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Marina Palmieri in: «
THE COMPLEX NATURE OF VIOLENCE » -
SALVATORE MONGIARDO - |
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prevention of human violence») |
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[
«THE COMPLEX NATURE OF VIOLENCE» == >
«PERCHÉ LA VIOLENZA», SALVATORE MONGIARDO, Città del Sole
Edizioni, 2009 - ISBN 978-88-7351-300-1
] Salvatore Mongiardo THE COMPLEX NATURE OF VIOLENCE English translation by Elisa Covello Project for the creation of a WORLDWIDE ANTIVIOLENCE ACADEMY For the study and prevention of
human violence Preamble It is commonly said that: violence has always existed and will
always exist. Or: man is violent by
nature and will never change. Is this statement correct? Or is it simply the
verification of violence spreading in the world? In short, can we get away
from the violence? And how? And why am I pointing out this problem? I am the author
of three books: Ritorno in Calabria (1994) Viaggio a Gerusalemme (2002),
Sesso e Paradiso (2006), of which Marina Palmieri wrote: they are three uncomfortable books with a common
denominator, the investigation into the roots of violence. I will add that
violence is the dominating theme in Journey to Jerusalem (Viaggio a Gerusalemme) which I recommend
you read. It is a short book and is available free on-line in Italian and
English. However, I do not claim that the themes contained in the book are
the truth: facing such a big problem like violence, everything can be brought
up again in discussion. In any case, which violence are we
talking about? There are nature’s manifestations, like earthquakes and
hurricanes, forces that are defined as blind
because they are spread without care for living beings: we don’t call that
violence. There are carnivorous animals, including some fish that feed
themselves from other animals: we do not call this violence either, even if
it leads to the killing of a living being for food. But the lion, once full,
does not take off for the hunt and the killing of every gazelle it comes
across. Man, however, since the dawn of history until today, has killed an
immense number of his own kind, that he doesn’t not only eat, but often he
honours with the burial. We want above all to deal with this violence, that
we can call the big violence, the one of wars and massacres, to see if it is
possible to deal with it. But,
obviously there is also the
violence that brings to the killing, the wounding, the mistreatment of a
person by another person, that is the individual violence, both physical and
moral. As I have written in my books, I
consider victory over violence as the goal for my life: this is because I
have suffered a lot because of violence and therefore, I am trying to
understand its deep roots in order
to eradicate it. Saying that, I
know that many people have suffered more than I have, and an almost infinite
number have been killed. I think about the sea of blood of the victims, and
the immense amount of suffering of billions of human beings that have lived
in pain, unable to live with dignity. I feel the time to face violence with
courage and intelligence has come. My courage can be seen as recklessness or
irresponsibility, they are legitimate evaluations that I will not discuss.
Intelligence no, if I can convince you that you can analyse, understand,
face, and reduce in a considerable way human violence. 1. Violence and Philosophy It is a topic that has not been
developed much by philosophers, with the exception of Pythagoras, which will
be discussed in Chapter 3. Perhaps the most incisive expression is that of
Heraclitus, who said in one of his fragments: …we need to put out violence rather than the fire. Heraclitus, however, argues that war is
the mother of all things: from order comes disorder, from disorder comes
order. If this is the case, what order should come from violence, seen as
disorder? However, there is a lack of convincing attempts to give a
philosophical explanation to human violence. This lack could indicate that
not even philosophers went beyond the common belief that violence has always
existed and will always exist. Philosophers aside, not much is written about
violence. There are some works written about individual violence, that is
publications on psychiatry or
criminology. It can be said that much more has been written at a scientific
level about the moon and the stars than about violence. But philosophy has had a lot of
influence in generating political systems that used violence to establish
their own political regimes designed by some philosophers. Pythagoras
himself, who ruled Crotone, was driven out by the revolt of the people of
Crotone and scolded for his position that led to the destruction of Sybaris
by Crotone. In more recent times,
the claim that Enlightenment Philosophy lit the fuse of the French Revolution
is known, as is the claim that the German philosophers Hegel and Marx were
the inspirers of the Nazi and Communist systems. 2. Violence and Religion I am referring to the great historical
religions: Hinduism and Buddhism, the Oriental block on one side, and the
Middle Eastern block with Hebraism, Christianity and Islamism on the other
side. We can leave out the religions from the past, with the exception of the
Greeks and their gods of Olympus,
which we will have the possibility to go back to. Of all religions, it can be said that
they tried to curb the violence, to tame or to channel it. It can also be
said that the religions were not able to beat the violence or that they were
accomplices. At this point, the conversation becomes delicate because the
religions represent the deep nucleus of the culture of populations, the
mirror of the soul, and therefore we risk to disturb the interlocutor by
putting into discussion venerable and sacred principles, encoded in
millenniums of lifestyle, art and
tradition. To face this topic with
the right spirit, let me tell you what happened to me in May 2006 in Tunisia.
I was among the ruins of Carthage, near Tunis, and I was visiting the tophet, the cemetery of
children strewed with funerary stones. Behind each stele is a niche where at
that time an earthenware pot, containing the bones of children buried alive,
was placed. They were offered by their parents to the Phoenician gods during
an eclipse so that the sun would come back to light the earth. There are
discussions about this ritual, but it remains true that the sacrifices of
children burned alive was practiced in the Phoenician world. While visiting
the tophet I remembered the solar eclipse I had observed quietly through
smoked glass and, as a father, I could not believe that a parent could
sacrifice his child. The only explanation that I could give myself was that
fear had driven those parents to commit such an act against nature. Today we
know how and when an eclipse occurs, we are no longer afraid that the sun
will disappear forever, nobody prays or offers sacrifices. Can we not then assume that an
interpretative model, that is not adequately able to understand reality,
generates anxiety that leads to violence? Then, most of the violence is based
on ignorance, isn’t it? 3. Violence and Nutrition This argument is the most clearly dealt
with in ancient times by Pythagoras. He stated that an animal was man’s
younger brother, and was to be protected. The philosopher refused to eat meat
and fish; he stayed away from hunters and butchers and stated that no man was
able to kill another man if he refused to kill an animal. The Pythagoreans
dressed in white linen - the wool belonged to the sheep - and offered the gods flour and honey cakes in the shape of
animals thus challenging the bloody sacrifice celebrated in Greece and the Magna Graecia.
Pythagoras’ reasoning was: if you kill an animal to feed yourself, a culture
will emerge that would give back
to humans the violence given to the animal. The offer of bread in the shape
of an ox, which he made in Crotone to thank the gods after he discovered his
famous theorem, was memorable: he refused to kill the ox that he had been
given for sacrifice. For Pythagoras
the need for food was not a valid reason and killing animals still had
negative consequences. Today there is an awareness and a tendency for
vegetarian food for reasons that are above all ethical. However, scientific research is still
lacking the proof that killing animals leads to increased aggressiveness
because of substances already present in the meat or generated by
slaughtering. Have enzyme, hormone and cortisone
levels in live animals ever been measured? And have the same levels been
measured after the animals have undergone the shock of being slaughtered? How
do they change, if they change, the brain functions of the person that eats
meat? And is it true, as some Pythagoreans have stated, that the longing to
feed yourself with living beings triggers sexual desire? What are the substances
in meat that generate an excessive sexual drive? 4. Violence and Guilt
Didn’t Jesus rebel against the sacred
violence of the Temple of Jerusalem, which nevertheless has prevailed and has
made Jesus look like a sacrificial victim for the salvation of the world? The
sacrifice of the lamb, without a blemish, offered morning and evening in the
Temple of Jerusalem, to what extent might it have influenced the Jewish culture, leading them to
believe that to be a victim is a sign of divine predilection? Isn’t Jesus himself invoked every day as the lamb of God who deliberately takes upon himself the sins
of the world? Could this ancient rite have
contributed to make the Jews go to the slaughter like lambs during the
Holocaust? Does the Bible not mention the words blood, sacrifice, and the
victim about a thousand times? Isaiah says (53, 7): He was treated harshly, but endured it humbly; he
never said a word. Like a lamb about to be slaughtered… 5. Violence and Definition Behind every murderer there is a
definition: define a man a murderer or
heretic and you send him to the gallows or the stake. Define him the enemy, counterrevolutionary, Jew, and
his fate is sealed. On the other hand, in an effort to understand reality,
man comes up with many definitions that become dangerous when they claim to
be immutable. One example known to all of us, is that of Galileo and the
Inquisition. Catholic culture was entrenched around the Ptolemaic model of
the cosmos and refused to look at the evidence. Any definition both from truth of faith
or dogmas, should not be available to give way to a new interpretation of
reality as it happens for science? It seems to me, that many definitions
or doctrines remain imprinted in the depths of the soul without you even noticing.
What Stalin said to Churchill about the massacres of white Russians he
ordered, has always struck me: It was
horrible! Stalin himself was obviously upset, but he did not stop the
massacre. Can it be assumed that the Stalinist
massacres are ultimately due to the education that Stalin received in the
Orthodox seminary in Tbilisi, that is the doctrine of Saint Paul according to
which sacrifice and victims are required? 6. Violence and the Bible When Luther started the reform, the
pope was Leo X, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. At the moment of his
election, Leone X said: The Providence
has given us the Papacy, let’s enjoy it! He was educated in Florence
during the Renaissance, arisen from the rediscovery of ancient Greek
Civilisation. Under his papacy the Vatican was filled with pagan statues and
paintings which are among the greatest world masterpieces. Similarly, the
great blooming of the Arabic culture was around 1100, when Islam came into
contact with Greek philosophy and Avicenna and Averroes became its most
renowned representatives. Can we state that the Greek thought is
indispensable to improve the pastoral culture of the Middle East? Is it also
indispensable for all the other cultures in the world? Going back to Luther, his faith was
centred on Christ on the Cross, in other terms he was proposing again the
doctrine of St. Paul for which salvation comes from the sacrifice of the
cross. At first sight, one could state that Luther had taken the right
revenge on the Pope, dedicated to pleasures and to the selling of
indulgences. But you can also see Luther as a character that has brought back
the story with the doctrine of sacrifice, which certainly Leo X did not do. Furthermore Luther translated the Bible from
Latin into German and so he probably put two very dangerous things together:
the desire of sacrifice, typical of the biblical world, and the easiness of
killing in the Germanic world, already known by the ancient Romans. The
historian Tacitus wrote that the Roman soldiers remained disconcerted when
they saw German mothers hurl their own sons against them. In a few words, can one assume that
Luther, without being conscious, had laid the groundwork to bring Nazi
perpetrators and Jewish victims of the Holocaust together? Does the destruction of statues, bas-reliefs,
paintings, altarpieces and crucifixes made by Protestants in Catholic
churches, not constitute an announcement of the Holocaust with the
elimination of all Jews depicted as Christ, Mary, the apostles, the
patriarchs, prophets and so on? 7. Violence and Happiness The aspiration of every man is towards
what is believed to be the supreme good, happiness. The search for happiness,
at least since literature has existed, is a theme around which the story of
man has developed. Happiness is imagined as a state of bliss, well-being,
health, successes: too many conditions to be satisfied all together. Then,
however there is death... not for nothing the Gods of Olympus were beautiful,
free from moral coercion, young and immortal. In the real world obtaining happiness is practically impossible,
that’s why we say that happy is only who is convinced of being happy. Is it then correct to say that the
tension towards happiness can generate violent behaviour when life gives
unhappiness and therefore frustration and anger? Would it not be more respondent to
human conditions to admit that the goal of life is not happiness, but the
experience of all human emotions, like pain, joy, hate, love, anguish and
hope? And then, what would it be, if there is any, the aim of living all of these emotions? Maybe the creation of
consciousness like history seems to indicate? Is then a statement by a
politician like Gorbaciov legitimate where according to him the “final end”
of man is to give consciousness to the universe? 8. Violence and Jesus The evening of Holy Thursday- April 5th
2007, during the celebration at Saint John in Lateran, Pope Benedict XVI
stated that Jesus could have celebrated Jewish Easter, his last supper, on
the day fixed by the calendar of the Essenes, who were vegetarians. It’s a
hypothesis of some scholars which the Pope recognises as a high level of probability. The
hypothesis is based on the Scrolls of the Dead Sea, the books of the Essenes
found in the caves of Qumran in 1947. Not far from Qumran there are
excavations where buildings from the Essenes community rise, that I visited
in 1999. The Pope said textually: …
Jesus probably celebrated Easter with his disciples according to the Qumran
calendar - that is at least one day before the Easter of the Temple - and he
celebrated it without lamb, like the Qumran community, that didn’t
acknowledge the Temple of Erode and was waiting for a new temple. The affiliation,
familiarity or influence of the Essenes on Jesus is now accepted by all
scholars. But one must wonder, who inspired the Essenes in their rigorous
vegetarian practice and in their protest against the Temple and every type of
bloody sacrifice. A source that no one can doubt, is the historian Josephus
Flavius. He was a cultured Jewish man, from a noble family with relatives in
the Sanhedrim, a man of arms who took part in the war against the Romans and
predicted to Vespasian that he would become emperor. In the Jewish Antiquities (XV,371) he wrote
of the Essenes textually: It is
about a group that follows a type of life that was taught to the Greek by
Pythagoras. Things being in this way, can one
assume that the cultural father of
Jesus was Pythagoras with the doctrine based on three principles: prohibition
of bloody sacrifices, abstinence from sex and, above all, the communion of
goods? With regard to this, is not
enlightening the fact that Jesus’ first two disciples were Andreas and Philip
who had Greek names? In fact they were Hellenizing, as were called the Jews
sympathizers of the Greek culture arrived in
Palestine with the invasion of Alexander the Great. Wouldn’t that Greek and
Pythagorean aspiration of Jesus be reinforced by the fact that Saint Andreas
chose Greece as the land of preaching? And wouldn’t another confirmation come
from Saint John the Evangelist that in Patmos, in Greece, wrote the
Apocalypse which ends with the vision of a heavenly Jerusalem, in which… …there isn’t a temple anymore and the lamb is adored
on God’s throne? (Apocalypse, 21&22 and following). Christ came to Crotone, one
should say paraphrasing the famous novel by Carlo Levi, Christ stopped at Eboli. 9. Violence and Sex It is the topic that has been written
about the most, above all thanks to Freud, who was a doctor, Jewish, Austrian
and undoubtedly had an immense culture. His contemporary Hitler was not at
the same cultural level as Freud and suffered from serious sexual problems
which seemed to be manifested in his need to be treated badly by women. His
first fiancé, his niece Geli, committed suicide, and Eva Braun attempted
suicide twice. Freud died in England where he took shelter because of the
racial laws issued by Hitler. In his attempt to decipher the sexual impulses,
Freud had to go back to Greek culture to describe the most important
phenomenon: Oedipus complex, Eros and Thanatos, Narcissism etc. In fact
ancient Greek culture had accepted those phenomena which were scandalous for
European Christian culture. One question that can be asked is: How
and when do sexual desires create an underground basin of sexuality that make
it easy, and maybe even hopeful, to go to war and even die for, just to end
the desires that don’t find an outlet? How can we otherwise explain all young
people running away from home for volunteers to go to the front? We say “ Make
love, not war”. Is it verifiable that free sexual practice dissuades from the
war and from the desire of death? Or on the contrary, was Freud right when he
stated that every living thing is searching for peace, that is to say death?
Freud then states that man’s first pleasure is killing: therefore, how can we
oppose violence, if killing is the most important of the pleasures and even
surpasses the sexual pleasure that Freud himself had defined as the maximum
of all pleasures? Still, Hitler and Goebbels in the
bunker of the Chancellery in Berlin, before committing suicide, carried out
the homicide of their wives, and Goebbels of his six children as well. And
didn’t the Jews in Masada do the same thing, cutting their throats in turn?
Could the fear of falling into the hands of the Roman enemy which certainly would have saved women and children while
making them slaves, have masked in both cases the desire to die
and the pleasure of killing? 10. Violence and Erotic
Surplus I’ve read about an astronomic number of
daily visits to porn sites in every part of the world, including Arabian
countries: it is a totally new fact in the course of history. It seems that
all the continents and every social class has been overwhelmed by this
unstoppable desire for sex. Reflecting on this phenomenon it’s easy to
observe that sex unites us, and religion divides us. No one standing in front
of a beautiful girl, poses the problem if she is of one religion or another.
It would be different if an Israeli young man and an Arab girl wanted to tie
the knot. Irate prohibitions would arise from
the religious authority that would make the union impossible. Does this world wide fair of
pornography bring people close in a positive way, or encourage paedophile
behaviour, prostitution, human trafficking and sexual tourism? Or even change
the sexual practices of a couple making them more uninhibited, but even more
perverse and violent? Today the religious sublimation of sex is scarcely
practised. Which purpose or alternative means can be devised to limit the
increase in sexual crimes? On the other hand, now, it isn’t
possible to think that the only function sex has is to procreate, we are six
billion inhabitants and the average life span is longer. However, sex is a
great dispenser of emotions, and therefore pushes towards the knowledge of
the body, of the soul, of the person and of the world. Is the argument put
forward in my book Sex and Paradise
correct? I wrote that… ... Sex is an
invincible force, which is necessary to uncover the mystery of the Existing
and turn it into God. Sex is nothing else but the door of immortality. 11. Violence and Theology The number of people that have been
killed in the name of God is uncountable: if you don’t adore our God, you
must die; if you adore idols, you will be killed, if you don’t recognise
Mohammed as a prophet... To me it seems evident that we aren’t talking about
God, but about a concept of God that varies according to historical cultures.
So, we come back to the problem of the definition, not the realty of God,
that by general admission remains mysterious and inaccessible. So, therefore
can we say that those killed in the name of God died for a definition? And
can we find a new definition of God that surpasses all of the previous
definitions? The basic problem of God, from my point
of view, is in the concept of creation: the Middle Eastern cultures, but also
Greek culture, see the world as a product of divine creation. Buddha doesn’t
pose the problem of God because, if we assume that God was not created by
someone, the problem remains unresolved. Let’s try to imagine a different
solution. Instead of God, let’s speak about Existing: whereas existing has
always existed and will exist forever. Existing embraces everything and by
nature is mysterious, but destined to know himself. The moon is round, but it
doesn’t know that: man knows that. Human flesh is the necessary step between mysterious Existing and known
Existing, which we can safely call God, who would then be the
son, not the father to the man. Could this new definition be the
meeting ground and surpass historical religions? If we hypothesise that every
person flows into God as knowledge, wouldn’t it lower the level of clashes
among religions? 12. Violence and Desires The visit to Lumbini, the birth city of
Buddha in Nepal, wasn’t planned as part of the trip I went on at the end of
2001. A rare fog in Benares, where we were heading to, prohibited landing
from Kathmandu. We had to take a bus to reach Benares, that passed through
Lumbini, that I really wanted to see. In
Lumbini I felt even more strongly within me
the strength that I felt in Crotone when I
was visiting the school of Pythagoras and in Jerusalem visiting the Holy
Sepulchre. It was like a powerful energy that came from distant worlds and
said: “Go on, go on!” Buddha
taught us that life is pain, that pain starts from desire, that the
detachment from desire is necessary to reach a state of peace, the nirvana. But if we follow my hypothesis of the
Existing, first mysterious, then known, we see that the desire could have the
task of unhinging the mystery obliging us to go towards the reality of
things. Why did the armies of Alexander and Cesar move, the caravels of
Colombo, the expeditions on the moon if it wasn’t to give us knowledge?
History has shown us that desires, even those that seem impossible, have been
carried out. An example for everyone is flight, it was claimed to be
impossible for thousands of years, and Icarus was the mythical hero. But also the victory over many diseases, the exploration
of the cosmos and so on were made true. One could then say
that, at the base of many of man’s problems, is a lack or little audacity in
the desire, that is we don’t desire enough and with strength. The miracles
carried out by saints of the various faiths and the goodness received from
the sky, what else could they be except a strong desire that was realised?
And aren’t prayers the strengthening of a desire? 13. Violence and the Reverse
Vision We have spoken about violence in a
field limited to the Western world. Obviously violence involves the whole
world, but I’ve restricted the discussion because I don’t have enough
knowledge of the various cultures in the world to be able to formulate a
hypothesis that makes any good sense. However, it seems to me that I am able
to enunciate a principal that I will call the “reverse vision”: what
yesterday seemed to be an indisputable truth, today
seems to be a deception; what seemed to be a hazard, a new border of
knowledge. The history of Galileo is illuminating because it affirms that
what is true, is the opposite to what we believed: it isn’t the sun, but the
earth that turns. Following this track, we shouldn’t say that life is a
mystery, but it is in life that the mystery reveals. That the cruel sacrifice
doesn’t cancel the sin, but is the sin itself! The Bible isn’t the book of
salvation, but the guide of death, seeing the terrible fate reserved for the
Jews in all times. This “reverse vision” can only be
practised with free thought. When Athens counted 30,000 inhabitants, at the
time of Plato and Aristotle, there were about 20 philosophy schools, almost
always in disagreement with each other. And still, it was the age of its
maximum splendour, exactly because the thought enjoyed its great freedom. 14. Violence and Fires In the summer of 2007, the world
assisted the flaring up of the fires, obviously voluntary, in Greece and in
the Magna Graecia: from Peloponnesus to Puglia, Campania, Calabria and
Sicily. It makes me think that a thread united those fires: the abandonment
of the gods of Olympus. During those fires, in Calabria we held the syssitia
bringing bread in the shape of ox as Pythagoras did. The syssitia or common
banquet, was the foundational act of Italy carried out by the first king
Italus. Calabria reacts to its decay with the biggest dream in humanity: the
end of violence (see my book, Return to
Calabria available on line). The murder of 6
people in Duisburg attracted the attention to San Luca, where we held the
syssitia in 2001. That day, we placed the basket of food on an ancient altar
of marble where we saw the Pythagorean five point star engraved, which would
later become the symbol of communism and terrorism. Iamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras, speaks about some
Pythagorean that took refuge in those parts and lived a solitary life... 15. Violence and Death Someone has claimed that violence,
above all big violence, is ineradicable, because it would be a means of
removing the fear of death. It is obvious that death represents man’s
greatest anxiety. How did we free ourselves from fear of the eclipse, is it
possible to free ourselves from the fear of death by understanding the
mechanisms that today escape us? What do the neuroscientists and
neurobiologists have to say today about death? Moreover, how do we explain
that in the Middle East, life and reincarnation are seen as punishment while
the opposite happens in the Western world, where we always hope for heaven,
in eternal life, in the God of life? What does this cultural contrast hide? And what did Heraclitus mean when he
stated that, if man could imagine how much beauty was waiting for us there
after death, we would be greatly amazed? 16. Violence and
Antiviolence I prefer the term antiviolence to
nonviolence. The latter, hides, in my point of view, a dark desire of death,
evident in two of the greatest exponents of this, Jesus and Ghandi. Jesus
speaks in the Gospels about giving life, for others more than once. Ghandi
repeats exactly the same thing when he writes about wanting to pursue an
ideal until life is given. One could say, without disrespect, that their deep
desire has been heard. Mathematics says that inverting the
order of factors, doesn’t change the result. The violence suffered, always
remains violence: then is accepting martyrdom like accepting the evil? The
concept of antiviolence states that violence cannot be given, but not even
accepted. On the contrary, antiviolence means
understanding violence in its most hidden plots and fighting it with
determination and intelligence, to the limit, even with the rational use of
the violence itself. It seems to be a paradox, but I would like to explain
with an example. If a huge fire advances quickly in the prairie, the only way
to save ourselves is to light a counter-fire where we are, in such a way
that, when the huge fire arrives, you can repair the already burnt part. In
other words, nonviolence means to suffer, antiviolence means to refuse and
fight. 17. Violence and Economy The economy has always played a
determining role from when primitive man had to obtain food, first as a
gatherer, then as a hunter and finally as a farmer. The world today,
essentially a producer of goods and services, has changed a lot since then,
but the economic necessity to obtain the means to live is always the first
problem of every individual, except for rare occasions. Violence maybe connected to the economy
more than it seems at first sight. First of all, violence, like in wars,
destroys economic resources that should have had an alternative use. The
economic cost of all the wars is simply incalculable. Then, there is the
violence born from a claim of political regimes to make the economy work
better, like the Marxism-Leninism, with deluding results. And still violence
from wars to take over rich territories that are full of resources, for
example the conquering of America by the Europeans. What could be the correction to the
current economic systems to reduce the level of violence? For example, the abolition of the
sovereign rights of States over the underground resources such as oil? Today there are the unsolved problems of
environmental attacks, high energy consumption and global warming. Could one conceive a more
sober social structure, a lifestyle like university campuses, where one could
live, work and learn throughout life, eliminating retirement and the
abandonment of work? Moreover, the anxiety generated by the
spectacle of violence, coupled with the difficulty of making enough money to
live, couldn’t this be the cause of the spreading of the drug at unthinkable
levels? 18. Violence and Human Nature Let’s
go back to the problem of the nature of man, that we started this speech with. Also in this case it
seems that we can say it has to do with a problem created by the definition:
nature would always be the same, practically unchangeable. It is obvious that
the lion from one hundred thousand years ago, hasn’t changed substantially.
Instead, man has almost changed completely due to the acquisition of
knowledge. A long journey, that he has carried out in every corner of the
world, causing him to create languages, like poetry, music, paintings,
philosophy. But it also brought him to the cosmos and has induced him to
question the ultimate reason for things. One
can safely say, that inside the body of a man from one hundred thousand years
ago, and in the body of man today, there are two different natures. From
primitive animal, man hasn’t had another choice, but to go towards knowledge,
and all of the resistance opposed to this goal has caused damage and
casualties. What will human nature be in the future? It seems that Pico della
Mirandola (1463-1494), was right when he wrote: Other beings are by nature
closed and defined within terms and laws... you (man), not confined to narrow
limits, will determine your nature only by your free will. You could
degenerate into lower beings, the brute, or you can regenerate to superior
beings, the divine, at your sole discretion... (Pico, De Hominis dignitate preamb. 18-20). At the end, the change in nature will depend on choice: can we have
better nature if we want one? Is it enough to wish for it and carry out
actions in harmony with that wish? Exhortation These pages seem to be the
cross-section of a struggle between the Middle East, on one side, and Greece
on the other. And they are, in part, for the classical culture with which I
have been trained. But I am completely aware that the violence has many aspects that haven’t
been considered here. For this reason I make the proposal to create a: ANTIVIOLENCE WORLD ACADEMY For the study and prevention of human violence An Academy which gathers the best minds from all corners of the Earth
and involves the most outstanding scholars in the various fields of
psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, biochemistry, neurology, sociology,
ethnology, philosophy, law, history, physics, mathematics, statistics,
etc… Let’s try to
think about cancer: it is widespread, but endless research and efforts are
made to beat it, and often it is possible. Violence is
an ancient evil that has proliferated in all forms of culture, religious,
social, family, manufacturing, military, behavioural, sexual. The list is
endless. Today we
have the opportunity to study everything from butterfly wings to galaxies. Yet there
is not a global hub, a global university that is dedicated solely to the
study and coordination of studies on violence. Without
shame and without prejudice, in that centre we will discover the alliances with
which violence exercises its domain with unbearable human and economic costs. I put this message in a bottle and entrust it to the sea of life. Someone
will pick it up on a beach. Europe has lived for thousands of years
in war, but over the last sixty years has lived in peace: why did it happen? Is this not
a clear example that things can change? I end with a statement which may be
considered utopian, but I feel deeply my own: One day the violence will end! For that day
I want to live, that day I greet from now. |
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■ Marina
Palmieri – in Preamble > «THE COMPLEX NATURE OF VIOLENCE », author
SALVATORE MONGIARDO (2010) ▲ [
«THE COMPLEX NATURE OF VIOLENCE»
== > «PERCHÉ LA VIOLENZA»,
SALVATORE MONGIARDO, Città del Sole Edizioni, 2009 - ISBN
978-88-7351-300-1 ] [ Link/Blog: www.salvatoremongiardo.com - search: «PERCHÉ LA VIOLENZA» / «THE COMPLEX NATURE OF VIOLENCE» ] >> (rif. Marina Palmieri in Preamble/Preambolo) vd. anche edizione originale in italiano: «PERCHÉ LA VIOLENZA» - autore SALVATORE MONGIARDO >> Comprende l'Atto unico «Rappresentazione della scuola di Pitagora e del Sissizio con il Bue di Pane» >> |
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