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Normalizing Violence Has an Unwritten Psychological Playbook
Violence and its use are under our control, as we’ve seen in the psychological literature. But how are we swept up in it?
Violence, whether familial or countrywide, has a structure and a means that make it possible and acceptable to too many. Acceptance doesn’t come on suddenly, but subtly and in small ways that can be dismissed or seen as a variation of “normal” behavior. But it is anything but normal, and life shouldn’t be a conflict between calm and violence.
In the US, 1 in 10 men (10%) and nearly 3 in 10 women (29%) reported having experienced stalking, physical abuse, or rape by a partner, and that experience had an impact on their ability to function. Intimate partner violence, including rape and physical abuse, affects an average of 24 people per minute in the US, amounting to approximately 12 million women and men in a single year, according to one study.
A culture of gun violence might be the way to describe what has been developing in the United States over the years since Columbine, where two students set out to slaughter as many students as possible and then kill themselves. In both details of their plan, they were successful; many died, and the shooters killed themselves. But we must ask two questions: How did it happen, and can we stop it from happening again?
