The human race is not necessarily a violent species, as a whole. It is our relatively peaceful nature that makes society possible. However, we do have a violent potential that emerges from time to time. Even sensible people can become feverishly aggressive when discussing the urgent need to end aggression. It is this ability to produce violent anger that has enabled us to progress and survive. But uninhibited, it has also caused much suffering and death.
The question then becomes, when is violence justified? Some may say that violence is never justified, but there is a problem with that attitude, because we are not a passive species. And if everyone were always submissive, there would be no progress. It is because each individual strives to exceed that so much advancement has occurred. It is because people stand up for what they value that values are instilled.
We might ask ourselves whether the terrorist attacks were justified. In the eyes of many Americans, they certainly weren’t. But what about in the eyes of the terrorists? Bush thinks he has a clear idea of who is good and who is evil, and he declares this openly in his speeches. But evil is not so clearly defined. What is evil, and where does it come from? Who creates it, and why? I believe the human race is inherently aggressive, but assuredly not evil. Perhaps it is time we looked closer at this term so easily prescribed.
Certainly these violent attacks were cruel and devastating. But would we have listened to a peaceful approach? And will we listen now? Extreme violence does have a cause, a foundation, and we need to question what it is and how we can change it. Killing the terrorists will not stop them, because we are not getting to the root of the problem.
We often think of the United States as wealthy, great and free. We say that the rest of the world hates us because we stand for these things. But is it really so black and white? Perhaps we need to consider how our country could have invited these attacks. It is time to give up some of our national ego. America may be great and wealthy, but our wealth has made us self-absorbed isolationists.
The problem is, you aren’t going to wake a bear out of hibernation by slipping a note next to its snoring head, asking to talk things over, especially when the bear’s den is soft and comfortable and protected. Maybe we, the American society, are that bear — thirsty for oil, hungry for power and craving the expansion of our commercial regime. Indeed, we have been so captivated by our own satisfying dreams that it took crashing airplanes to wake us up.
But instead of coming out with a reverberating roar and a thrash of our yellow teeth, we should question the reason we’ve been awakened. We can’t eat everything we see without thinking, or we’re bound to get ourselves poisoned. The United States has already eaten too many bad berries and rotten fish. Is it not natural that we should have a stomachache?
The world in which we reside is not a passive one, and unfortunately sometimes it takes violence to create change. Now that we’re awake, we should take the time to learn why.