Saturday, April 08, 2006

a history of violence

in the news recently: a group of boys threw a jacket over a young invalid boy's head and started kicking/punching him. "happy slapping" it's called, and there is no point but to slap and do it happily.

heard from a boy yesterday who got attacked by four other guys who wanted nothing really but to make fun hurting him. grrreat fun indeed. ho ho ho.

i abhor violence. but when hearing about those things, something shortcircuits inside my brain. i get past any moral issues of pacifism and feel nothing but an intense urge to hurt those people doing these things. smash their faces. kick them in the stomach. bury my elbows deep in their eye sockets. and then there is the eternal confusion. am i no worse?

what does my vengeance do, achieve besides the proof that my moral (and heartfelt) ideas of abhorring violence lead to nothing when it all comes down to "real life"? i am - from the comfort of my living-room, i admit - very much convinced that i would be able to kill someone, out of pure anger and rage, in an attempt to shatter each and every bone inside his/her body, should he/she hurt my girlfriend, for example.

am i then really no worse? is violence really that much a part of my own life, my own being? and is this something to accept, something which is nothing but an element of the conditions i am born with as a member of the homo sapiens (sapiens) clan? or should i try to ban all of these feelings, these sensations, as vengeance is nothing but a sweet-tasting destructive and empty bitterness? does being a part of mankind mean being a violent entity, or is it rather possessing the ability not to do so? is being myself an opportunity to culturally oppress those genuine and true feelings of violence inside of me, or is it an instinctive duty to embrace them?

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