The Path of the Warrior Pt.3: Violence

There are a lot of complicated issues when we talk about human nature.  It is not complicated because of nature, it is complicated in the manner that we wish to make excuses for our behavior that exist outside of nature.  As a species, we tend to think of ourselves as apart from the wilderness when in reality, we are as much a part of the wilderness as any other organism in nature.  The only thing that separates us from nature is our lofty impression of ourselves as being greater than what we see out in that wilderness.  In large part, it is terrifying for us to consider being out there like other animal for two simple reasons:  1.) Most of us could not survive and 2.) Without the technology we have cultivated we cease to be apex predators.  This desire and necessity to be at the top of the global food chain will not serve us when we can no longer fuel our technology with cheap and easily obtainable fossil fuel resources but that is a topic I will discuss another time.  The short version is that like any Warrior worth their salt, the cultivation of mind and spirit should take place before the physical aspects of violence should enter the equation.  In essence, now is the time for us to cultivate the next generation of Warriors by accepting a new paradigm that places more importance on Spirit and intellect than upon martial prowess.  In this way, the Warriors that follow us down the path of history will be more valuable members of their culture than the point and shoot violence that we expect of our Warriors today.  In the last post, I discussed Warrior codes, outlined expectations of conduct among Warriors and their responsibilities.  Part of the reason (in my opinion) that such codes came into existence is that Warriors, by the nature of their existence, possessed in some manner authority over life and death because they were trained to use violence in the protection and support of their community.  Warrior codes provided a framework by which that violence should be turned against threats to the community and not the community itself even though that did not necessarily stop those who had no morality to begin with from doing both.

I've heard it said more than once that War is an inherent part of the human condition.  This is usually stated by those that desire to convince us that the acts of war and with it the acts of violence perpetuated by war are a byproduct of this genetic predisposition.  I call bullshit.  As human beings, we are no more prone to violence than any other species on our planet.  When we look at organisms in Nature though, we tend to see violence for 3 basic reasons:  Defense and control of available resources, Mating/social hierarchy and sustenance.  I have never heard of packs of wolves or herds of deer going to "war" with one another.  If I were to hazard a guess, there are a certain number of instincts coupled with environmental parameters that determine how animals in the wild interact during resource scarcity.  However, I am no biologist though I tend to think of myself having an above average grasp for a layman of how things tend to work in nature that is one part intuition, one part understanding my own natural instinct (most of the time), 3 parts reading and talking to people who know more than I do and two parts watching documentary films about animals in the wild.

In essence, violence in the wild is about energy.  Every organism requires a certain amount of energy for subsistence.  When an organism finds an environment that provides them with more than enough energy to survive, that also means that they have enough energy to protect it and this is where the concept behind territoriality comes in.  What is more important is that we can see this, at least to some degree, in almost every organism in Nature, including us.  After all, when a human being has a violent impulse it behooves us to ask the question where that impulse comes from.  When we look at examples of extreme violence perpetrated by one or more people, our minds tend to simply assume that they were some deranged crazy person even the event was planned meticulously.  This type of pre-planning does not lend itself to insanity in most cases.  Here is my two cents before we move on:

We may believe that we have, through the use of our "advanced intellect", transcended the instincts that kept us alive in the wild when we were little more than roaming packs of tribal cavemen but the truth is that we have not.  In essence, it took us millions upon millions of years to develop the instincts that we used and since we began spamming our environment with more and more copies of ourselves and built complex civilizations upon the backs of our ancestors we have not actually evolved as quickly as we would like to think.  Evolution takes time and pressure, much like geology, and especially due to our technology (thanks to millions of years of stored solar energy listed as "black gold", we have been able to proliferate our species across the Earth in even the most inhospitable regions to which other animals require specific adaptation through nature.  There are reasons that people don't live in the middle of the desert or the middle of Antarctica that have nothing to do with air conditioning or heating.  They have everything to do with the fact that as adaptable as the human race tends to think of itself, the physical adaptations needed to thrive in those environments would take too long for us to develop that we can expect to gain in the immediate future.  By comparison, in the same time it took our species to develop the instincts to successfully thrive upon the African continent before we expanded outward, Penguins have been adapting to extreme cold and Camels to extreme dry heat.  For us to adapt to such environments without the use of tools would require a great amount of time and evolution, perhaps more than we have left as a species.  So too we have not developed the instincts necessary to live in such climates  Continued use of technology will likely prevent us from needing to adapt and therefore our species, on the physical level is impossibly stymied in a constant eddy along the river of evolution.  The connection here is that because we (largely) live in a culture in which we needn't learn the natural rhythms of our habitat in order to survive, we seem to think that we are unattached to the instincts we developed over our long history that enabled our survival.  Suppression of those instincts despite their insistent presence leads us to behavior that is recognizable only to those who are paying attention in a certain manner.  However, that is just my opinion.  Eventually, as our dependence upon cheap energy wanes, we will once again need to live by the standards Mother Nature set for our species and all other species and we may, if we are fortunate, be able to evolve in the way it was intended for all organisms to evolve...organically.

Now, let me connect the two concepts.  Both the aggressive violence enacted by "deranged" individuals and the concept of instinct as it relates to energy resources.  First, in order to truly understand the point here you must accept that human beings are predators.  We share many of the characteristics of other predators including two eyes set in front of us so that we are capable of judging the distance between us and our prey.  Other primates, though often considered cute and cuddly in Youtube videos, share similar predatory instincts and characteristics as well.  Being a predator means that we do indeed have the capacity for violence and the instincts to use it but what happens when our technology is advanced to the point where we no longer have a natural outlet for those instincts?  There have been some very interesting studies done that discern a credible link between shopping and the satisfaction of Hunter/Gatherer instincts inherent in our species.  The same parts of the brain that indicate increased dopamine levels when someone gathers a harvest successfully are activated when another person goes to the store and buys something that they really want or feel that they need.  I find it very compelling evidence that the two are linked and so did the studies.  With this example we can see there are instincts that, lacking another reasonable outlet, find a way to manifest.  I believe that in some manner, the same instincts for violence that we have no reasonable outlet for also manifest in the aggression shown by those who go on killing sprees.  My guess is that for whatever reason, that violent instinct is a more exposed nerve for people who snap like that and eventually they just break and start hurting and killing as many people as they can.  It seems as though one predicating factor is that many people who engage in such violence were "loners" which might lead one to believe that they felt marginalized by mainstream culture.  Acting aggressively to defend or secure resources has no real place in our culture anymore since resources (generally) are plentiful.  However, when people are loners and have no resources or community with which to integrate, they often have no outlet for violence because there is no common cause under which they can be of service to their community.  Given that Warriors, even historically, were not simply persons of violent intent, some of that energy was put to other uses when they were not fighting. The manifest violence in video games and cinema are a poor substitute for the violence necessary to satisfy our instinct to protect our resources or struggle to common cause, especially when those resources seem limited to those for whom violence and rage are a second nature.  However, it is also important to remember that such things, while not necessarily the cause of violence, do provide a catalyst by allowing the person in question to be taught that violence relieves some of the pressure those instincts present.

So far I have explained some of what I believe about the presence of violence in nature and where it comes from in our own nature as well.  It would be a gross misrepresentation to make the suggestion that violence has no place in the calling of the Warrior.  History and Nature demonstrate that violence has been the purview of the Warrior from before recorded history.  I have fought this particular battle on many fronts over the last few months as I was developing the concepts behind the presentation I did for Pagan Pride Day.  What I encountered were people who were unwilling to accept the suggestion that a Warrior did not necessarily have to be a violent person in order to be a Warrior and this was most often expressed to me by people who would, in the same breath, suggest that our instincts are the sad remnants of a bygone era of human evolution and have no more place in our lives than living in a cave might.  Personally, I find this type of reasoning rather hypocritical on more than a few levels but the primary source of my frustration is this:  If we are capable of "evolving" socially away from our baser instincts then why should anyone be able to say that Warriors are incapable of evolving past the point of needing violence to be considered a Warrior?  On some level, I agree that our species possesses violent instincts but I would also posit that those instincts are no more or less present than they are in any other organism.  To me it is hypocritical to say that we can eschew the one and fail to accept the other, especially when we do not live in resource scarcity.  To be sure, there are many millions of people in the world for whom resources are scarce but that is not because resources are scarce it is because the world chooses not to share the vast resources we have to see that people are fed and have roofs over their heads.  For people who live in such places (some right here at home in the United States), the term "Warrior" might well mean an act of violence to ensure the continued support and protection of the community but this does not necessarily have to be so if we can wipe out the poverty that creates that necessity.  In essence, there is really no need for violence in our culture and yet it remains pervasive.

I know many people, both smart and intellectually challenged who will make the case for the "Enter my home to take my possessions and you will leave in a body bag" mentality.  For me, this predisposition to possessions is missing the mark on a grand scale.  I would much rather lose my television than take another human life just for the point of "That's my TV and you can't have it" but there is also the point that in this day and age you can never be certain that a person entering your home to steal your belongings will not do you harm to get them.  It is the same with capital punishment for me.  Capital punishment should not even be termed as such.  The prerequisite for terminating another human life for committing any crime should be simply that their continued existence represents a clear and constant threat to others.  The same holds true for those that might want to steal my TV.  If they are a clear and present danger to my life or the life of my family I will raise my sword against them.  I am capable of that but I would much rather take the TV off of the wall myself, see them out and call the police than to take their life.  The element that I most wonder is, in that moment of choice, which will be the correct path?  There are so many people in the United States that want to walk around brandishing firearms like it is the old west because they feel that to do so will ensure continued security.  This idea that we we might wander into a firefight at any second is unlikely to the point of insanity.  What I find is that the need to carry a firearm, ultimately an intensely destructive device, often comes more from insecurity and fear than it does from a feeling of balance and harmony.  The likelihood of dying in a vehicular accident far outweighs the threat of dying from violence and yet people consistently get behind the wheel and speed to their next destination taking many crazy risks along the way, including those who have a firearm strapped to them.

One need not be violent by nature to understand and respect the language though and I would certainly propose that any Warrior, peaceful or otherwise, be at least passing fair in the language of violence as violence can be a valuable instrument should it become necessary to restore balance.  This of course is a deeply personal choice and there are many more ways to be a Warrior without resorting to or training in martial skill.  However, the application of violence to restore balance can have many unintended consequences that even a well balanced and intelligent Warrior cannot foresee.  To me, it is crucially important that anyone who chooses to learn a martial art of any kind be working towards harmony as discussed in the last post in this series.  Violence is one tool among many and should not be the first to be used unless there are no other options available.  For my own part, I train with sword, spear and shield.  I am training currently in how to aptly use the Katana (Kenjutsu) at which I am passing fair.  My occupation has trained me in unarmed self defense techniques which, added to many others over years of practice and experience make me (again) passing fair at the utilization of violence to reach a desired outcome.  Generally however, I prefer diplomacy over any other application.  I am prepared for violence but in actuality, it is rather unlikely that I will ever have to employ the use of a sword, spear or shield in the routine of my life.  There is however, something to be said about the feeling of having a sword in my hand, a shield on my arm or the thrust of a spear going into an imaginary opponent.  Training in this manner allows me an opportunity to vent those violent instincts in a way that is supremely constructive.  It allows me time to meditate and think upon the things that concern me and the things that enlighten me.

As a species, we have turned our violent heart against nature herself in an effort to continue a way of life that is unsustainable in the long term so that we may remain comfortable in the short term.  It may be that once we are down the backside of decline our Warriors may need to more readily embrace violence to serve their communities but that time is not now.  It is now that we should be indoctrinating our next generation of Warriors by creating new traditions that will help all people to understand the value of all life and the cost of taking life without need.

There will always be those who cling desperately to the concept that a willingness to violence is the factor that separates the wheat from the chaff when it comes to being a Warrior.  It is my opinion that in large part, this is due to media depictions that rely upon age old preconceptions that focus more upon the fear and threat of violence from others, and the necessity of stopping that violence by the Warrior (hero) by the use of violence that has us rather misinformed about the nature and service of the Warrior to our culture.  There is a difference between a soldier and a Warrior that is unspoken by many.  A soldier takes orders from another and carries them out at the behest of the body politic.  In my view a Warrior does what a Warrior does because it has a direct correlation to the protection and support of their tribe or community.  While soldiers and Warriors may have many things in common, it remains in my view that a soldier can become a Warrior but a Warrior can never be a soldier.  I will be exploring the differences between the two in the next post.