Why people are violent and destructive?

Question

People carry too much accumulated frustration and anger, this urges for an outlet? Or is it that these people are structured by lacks in early childhood experiences and also later and then choose ‘being bad’ as a way to get attention from others? They might have tried with being brave & good but it didn't work.
Established behavior is part of the personality, the individual is identified with it, so by being violent and destroying things and people, this gives the feeling of power and with this the feeling of existence. The more violent one feels more 'realized', not falling into a void. There has been and is so much violence in this world and there seems no change since history with it. Punishing people doesn’t help, either education. Religion and moral guidelines hasn't helped much or even caused the contrary? How can one deal with ones frustration and anger not reacting these out with violence? When too week to be violent, people are mean or damage others hiding behind a screen...

Answer 1

Overall on the earth I observe that violence is growing, so I think there is an accumulation of suppressed energy in all systems, living and structural. There really isn’t much difference between animate and inanimate; we are all reflecting parts of a growing whole. Everything is under more stress. So there is an urge to vent this suppressed energy in all directions, which in turn affects all of us. Scientists now have proof that when we are born we inherit the stress and behavioral characteristics our ancestors experiences. For example, the imprint of experiencing famine was passed on for three generations, even though it only occurred to the first generation. So from this I get the sense that the structure of personality we inherit from our parents is getting more ‘loaded’ through each generation.

I also see that in childhood we adapt a personalized survival strategy coming out of our early experiences. I think the strategies we adopt are not for the reason to get attention, but rather to protect ourselves from further harm. So ‘being bad’ might be a way to get attention, but then one had to do that, because otherwise the person got no attention at all. Scientists today have shown with mice that when babies aren’t nurtured enough they end up with stress, diabetes and obesity, while the ones with nurturing mothers have much fewer health problems and normal weights. It was not a genetic thing, because they switched the babies of the mothers.

Many psychologists today say our emotional response is hard-wired. At first I accepted this view, but now I don't see it is the case. Albeit, because our way to defend ourselves was adopted so early on, it becomes such a familiar way to respond to anything which feels threatening to us, that we automatically react with our emotion, seemingly not able to control it. There is another aspect to this and it is that the habit of 'being the personality' is to experience oneself as emotional energy. The stronger one's emotion then the more alive one feels, and thus also why people want to strongly feel themselves emotionally, even if the emotion isn't pleasant or desirable. So those with extreme pain will cut themselves, because the physical pain gives them a kind of pleasure that they would not experience in their world of emotional pain that's everpresent. Cutting themselves makes them feel alive for the moment.

The good news is that there is a way to change our hard-wired response and it has to do with learning how to withdraw energy away from our emotional reaction. In essence our energy follows ‘our intention’ and what we put our energy into will manifest.

I see that by learning to withdraw our energy away from our emotional response, we can change our hard-wiring. This happens because each time we are successful at withdrawing energy, we feed something else -- our awareness grows. Today I see that our awareness is realized ‘gradually’ because a biological change has been made to our body in the interval when we withdrew the energy of emotional reaction. There is a lot of energy in ‘the emotional reaction’ and once one learns how to divert this energy away from expenditure & building up, one’s awareness will grow faster. These bodily changes are made by the central nervous system using the ‘conserved energy’ and one doesn’t need to know how they are done. There are different techniques that can be taught to people on how to detect emotional energy building in the body, to increase their sensitivity to the bodily reaction and then teach them how to divert energy away from it so it doesn’t get bigger and bigger and out of control.

Betsy

Answer 2

People are not inherently good as a rule, and destruction or violence is not a violation of their natural goodness. We're all a combination of animal desires, moral instincts (some have more considerate instincts then others) and the definition of right and wrong that we collect from our surroundings. Bad and harmful behavior is not something you have to accumulate over time, it is just an inner energy that is not controlled or channeled properly. Self control and a healthy amount of selfishness enables us to handle our childhood problems, painful pasts or personality weaknesses properly. However, if we don't try to control the negative in us, we may release our desires like animals, in violent or destructive ways.

Read about feral children and the amazing inhuman behavior they exhibit. They will be readily harmful to get to their 'prey'. In a way, a childhood without a proper rearing can make of us feral children to some degree. In that sense, your answer is correct. A good social environment especially from early on in life encourages that we understand what's morally correct and incorrect instead of just following our animal instinct.

Answer 3

While I'm no psychologist, I think violence and destruction are hard-wired into the brain. We can't make that go away, so maybe we just need to give it a legitimate outlet.
Biologically, people are omnivorous, non-scavenging, social animals. Which means our brains are wired to establish a pecking order that determines who gets primary access to scarce resources. We see it in other non-scavenging pack animals too.
Since our society has developed into a ready-supply system, where hunting and gathering are no longer a necessity, we no longer need a pecking order, but the instinct to secure your place in the pack (and subsequently access to food, mates and other scarcities) is still there. In cultures that still use an established social order, there is little aimless violence, but in societies where people don't know where they stand, they still have a drive to determine that.
In fully modern nations we frown on violence officially, but we foster the instinct through fantasy play in electronic gaming, which leads a person to validate their status through destruction. While in fantasy this is harmless, people don't always leave it in the realm of fantasy, so they act out.
I think (again, not a psychiatrist) that when poeople have a legitimate outlet for their violent streak, they find themselves mroe able to deal with day-to-day interactions, because that part of their brain is fulfilled.
So in short, I think that to try to train violence out of people is a mistake. It is too deeply wired. That is why punishment, education, religious guidelines, and moral direction have all failed. They are trying to make the brain do something that isn't natural. Instead, we need to create a legitimate and controlled outlet for the destructive pattern, and then use punitive, educational, religious and moral efforts to confine, not erradicate, this behavior.

Answer 4

Very complicated question. As you noted, violence and destructive behavior has existed throughout human history. It seems to be as much as part of human nature as anything else. These behaviors also exist throughout the animal kingdom. However, animals generally engage in violence as a means of survival (either for food or the opportunity to procreate). Very few animals engage in the organize warfare and destruction that exists in humans (I believe that only certain primates have been observed to "organize" themselves in this manner). No other known species have been as destructive to the Earth or to their own kind than humans. Ultimately, I think violence begets violence, and though there are many of us today who hope to minimize these type behaviors, all of us, and especially our children, are consistently exposed to violence (either through the media, in school, in our neighborhoods, in our own homes, etc.). We all feel pain, frustration and anger in our lives, but not all of us react violently or destructively. This is likely affected by how we were taught as children to handle these emotions. Though, I believe that some of us are more "hard-wired" to turn to violence as "solutions" (and any exposure to violence in their lives will trigger them to adopt these behaviors automatically). Therefore, I don't think we can ever eliminate violence and destruction totally (probably not a good idea anyway, because we at least need to be able to defend ourselves), but we may be able to minimize these behaviors by teaching people more productive methods of dealing with negative emotions AND somehow limit the amount of violence we are all exposed to (good luck with that one!)

Answer 5

Some people lash out, start feuds with people they feel have oppressed them, hurt them.

Others do the same to innocent people that have done them no wrong.

I can understand the first one, but not the second one :-/

I personally only attack out of revenge on someone who has/or I feel has wronged me. I want them to know that I can be just as bad or worse than them and would want my enemies to never come near me again. So I look upon violence as more of survival than for attention-seeking.

Answer 6

The best answer to your question I have found in Edward M. Keating's book "The Broken Bough". This book is out of print, but it is still available from amazon.com as a used.

If you truly want an answer to your question, you will not be able to spend a few dollars more prudently than to purchase this book.

Henry G.

Answer 7

hmmm... "education does not help" perhaps you shold have said "unsuccessful and misguided education does not help"...
anyhow, violence is genetic, it was a survival tool but we never outgrew the need for it... I also think there is profound difference between organized religion and true faith, so your assumption may not be correct...
Now, on a more serious note, I think violence is born when them hunchback crossdressing dwarfs piss on me in my dreams, I just wake up violent. But, TD might be right, all this damn fluoride in the water, and them mercury amalgam fillings, and atmospheric nuclear tests, and the automobile...
and... and... oh damn, I just dunno...

Answer 8

Abuse, violence and destructive behavior is born out of an individual's war with himself.
C. :)!!

Answer 9

They have not learned their karmic lessons from previous life/s or they had not any previous life and will be forever mad demons on Earth.

Answer 10

It's all about the treated water supply...