Though it has taken over a week to get around to writing the column I promised in my last post, I've finally gathered my thoughts, or at least think I have. I've also discussed the blog posts referenced in that post with Marrianna, and have a sense of what she thinks. Actually, her thoughts and mine aren't very different.
Getting directly to the point, I am very sure that violence is culturally based, more prevalent in males than females, and that we carry the cultural norms of our youth with us as we age, and change cultures and locations. Men are more likely to resort to violence than women, but even that is a generalization that can't withstand close examination.
In my opinion, it is more than cultural norms. Ta-Nehesi Coates, to his credit, recognizes that his "I ain't no punk" response was inappropriate. But, in my opinion, it was completely understandable, understood, and probably more effective without necessarily following through with the implied threat. It immediately changed the situation from confrontation to retreat and withdrawal. It's a confrontation that perhaps I would have, or at least like to think I would have, made in a similar situation, though I would have probably not been capable of backing the threat with the implied violence.
TNC's Baltimore streets certainly instilled a certain culture. For the most part, he was able to leave parts of it behind as he moved into other cultures, but it shook him a bit that there were remnants that reappeared when pressed. That's key, it seems to me, and expressed by Marrianna. To Marrianna, his most impressive trait was his awareness that his response in that situation had been partially a return to old norms. And, that he realized those norms were inappropriate. Marrianna said he realized his reactions had been influenced by old norms. To her, his awareness was important. Awareness is important to assist people to change.
Violence as exhibited by female gender is a completely different subject. Marrianna says that gender differences are probably instilled by parents, that they teach girls different responses to physical confrontations than they do boys. I disagree. I think it's more likely a result of eons of responses to physically dominant males determining better ways of survival than violence. Though I am certainly no geneticist, and therefore have no credible evidence, by this time it may have become imbedded as a genetic trait.
When I was a kid my mother taught my brother and me that we should avoid fighting whenever possible. But if we were to get into a fight, for whatever reason, to fight fairly until it was evident that we were losing, and then to do whatever necessary, pick up the biggest stick, to win. I've thought of that several times over my years, and wonder whether I would be able to do it. I've actually fought very few fights, most under some sort of street rules in which picking up the stick would have been extremely bad form. For much of my teen years I lived in fear of two guys in my neighborhood. One, a very good boxer, would beat on me whenever he saw me. I never won one with him, but never picked up the stick either. I did learn to box a little, out of necessity taking some lessons from a high school teacher who had boxed. Other fights, and there weren't many, l lost some, won one.
When street culture is extended to national politics, it is rarely thought of as street culture, but I can, in hindsight, see that some of the US nuclear policy was, and current Iraq and Afghanistan policies is, based very neatly on TNC's street culture "I ain't no punk," and to an extent on my mother's methodology.
I've lost the subject somewhere, but that isn't particularly important to me. I think the important lesson to take from all this is from Marrianna. The important thing is to be aware of the origins and causes of violence in one's responses and to change when necessary. The same lesson would be good for the US.
I'll try to respond to the other link, "How To Restore The American Dream." in my next post, probably this weekend. In the overall context of today's policies and politics, it could be the more important post.
I've been prompted to a great deal of deep thought by this, since I read it yesterday. Nothing worth writing in a response has emerged from it, but the thought itself is inestimably valuable and thank you.
My own experience leads me to think that violence is innate but that culture is by far the biggest factor in deciding the modes and directions of its expression ... gender affects it only as a result of gender norms developed and expressed within a given culture ... but I really don't know, of course, and enjoy/value being prompted to question my own assumptions.
Posted by: Felix | October 31, 2010 at 05:25 AM