So far in this series of posts exploring violence, I’ve written a lot about how there’s so much violence around, how violence is epidemic yet indigenous to the Domination System we cannot help but live in. Yet if anything I remain stymied by how to resolve this.

Probably part of this stems from my own overly yin nature. I tend to withdraw, to passively shy away from conflict. I suppose my attraction to the martial arts was in some ways a subconscious attempt to learn how to engage conflict, but the macho personalities I kept running into made me seriously doubt its effectiveness in a broader scope.

And yet the other extreme I occupy in opposition to the hard-yang approach, the soft-yin, is also insufficient to deal with the conflicts in life. If it’s wrong to charge into the world like you have to kill everyone to get to the top, it’s also wrong to passively let everyone run over you, to embrace the role of victim and allow yourself to be dominated.

In Engaging the Powers, Walter Wink wrote,

Gandhi insisted that no one join him who was not willing to take up arms to fight for independence. They could not freely renounce what they had not entertained. One cannot pass directly from “Flight” to “Jesus’ Third Way” [of nonviolence]. One needs to pass through the “Fight” stage, if only to discover one’s own inner strength and capacity for violence. One need not actually become violent, but one does need to own one’s fury at injustice and care enough to be willing to fight and, if necessary, die for its eradication. Only then can such a person freely renounce violence and embrace active nonviolence.

This, then, is the beginning of an answer. Acknowledging that evil and violence exist, what must one do? Engage that violence, creatively. But how?

Former gang member and streetfighter Marc “Animal” MacYoung writes in his essay on violence that one who truly has no violence in one’s heart will not be harmed by those with violent intent.

We have a dear and devout friend by the name of Danny Young, who eloquently responded to a claim of pacifism by his ex-wife with the following words

“You’re not a pacifist, you’re just afraid of physical violence.”

… Pacifism is not only about being against violence, it also is about being non-violent. When considered with the definition of violence (given below), the implications of Mr. Young’s statement should bring you up short. Pacifism is not about being “verbally/emotionally violent” and then hiding behind a definition.

Being pacifistic means that you do not engage in any kind of violence yourself. Most self-proclaimed pacifists are anything but pacific. It is very easy to be extremely violent without ever being physical about it. Pacifism is not, as many self-proclaimed pacifists do, screaming vitriolic anger at people and then claiming you are non-violent because you didn’t strike anybody. If you think this is an exaggeration, look at photos and examine the faces of people who are engaged in “peace protests,” or better yet, watch their actions and behaviors on film when they are confronting someone. They are many things, but non-violent is not one of them.

People who engage in violence without ever “stooping” to physical violence are not being pacifistic. In order to get their way, they are trying to control the degree of violence in which they participate.

To be a pacifist, you must be peaceful. And that means you don’t use violence to get what you want. To be peaceful you strive for calm and tranquility; within in your mind, within your spirit, within your emotions and attitudes, within your words and within your behavior. You must project peace, not violence.

It is odd, but a “truly” pacific person will be safe around violent individuals. It is a litmus test for true non-violence. A peaceful person will literally cause a violent person to “relax.” Such a person can safely pass through the toughest of neighborhoods and deal with the most violent people without danger (except on rare occasions involving someone who is so severely mentally disturbed, disturbed that we are talking institutionalization). The reason for this “safety” — and the reason it is so important to realize the difference between true pacifism and just claiming that you are a pacifist — is simple.

Violence attracts violence.

The violence within you will be seen by violent people. If you are a “false” pacifist you will still attract violent people. People who are not afraid to use violence to get what they want will both be attracted to you and want to fight with you. Often this will be similar levels of violence, sometimes, however, it will be more extreme. Unfortunately, once you have “broadcast” the message, you cannot control who answers it.

… It doesn’t matter how much you claim to be a pacifist, if you have a violent “spirit” you will attract violent people to you. Sometimes in open conflict, other times because they are the only ones who can stand to be around you. (The reason for this is: As they excuse your violent behavior, they expect you to excuse theirs). When you are surrounded by violent people, it isn’t a matter of if, but of when, violence will occur — especially if you are equally violent in spirit as they are. The violence within you mirrors back the violence in them.

Incidentally, this is why a truly peaceful person can safely go among violent people. There is no violence within him/her to reflect back another person’s violent spirit. A caveat on this however, is that you cannot go into a situation with peaceful intentions and an agenda — especially an agenda to get the violent person to change his behavior. This is often looked upon as a “hustle” and/or an intrusion by the people you are trying to change. Violent people expect to have to fight. When they see violence in others this reconfirms their beliefs. Whereas, when they encounter a truly “at peace” person, their defenses literally “fall away” for the moment.

Interestingly, those who adopt “victim” mentality — as I sometimes do — are equally identified with the philosophy of violence. They, as much as the aggressors, have internalized violence in themselves.

The real problem with most victims is that they are not at peace, they are instead losers in the game of violence.

Some don’t play against larger opponents because they know they will lose, they instead focus their unacceptable behavior on smaller prey while bemoaning their victimization by those larger than they. Others try to “rewrite” the rules so they can win. Such people tend to put themselves in “safe” environments and then proceed to bully and pick on people. Think of someone who was bullied in school, who becomes an intellectual “tyrant” or swaggering senior student in a martial arts school, (where they know people will not beat them up). While still others try to sneak around how the game is played and use guile to achieve what they want. These people are always trying something “slick”, and whining when it “backfires.” Still others don the martyred mantle of victimhood, and yet never do anything about the behaviors, conditions and psychology that lead to their “victimization” in the first place.

… Recognize something right now that is very important, “victimhood” is a coping strategy … one that gives the victim a very twisted, but very real power and control.

What “victims” are not doing, is letting go of the psychology of violence. They are just playing the other side of the coin — and that is exactly what makes them such appealing targets to the more violent person. They have the violence within them, but they don’t have the resolution to act upon it. They are literally, the co-dependent to the alcoholic, both enmeshed in the same dysfunctional psychology.

This violent psychology can be openly displayed or deeply buried and cleverly disguised, but it is definitely there. When blatant, the previous defined behaviors are easy to see and the hypocrisy obvious. When buried or obscured by other issues, these patterns are much harder for a normal person to spot and identify — especially if the “victim” is adept at covering them with the guise of peacefulness, altruism or ideology. However, if you “push the right buttons” you will see this violent, angry and hostile aspect quickly displayed. Literally you will see a Jekyll and Hyde transformation. One of the fastest ways to see this transformation is if you challenge their “disguise” of peacefulness.

A prime example of this facade was Wayne Williams, the Georgia serial killer in the early 80s. Soft-spoken and mild mannered in presentation, the court case was not going well for the prosecution because the jury could not believe such a gentle person could be a serial killer. Finally his veneer cracked and he displayed his rabid darker side. A hidden persona that was indeed very capable of sexually assaulting and killing multiple children.

The reactions of a “false pacifist” is significantly different than how a truly peaceful person will react to challenges to their peacefulness. A truly peaceful person will not react with hostility, anger, blame or “guilt tripping” [to] the person questioning his/her motives. For a lack of better words, there is a sense of shallowness about the “peacefulness” of someone who is hiding behind the guise of pacifism. They have all the outward signs of someone who is peaceful, but there is something very ugly and controlling lurking just beneath the surface. In normal people this creates an uneasy sense of hypocrisy. One where they often can’t tell you what is wrong, but they know something isn’t right.

However, it is this lack of peaceful depth and the violence “peeking out to see if it is safe to come forth” that tips off openly hostile people as to such a person’s “victim potential.” Violent people like hurting other violent people and there is nothing more easy to victimize than a violent person who doesn’t know he/she is violent. Think of it as a kind of revenge. They want someone who will squirm in outrage and anger, but be too afraid to do anything about it. This is why criminals don’t necessarily go after the totally weak and helpless. They want someone with just enough fight to make it fun. And people who define themselves as victims fit this bill perfectly, they have all the reactions that feed right into this. They have enough violence within themselves to know what is happening and they also have the fixation on violence that tells the “abuser” that they are a player in the game of violence.

Intense. Violence is brought upon those who expect and project violence from within themselves.

To follow what Wink calls “Jesus’ Third Way” is to start with oneself. It’s the “Third Way” because the other two are the two poles of the single axis of the pervasive Myth of Redemptive Violence: the aggressor and the victim. Both of these archetypes exist within.

The path to the Third Way is through knowing the first two. This is a spiritual journey. It is the prepersonal, personal, and transpersonal. We start by being victims to life, diffusely identified, capable of being injured by everything. Then, we revolt, we define ourselves in opposition, and become the aggressors. Finally we learn to leave behind the violence, not by destroying it (which would be more violence) but by transforming it into creative action and by letting it atrophy through focusing instead on peace.

The first step for me, then, is to meet the violence within, and perhaps to discover that there is a distinction between violence and aggression.

According to Seth:

What is usually forgotten is the real nature of aggressiveness, which in its truest sense simply means forceful action. This does not necessarily imply physical force, but instead the power of energy directed into a material action.

Birth is perhaps the most forceful aggression, in your terms, of which you are capable in your system of reality. In the same way, the growth of any idea into temporal realization is the result of creative aggression. It is impossible to try to erase true aggressiveness. To do so would obliterate life as you know it.

Any attempt to impair the flow of true aggression results in a distortive, uneven, explosive pseudo-aggression that causes wars, individual neurosis, and a great many of your problems in all areas …

Violence occurs only when the natural expression of aggression has been short-circuited. The sense of power felt during such episodes is the result of repressed energy suddenly released, but the individual is always at the mercy of that energy then — submerged within it, and passively carried with it.

Thus, here is a beginning point for self-transformation: to inquire into how I experience my aggression in daily life — and how I repress it. I think that this confusion of aggression with violence, and the consequential repression of all aggressive impulses as being dangerously violent, is the starting point for many of the difficulties and issues I have with violence on an inner plane.