IS VIOLENCE INHERENT IN HUMAN NATURE?

Nwanyanwu Chris           

Violence is a physical attack of another person. Activities that may legally involve violence include hunting, law enforcement, sports, and war. Crime includes many illegal forms of violence. It can also mean an exertion of physical force so as to harm or abuse. It is also an intense, turbulent or furious and often destructive action or force. And most often this leads to loss of lives and properties as experience has confirmed it.

The question as to whether violence is inherent in human nature may look very odd. But no matter what it may look like, the truth is that the question is a fundamental one indeed. When one seats down and analyze the violent activities taking place daily in the world, he cannot but pose the question as to whether violence is inherent in human nature. Although violence may not only be empirical, the truth is that so much physical acts of violence are taking place daily in world today. Every day we hear about wars, revolutions, bombings, etc; in our immediate society the Nigerian society, we also experience many acts of violence. These include incessant armed Robbery attack, kidnappings, bombings, wars, rape, assassinations, etc. Cases of these issues colour our media and we are very much aware about them. After some of these events, the number of death recorded or injured persons are usually too alarming. Sometimes you hear that about fifty persons died out of such incident or about twenty persons are injured and other cases. The very fact that these events take place almost daily is enough justification why we have to ask if it is actually the case that violence is inherent in human nature. That is we begin to ask: does it mean that man cannot do without violence?

When we look closely and study those acts of violence, we cannot but ask ourselves whether it is the case that violence is the answer to every situation.  When there is a clash of interest among peoples of the same society, the next resort is war and other acts of violence; at least the experience of Jos crises is a clear example. When there is a case of intimidation or injustice, the next corrective measure is violence; at least the case of the Niger Delta crises is an example in this regard. At least their prevalent act of violence is the bombings of petroleum pipelines. Recently the issue of Boko Haram is everywhere in and beyond Nigeria. For them, the only way of gaining their pound of flesh is by violence shown through their recent bombings in several parts of the country where lives and properties are lost. Even between the “common” people, it is as if violence is their last resort. When two marketers are in conflict over an issue, the next thing you see is people gathering to separate them. Go to our motor parks, the people there are very much in love with violence; whereby if they don’t fight over an issue, they destroy properties like vehicles, etc. Go to the universities, cultists through their acts have shown that they cannot do without violence. Even in the secondary schools, the students fight among themselves. All these situations cause the thought-provoking question as to whether violence is inherent in human nature. 

From Thomas Hobbes to Sigmund Freud to Konrad Lorenz, the assumption has been that man is an inherently aggressive animal. Lorenz shares the concept of an aggressive instinct and combines it with assumptions about inherited aggressiveness rooted in the evolution of men from animals. According to the psychoanalysts and Lorenz, aggressiveness is spontaneously produced within the nervous system. It grows and accumulates and must be expressed if it is not to explode against or without a person's intention.  Aggressiveness in this view does not need a special stimulus or provocation. It arises by itself and seeks and finds those stimuli which give it a chance to express itself. Although aggression may be channeled into relatively non-destructive activities, like sports, and that eventually it might be balanced by the increasing development of love; these psychoanalysts aver that the essential point remains that aggression is constantly produced as a result of certain chemical processes within the neurophysiologic system and hence that man is confronted with the task of controlling this rising aggressiveness and of finding the most useful and proper outlets for it. Freud's theory concerning the death and life instincts postulates that the destructive tendencies are constantly battling with the life tendencies and, furthermore, that the destructive tendencies are either directed toward oneself, producing illness or eventually death, or toward others.

On the contrary, there are other theories that postulate the contrary views about man. One of these propounded by the French Enlightenment philosophers, asserts that man is good by nature and that he is destructive only because social circumstances corrupt him. A second view, to be found among many psychologists, is that aggressiveness-destructiveness is not an instinct and is not inherent in human nature as such but is, rather, learned. A third view, originally presented by John Dollard and his colleagues, is that aggression is always the result of frustration. This means that if people are not frustrated, they will not become aggressive, or to put it in different words, aggression as such is not inherent in human nature.

But come to think of it, the assumption that man is good by nature and that his destructiveness and hate are only learned or acquired by habit does not seem to take sufficient account of the depth, intensity, and frequency of destructiveness, hate, and violence in the history of man and the present happenings in the world. Can we not say that human destructiveness because it is more frequent and more intense can only be explained as a result of specific conditions of human existence rather than as animal heredity or a neurophysiologic necessity?

Having looked at the various assertions of people, the summary of it all is that while some say that man is naturally violence-oriented without any causal factor, some others say that man is good but becomes violent only because of external/environmental factors or influences.To conclusively answer this question may be problematic. Whatever the case may be, our concern at this juncture is not to conclusively say whether man is inherently violent or not, but to know how we can control the spirit if it is inherent or how we can manage the situations that provoke it if it is not inherent. This is because if there was no violence, the fundamental question will never come up.

 Ordinarily, one will expect that as human beings, the presence of the other person and everything concerning him/her should be a matter of importance such that at every point in time, we may be able to respect him/her and avoid any act of violence towards him/her no matter what he/she has done. But experiences so far have shown that we have lost that spirit of respect for the other as we are only self-preservative.

Where the above has failed, our level of education, experience and maturity should be able to help us manage our emotions no matter the situation. The average young man or woman should know that violence may not be a better option to conflict resolution or management. Hence, they should never allow themselves to be controlled by their emotions instead of the reverse. This is also applicable to all those who fight for just causes through violence. That is those who believe that the only way to fight injustice is through violence. In fact they should be able to know that dialogue and not violence is a better way of resolving conflict situations.

In addition, another thing that can make us shun violence is our religion. No religion is violent in nature and can never be. That the faithful of a particular religion are prone to violence does not in any way suggest that their religion is violent. And so our religious teachings of love, peace and unity should urge us to shun violence and look for other way of solving our conflict situations rather than resorting to violence.

Nevertheless, the government of any society has to ensure a violent-free society at least to a large extent. She should be able to create a just society where justice and fairness is the platform for the sharing of human and natural resources. This is very important because in some places, the non-implementation of the above is a major cause of violence. Violence may not be solely deterred by imposing stronger legal penalties, but only by creating a just society. For according to Erich Fromm violence cannot be controlled by imposing stronger legal penalties, but rather by creating a more just society in which people connect with each other as humans and are able to control their own lives. The only means for changing the general tendency toward violence and destructiveness lies in the humanization of our technological society. By this I mean that our society must serve human ends—the growth and development of man—rather than make means, such as production and consumption, into ends of human action.

On individual bases too, we can also reduce the rate of violence in the society. This is only possible if we can reduce creating situations that can cause violence of any sort and by controlling our emotions with reason. For if only emotions and reason are brought together can man function in a way which makes life interesting and hence creates the possibility of a productive and nonviolent life. To put it briefly, what we need is not increasing control of aggression and violence but reduction of destructiveness and violence by making individual and social life more meaningful and human.

            In conclusion, we all must make our society violent free, so that we may not be faced with the fundamental question as to whether violence is inherent to human nature. For the constituents of its answer will imply so many things which we will never like to know about!