We all know where the violence originates. It comes from us…humankind. It's built into our DNA and manifested in our synapses and ganglia and muscles and being. It isn't TV and it isn't just an American problem. Humankind has been motivated and entertained by violence from the beginning. Even we 'Catters enjoy singing songs about women being killed because they became pregnent or murders over a poker game or a bad love affair. Most violent people of any note have had poems and songs and books celebrating or at least chronicling the events that they're remembered for.

What we call civilization is mostly just acquiring the self control to rein in our tendency towards violence so we can cooperate on some things that benefit the larger group. We know it isn't violence that is the aberration, it's peace. Civilization, education, experience and faith all tell us that peace is worth struggling to achieve but it's a struggle because it goes against our very nature.

Violence is simpler than reason and, for many people, offers a release from the frustrations and anxieties plaguing them. Often highly educated people will construct elaborate theories and philosophies to justify their own very human preference for violence over understanding.

As Stevenson understood clearly, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are both within us all each struggling with the other for dominance. When faced with senseless violence and hatred, the hardest response is to resist replying in kind. The idea of public demonstration in protest of policy carries with it the possibility of ostracization, the idea of civil disobedience includes the expectation of incarceration and punishment, the power of non-violence lies in the publicity associated with being beaten or killed without justification.

Klatu barrada nicto.

      - Mark