CONTACT CAROLINE
facebook
rss
tumblr
twitter
goodreads
youtube

  • Home
  • Write Away Blog
  • Books
    • Books
    • Trompe l’Oeil
    • Heart Land
    • Gothic Spring
    • Ballet Noir
    • Book Excerpts
  • Video Interviews
  • Press
    • News
    • Print Interviews
    • Plays
    • Ballet Noir in the Press
    • Trompe l’Oeil In The Press
    • Gothic Spring In The Press
    • Heart Land Reviews
  • Contact
  • About
  • Resources
    • Writer Resources
    • Favorite Blogs
    • Favorite Artists



The Enemy Is Us

May 14, 2013
by Caroline Miller
"Appetite for Aggression" appetitive aggression, Maggie Schauer, Roland Weierstall, Thomas Elbert
0 Comment

The bombings at the Boston Marathon raise a central question. Why, after centuries of fruitless war and genocide, does the human race continue to use violence as a means to settle conflict? Women are less inclined to employ it, but they are by no means immune, (“An Appetite for Aggression,” by Roland Weierstall, Maggie Schauer and Thomas Elbert, Scientific American Mind, May/June 2013 pgs 47-49.)

 Researchers have a partial answer to my question. Their findings suggest that two types of violence reside within us. The first occurs when we are forced to defend ourselves from brutality. The second, appetitive aggression, is the feeling of superiority we experience when we have the ability to inflict pain at will. Unfortunately, the latter form of violence is both addictive and pleasurable, resulting in behavior of the kind we’ve seen at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.

 Oddly enough, meat consumption may have played its part in our capacity for appetitive violence. Eating wild game nourished our brains and increased our mental capacity, but it also unleashed a taste for violence that drew no distinction between animal prey and humans. Any restraint we developed came from living within tribes where cooperation was required for mutual survival. Those outside the tribe, “the other,” commanded no similar consideration. (Ibid, pg. 48.) They were deemed less than human. This mindset, which we’ve carried down through the ages, has allowed some of us to rationalize unspeakable atrocities, like the Holocaust.

What happened on 9/11 or in Boston has no justification. But we Americans would do well to root out instances of “appetitive” violence within our society. Let us discourage any inclination to see cultures different from own as “the other.” We can begin by changing our language. When our drones kill innocent people abroad, let us insist upon seeing those maimed or dead as victims and not as “collateral damage.”

drone aircraft

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Courtesy of www.gunholstersunlimited.co)

 

 

Social Share

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

*
*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Portland, Oregon author Caroline Miller had distinguished careers as an educator, union president, elected official and artist/advocate.

Her play, Woman on the Scarlet Beast, was performed at the Post5 Theatre, Portland, OR, January/February 2015

Caroline published a serialized novelette, Marie Eau-Claire, on the website, The Colored Lens.  She also published the story Gustav Pavel,  a parable about ordinary lives, choice and alternate potential, on the website Fixional.co.

Caroline has published four novels

  • Ballet Noir
  • Trompe l’Oeil
  • Gothic Spring
  • Heart Land

Subscribe to Caroline’s Blog


 

Archives

Categories

YouTube-logo-inline2 To access and subscribe to my videos on YouTube, Click Here and click the Subscribe button.

Banner art “The Receptive” by Charlie White of Charlie White Studio

Web Admin: ThinPATH Systems, Inc
support@tp-sys.com

Subscribe to Caroline's Blog


 

Contact Caroline at

carolinemiller11@yahoo.com

Sitemap | Privacy Notice

AUDIO & VIDEO VAULT

View archives of Caroline’s audio and videos interviews.


Copyright © Books by Caroline Miller