Perception on Violence

You go out to a club and it's only logical to go prepared, to protect yourself against the possibility of violence from other drunken patrons. So carrying a knife for protection just makes sense.
How do we develop such ideas. How do we end up with the perception that a knife is OK but a gun is serious business. After all we don't want to kill somebody so a knife is a good way of defending ourselves.
Watched any movies lately? See how the actors never die even though they've been shot or stabbed or in a car crash? I can't recall how many scenes I've watched where somebody that's been shot just continues running, driving, or chasing somebody else. After all it's just a flesh wound...in the shoulder or in the leg, a bit of inconvenient pain but what the hell, keep on keeping on.
As for knife wounds, just a scratch really, nothing to worry about. Nobody dies from stabbings in the movies.
And so we develop a culture, a perception that knives aren't really that fatal. No wonder that every second day there's another news story of a fatal stabbing.
I can just hear the plea in the court room, "I didn't mean to kill him, I was just defending myself".

Culture and Violence

This week I've been in a pensive mood contemplating the news around the world that is dominated by episodes of violence. Thinking about violence my thoughts turned to how violence is linked with culture. That is violence can be institutionalized within certain cultures. I will elaborate below. This thought led to a Google search because I was sure somebody must have considered this subject and written something about this. I didn't manage to find what I was looking for so it's up to me to post a few words and thoughts on this subject.

For those of you who haven't yet become familiar with the CULTURIST thinking, I suggest you go over to the Culturist web site and get some background information.

Looking at violence from a cultural point of view we can take an example of tribal cultures that have war as integral part of their lifestyle. In New Guinea, the tribes have been traditionally at war with each other forever. Similarly, on the African continent, tribal warfare is as common as any other tribal tradition. In this context, violence is institutionalized within the culture of the tribe.

As humanity has developed larger communities, villages, cities and city states. The violence was formalized as war between these rival cities and city states. With the emergence of nations the violence escalated to war between nations.

Today the world faces a threat that goes beyond national boundaries. Today the world is threatened by violence of ideology. The violence that is at the core of Islam, don't tell me about the moderates because that is a myth.

Muslims will tell us that there are more than 1.7 billion Muslims in the world. Therefore whatever they believe must be right. The justification is that if a large enough group of people believe in something then it's truth is self-evident. Logic that's gone haywire as never before. But it doesn't stop there. If there are enough Muslims within a community then that community must make concessions to the Muslims. Isn't that the basis of democracy? Use democracy to undermine democracy. What a strategy? Brilliant!

When a country allows Muslim immigrants in, it is allowing a culture embedded in a religion into their country. More than that, it is a culture/religion/ideology and political system all rolled into one. More than that, it is a culture/religion based on violence. It is a violence institutionalized within its laws. Violence in the form of punishment for all kinds of crimes against Islam. The traditional and only valid form of punishment for crimes against Islam is beheading. Beheading with a sword. It is spelt out specifically.

That is the nature of Sharia law. It is institutionalized violence. It cannot be questioned, it cannot be negotiated or re-interpreted, It just is.

What is so irresistible about Islam is that it doesn't tolerate much. Any word, idea, action construed as critical or disrespectful of Islam is punishable by death.

Ever wondered why there aren't any great scholars of Islam? Ever wondered why there aren't any great thinkers or philosophers or scientist to emerge from within the culture of Islam? That's because all of those great minds that once existed were executed. All committed crimes against Islam. All crimes are punishable by death.

Imagine the Spanish Inquisition existing for hundreds of years, relentlessly interrogating and putting individuals on trial for unacceptable thoughts or actions. Imagine that the Spanish Inquisition existed up till today. Imagine if the Spanish Inquisition spread all over Europe. If you can imagine that then you would also imagine western society being held back to the period of the Middle Ages.

If western society has progressed is has been in spite of religious bigotry and suppression. We have cast off the shackles of religious dogma and conformity and embraced scientific inquiry, we have embraced knowledge, we have embraced technology, we have embraced the thirst for knowledge.

That is the triumph of the western world. Now we congratulate ourselves on our tolerance and acceptance of diversity. We speak of multi-culturalism as if it was a virtue, a triumph of wisdom over prejudice. We are fooling ourselves and putting our core values in danger of being swallowed up that which we do not understand or can comprehend.