The Starting Point

“There's only one corner of the universe
you can be certain of improving,
and that's your own self.”
— Aldous Huxley

Getting Them to Behave

You might wonder how you get violent people to be peaceful. The answer is: You don't.

Violence manifests from an experience of powerlessness. By making the decision to “fix” others, I put myself in the seat of power. I make the decisions — not those who are the object of my “good works.” If they are infected with the violence pathogen and powerlessness aggravates their condition, taking more power from them only makes things worse.

Getting others to behave is not the objective of the Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model. Getting ourselves free of the pathogen, improving unhealthy conditions (what we refer to as “risk factors”), and giving others the opportunity to do the same is the objective.

The Thought-borne Pathogen

No one wants to be caught in the grip of the violence pathogen any more than anyone would want to have cancer. It's clear to me that people are doing the best they can to bring health to their lives. I suppose one could say they're starving for peace, for an end to violence. We don't need to go out on the street, drag them in to our violence-free buffet, force their faces in to the quiche, and shout 'eat!'” They're starving. They'll feed themselves.

But they won't find a life free of violence until they find value and meaning in their lives, until fear is brought under control, until the experience of consuming powerlessness leaves them.

Starting With One's Self

The one person upon whom you can have the most impact in countering the violence pathogen (or, as I sometimes call it, “brain bug”) and building a violence immune system is yourself. When you reduce your susceptibility to violence, you do two things:

• You reduce the number of human beings with violence by one.
• You directly impact the systemic environment under which the violence pathogen thrives. You become a healthy node on the network of human interaction.

Your immunity to violence is contagious. You can, in effect, infect your children, friends, peers, relatives, co-workers, and people you meet with healthy power if you experience healthy power yourself. You can be especially effective when you know how violence operates in you and others, then take action to call forth power for those you encounter each day.

How do you do that? There are many ways of leaving others with a sense of power. You call power out when you are authentically honest, compassionate, caring, supportive, encouraging, trustworthy, and thankful. It comes forth when you “make” someone's day, when you feel your own power and step up to be deeply in the presence of another.

When I realize that it starts with me, I realize that — ultimately — it ends with me. Gandhi said, “You must be the change you want to see in the world.” It’s become something of a cliché, but only because it’s so true.

Value, Meaning, and the Fear of Death

“Security is an attempt
to try to make the universe static
so that we feel safe.”
— Anne Wilson Schaef

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard observed that human beings need value and meaning in order to live. American cultural anthropologist Ernest Becker determined that our greatest fear is death and that we develop life strategies to avoid our demise.

These two observations are central to our relationship with power. Power can provide us with a metaphorical immortality, perpetuating the sense of self as well as value and meaning. Recognizing the role the quest for power plays in our lives, we can understand why someone would want to receive the Nobel Prize, become a powerful political leader, write a literary masterpiece, or have their name on a monument.

Three Forms of Power

As we work with the Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model, we learn that power takes three general forms:

1. Healthy — power which moves us toward life. Examples are honesty, accountability, forgiveness, wisdom, respect, compassion, and thankfulness.
2. Benign — power which can be used in either healthy or unhealthy ways. This would include commitment, perseverance, excellence, patience, loyalty, and courage. For example, one could be courageously loyal to a leader who advocates tolerance and understanding or to one advocating hatred and genocide.
3. Unhealthy — power which moves us away from life. Examples include dishonesty, wrath, ignorance, arrogance, greed, and hate.

Living the Heroic Life

Becker argues that we are driven to live heroic lives. The problem, he observes, is that heroic behavior produces the greatest evil in the world. Why? Because we are heroic for our viewpoint, our tribe, our “way of life,” and our way of denying death. That means differing viewpoints, tribes, ways of life, and immortality schemes are threats. The result — as we’ve seen with crusades, terrorism, racial differences, etc. — is violence.

But if we’re driven to live heroic lives, are we doomed? Becker seems to think not. He observes that heroism conducted on a universal or “cosmic” level is the only way we can find value and meaning which does not result in evil. Cosmic heroism is heroic behavior on behalf of all life. Examples of those who have taken this course are Martin Luther King, Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, and the doctors and staff at Médecins Sans Frontières.

Cosmic heroism means accepting life as it is, living with mystery, and realizing that the universe is anything but static. As far as being human, I live with the knowledge that there’s no security whatsoever.

The Power of Choice

Living a heroic life on a universal level is not easy. It requires humility, wisdom, courage, patience, and perseverance. It’s challenging, but the rewards are great because the path of the cosmic hero produces depth, richness, and joy. In the end, it’s a choice — one made moment to moment. One thing that reassures me as I make my way though the experience of being in the world is the realization that — in those moments when I am fearful, petty, and small — I can turn back on the path of cosmic hero and find my way home.

Rethinking Violence

“Violence is not merely killing another. It is violence when we use a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear.”
— Jiddu Krishnamurti

Understanding the Violence Integrative Prevention and Restoration (PAR) Model requires moving beyond the traditional views about violence and into a wholly new framework. At the core of that framework is the PAR Model's definition of violence as a thought-borne pathogen that presents as any action resulting from:

1. An intention to do harm; and/or
2. Attempts to gain inappropriate power and control for self-serving gain which results in harm.

Common Characteristics

By examining some of the common characteristics of violence, you can begin to shift your understanding of violence, its precursors and outcomes. Some common characteristics of violence are:

1. It is infectious, due in part to the loss of power and control by victims. A common reaction is to respond to violent episodes with violence (“profane” or “sacred”).
2. It is self-replicating. Because of its infectious nature, violence drives more violence. Scapegoating and mob behavior are examples where violence infects those who have not been the direct recipients of violence themselves.
3. We are “acclimated” to violence; numbed, tolerant, and unaware. This allows violence to spread rapidly.
4. It is addictive. Although toxic, it can create an addiction which has its roots in power, control, and the need for stimulation.
5. It is often characterized by denial and lack of accountability on the part of the players on the “drama triangle” (persecutor, victim, rescuer).
6. It is fed by social systems including government modeling (violence as an effective strategy in response to crime and international relations), media (violent entertainment), prevailing negative cultural beliefs (bigotry, stereotyping, scapegoating), ethics (greed, avarice, exploitation, etc.), and the definition of heroic behavior.
7. It is seductive by nature – it invites more violence, even from those who abhor it (for example, the Oklahoma City bombing which in turn drives the state-sanctioned killing of Timothy McVeigh).
8. It can result in a variety of presentation complaints ranging from the mild to the fatal — depression, paranoia, PTSD, headaches, bruises, puncture wounds, fractures, hearing degradation, digestive ailments, fetal injury, gun shot trauma, death.
9. It is preventable, using many of the same public health strategies used in increasing seat-belt and bicycle helmet usage and decreasing cigarette usage and chemical dependency.
10. It is widespread — presenting in epidemic proportions.

Compassion as a Consequence

As one is immersed in this new approach, one notices that blame, disgust, indignation, vengeance, and the experience of powerlessness begin to fade. Often, solutions to prevention and intervention challenges appear as immediate and obvious manifestations of the process of seeing violence clearly through the lens of the PAR Model.

My concern has been that the traditional punitive approach to dealing with violence is not only ineffective, it actually aggravates the condition. Since violence arises from an experience of power deprivation, taking power away via punishment increases the deprivation In short, punitive response are themselves forms of violence.

In my discussions with those applying the PAR Model, one of the most common observations is that the practitioners feel a strong sense of compassion for all those impacted by violence, including the person expressing the symptoms of the disease. Compassion is a significant source of healthy power for both the person expressing it and the one who is the object of the caring. One is left with the realization that one of the most effective tools in eradicating violence is unleashing relentless compassion.