NCJ Number
171523
Journal
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry Volume: 66 Issue: 3 Dated: (July 1996) Pages: 323-328
Date Published
1996
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article examines from psychological, social, and ethical perspectives the possibility that violence is a social mutation responding to pathological relationships among institutions and nations, and to the social institutions that ratify those relationships.
Abstract
The literature of psychology is full of theoretical constructs regarding the causes of human violence. Constant among them is the notion of insecurity. An individual alienated by this loss of autonomy and motivated by fear invests all possible efforts in achieving a destructive capacity greater than that of potential or actual adversaries. This pathology is echoed in the social institutions that support its purposes and that, by their very presence, validate the same pathology in the society's citizens. The technocracy of today's social institutions has inhibited individuals' willingness to question themselves and their surroundings. It has become difficult to grasp the reality of the consequences of one's actions and, therefore, to act ethically. The article concludes that today's violence is a manifestation of moral and emotional ambiguity, a sign of individuals' loss of control arising from lack of connectedness, from an urge to escape responsibility, from abdication of the will to know and discover, and from the trivialization of public discourse. References