool to deal with the phenomena of violence among human beings is the employment of communication. Participating in dialogue by trying to enter into the thinking and feeling of the others is a way of securing peace and harmony in families and communities.
An open dialogic and communicative community can only account for human peace and order.
We have been given the means to create a peaceful human co-existence and using that will alleviate and minimise the problem of violence.
There will be more exposition of violence in later articles.