The Mind Matters

“Violence on the rise..”

By Suren

Newspapers today seem to report acts of violence consistently. Acts of violence is slowly becoming a norm among the society we live in. Murder’s, Robbery which involves stabbing, hitting or causing hurt, slaughtering, brutal rapes and gruesome killings are all seems to be rather common these days then it was some time ago

Many fail to address this high rise of violence but rather only seek protection from it, hoping and praying that it doesn’t’ happen to them instead of finding the root cause and curbing it from happening. Violence is not a genetic or biological deficiency which is rather complex in treating or curbing like some other social issues we face which is associated with. Violence rather needs a clear understanding over what it is and what contributes to it, these basic facts would pave the knowledge to curb it

As for the definition, Violence means (1) behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something (2) strength of emotion or of a destructive natural force  

Since the definition is self-explanatory, factors for violence are rather more crucial, Violence can be reasoned by various factors but it can be clustered to few aspects such as;

Personality

Individuals who have been victims of violence such as child abuse, bully, assaults or such or those who had violence as part of their environment at their growth phase are rather prone to behave violently as they mature resulting to repeating child abuse, domestic violence, assault or brutality or even gangsterism.

The greed for power and wealth are also a factor which pushes individuals to levels where violence may be seen as a tool rather than a danger. Individuals of such may tend to use violence to rob, extort, make way or indoctrinate certain ideologies for their personal gains and benefits. 

Education

Proper education and childhood are the crucial investment to sustain the society in future, when education becomes an impossible task, the ability to justify good and bad is in ambiguity among adolescent’s thus making them fragile to the environmental influences which are rather in the form of “survival of the fittest” these days in the competitive world of ours. Together lack of education from both the family and the society contributes to increases the tendency of lads becoming violent

Economy

Economy doesn’t only reflect incomes and losses, economic instability very much contributes to poverty and poverty could be the driving force towards violence for certain individuals who struggle towards earning a living to make ends meet, the economic instability once again affirms the destructive philosophy of “survival of the fittest” causes individuals of such resorting to violence to survive the economic impact by robbing, murdering, extorting etc..

Environmental

Environmental factors are also the contributors in violence as it is mentioned there are various reasons for violence and it can be clustered into a few categories, thus environmental factors consist of many minor factors such as;

Technology influence

Technology development today is so rapid that we tend to be left out in the matter of days, as good as it is, this also creates many hidden impacts such as the increase of violence based games which is picked up by young children, war and hit men alike games teaches young minds on killing, using of weapons, other games like the angry granny transfers the message of “violence and brutality” is fun. It may sound mere but these are the silent indoctrination which we allow to happen masked by the technological development, ask a kid who is gaming on their parents i-pad how many person have they “killed” or “hit” in the game, it may not be alarming but do we substitute the inaccurate message they receive with the accurate ones ? Do we have the time to explain to young minds that violence and brutality is not right?  

Other environmental factor would be the media and the movies  

Media is also a minor reason for violence to exist more fervently. The highlights given by the media on violence commonly fails to show the negative impact but rather it creates the sensation of being violent and its achievements. These may become a subliminal message affirming violence as a common matter in the society. The media should play the role in providing the information to curb the violence menace rather than highlighting violence and increasing the awareness to avoid violence purely

A movie to date tends to have lavish elements of violence and aggression transpiring the message of violence is a tool to survive. Movies are very influential among the adolescents who fail to differ between reality and on screen scenes where never do they understood the violence in movies are in fact an perpetuated act done with the assistance of professionals. They tend to pick fights and portray similar violence in order to show power or impress others not minding the negative impact of it which never shown in many of the movies.

Moral value inculcation

With the umpteen exposure and factors lurking in the society which leads to violence, the only alternative we tend to have is the moral value inculcation, every parent, teacher, religious teachers, leaders, or whoever in the capability to educate the young minds should take up moral value inculcation as a social responsibility. Adolescents should be educated and inculcated with values appreciating peace and harmony, social tolerance and unity, aggression be it in any form should be made understood as a wrong approach to anything in life.  

We have all seen the impact of violence on the rise, if not curbed in time; violence may be embedded as a culture of our nation resulting to life in fear and unrest forever. Thus by realizing the impact and understanding the factors we should all take it up to curd and extinguish violence to ensure a nation of peace and harmony