The Mythology of Violence

This is an article I wrote for a local progressive publication, and I thought I'd share it here. Some of you may have encountered Wink's writings, if not this may provide an avenue of further exploring what he has to say. It is part of my continued quest to understand the root causes of many of the problems the world faces.




The Mythology of Violence


In his book The Powers That Be, theologian Walter Wink writes about a creation story first told over 3,200 years ago. A story that has shaped our perception of the world and our relationship to it and to our fellow human beings. You won't find this creation tale being taught in any church or mosque or temple. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone other than those few people interested in early Babylonian culture and literature who could repeat it to you. Yet, it lies at the very core of our civilization.

It is called the Enuma Elish and is the creation story that was told in ancient Babylon. It tells of the parent gods Apsu and Tiamat (the Dragon of Chaos). These two give birth to all the other gods, but the noise made by the frolicking of the younger gods angers Apsu and Tiamat. So, they resolve to kill their children. The younger gods learn of this plot and kill their father. Upon discovering this, Tiamat is angered and vows revenge. The younger gods are frightened, but the bravest among them, named Marduk, offers to fight Tiamat on their behalf. If he succeeds, the other gods must elevate him above all others. The younger gods agree, and Marduk goes forth to face Tiamat.

Marduk captures Tiamat, drives and evil wind down her throat, then fires an arrow which explodes her distended belly. After crushing Tiamat's skull, Marduk scatters her blood and stretches her corpse to create the universe. The story continues that some of the younger gods sided with Tiamat, and Marduk and Ea imprison them after her defeat. When these imprisoned gods complain about conditions, Marduk slaughters one and Ea uses the blood of the murdered god to create humans as slaves for the gods.

This story told the citizens of Babylon a number of things. First creation itself is an act of violence. Chaos is the precedent nature of things, and it is only through violence and conflict that order is imposed. Order must be created through the defeat of the strong over the weak (and the masculine over the feminine). Second, humans would not exist if not for murder, therefore violence is central to our nature. It is not something we do, it is simply a part of what we are. Killing is in our blood. Third, because of the nature of ourselves and the universe, humanity is naturally incapable of peaceful coexistence. Order is something that must be imposed from the top down: king over peasant, master over slave, man over woman, strong nation over weak.

In this scenario, the king becomes the representative of Marduk on Earth. It is his duty to defeat all enemies, internal and external, that threaten the order created by the gods. Since there are always barbarians waiting at the borders, military expansionism to defeat these threats to stability are only to be expected. Of course, when the new border is established, there will always be more threats to defeat beyond that one. It is an ideology of conquest. On the home front, any form of insurrection must be brutally quashed, as it also represents a danger to the divinely inspired social order.

Wink refers to the this way of viewing the world as the Myth of Redemptive Violence. It instructs us that the only way to confront evil and chaos (which are the natural way of things) is through violent conflict. Peace is created through war. Security may only be maintained through strength. Life is a constant conflict and power is the only redeemer and savior. This Myth is at the core of the Dominator culture and has been repeated generation to generation throughout the history of our civilization. While few in America today may remember its origins, it is the dominant myth in American culture. It places ritual violence at the heart of public life.

The Myth of Redemptive Violence tells us that when violence does not solve a problem, clearly more violence is the solution. If only we strike our children enough, they will behave. If only we execute enough criminals, crime will cease to be a problem. If only we kill enough communists, we will be secure. If only we kill enough people in the Muslim world, terrorism will cease. Regardless of what past consequences may have been suffered because of the use of violence, the Myth tells us that if we continue to apply it to problems we will eventually cross the threshold where they will magically be solved.

This tale our civilization whispers in our ear has an insidious appeal in part because it gives us a simple, lazy definition of the evil in the world. Evil is something that can be located. It exists outside of ourselves and resides within certain select people. These people then become the enemy or "other". If they can be defeated, evil can be conquered and contained (though never truly eradicated). It frees us from the need to examine and confront the evil that may lie within us, and frequently leads to scapegoating some individual or group for all that we see wrong in the world.

Threads of this theme are woven throughout the popular mythology of our culture, from comic books to video games to films. We are given an inherently good protagonist and an inherently evil antagonist. The worst parts of our nature are projected onto the villain who frequently gains the upper hand at first (creating a kind vicarious thrill, allowing us to enjoy our own evil) and the hero suffers. It is only near the closing that the hero triumphs through violence, and we are able to reassert control over our negative tendencies, and reestablish our goodness, without ever having to examine them or gain any real insight. But the victory is short lived, as there is always another antagonist to face.

Boys in our culture are fed an especially heavy diet of this myth, and thus its assumptions are absorbed on a preconscious level. It is accepted as reality. One need only listen to the rhetoric surrounding national and international political discourse to hear its refrains. It is a simple, comforting narrative in the face complex issues and situations, and feeds a kind of nationalistic fervor in which "we" as Americans become the always-good protagonist facing the evil and chaos at large in the world. In our minds our own well being becomes inextricably tied to that of our hero-leader.

Wink further points out that the Myth of Redemptive Violence creates a false dichotomy in which the only choices are violence or inaction; you can either take up arms, or submit. We are told again and again that violence is the only realistic way to fight evil in the world, and to only path to stop anothers violence is to be more violent. After all, the Myth says, that is the way of the world.

In this world view the third option is rarely if ever discussed, and certainly not seriously considered; that is the way of nonviolence. Wink refers to the way of nonviolence as "A new strategy for resisting evil without creating new evils and becoming evil ourselves."

Unfortunately, many of those indoctrinated into the Myth of Redemptive Violence equate nonviolence with the only other option they see, passivity. This could not be further from the truth. Nonviolence is in fact an active and engaged process. It is a way of conflict without violence. "Conflict without violence, how can that be?" asks the Myth.

Nonviolent action involves many different levels and approaches. It may take the form of verbal persuasion, negotiation and compromise. This could be anything from relating on an individual level to an international level, and is exactly what institutions like the United Nations were founded to encourage. It may involve peaceful institutional procedures backed by sanction such as lawsuits, legislation and voting. Nonviolent action may also involve protest and/or active noncooperation (boycotts, strikes, refusal to obey unjust laws), as well as nonviolent intervention, such as the lunch counter sit-ins in the segregationist south.

The way of nonviolence is not new. It was taught by Jesus to his followers more than two millennia ago, as a way to use moral power to overcome their oppression by the Romans. However, Wink points out, much of his message was lost in the intervening centuries. Several events in the 20th century dramatically illustrated the effectiveness of nonviolent action: resistance to British rule in India, the quest for civil rights in America, the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. Still, it is a concept that is in its infancy in our civilization, and one that has much to overcome in the minds of everyday people indoctrinated into the redemptive violence myth.

Glenn Smiley was an advocate of nonviolence for much of his life. A member of the Fellowship of Reconciliation for twenty-five years, and a war resister, Glenn is perhaps best remembered for his work with Martin Luther King Jr. beginning with the Montgomery Bus Boycott. He summed up the idea and challenges of nonviolence well in a speech he gave two years before his death in 1993:

"... nonviolence has absolutely nothing to do with passive acceptance or acquiescence to evil done to a person or nation. I, for example, am a pacifist, but it makes me ill to have the word associated with passivity. The fact is that nonviolence can be considered as the art of seeking alternatives to violence in conflict, for conflict is inevitable in life. While history is replete with instances of creative action without violence, there are not many incidents of organized nonviolence on record."

Whether contemplating our own actions or attempting to persuade others that violence is not the way, it is vital that we keep in mind the mythological structure that underlies many of the assumptions within our civilization. When you have been taught for your entire life to see things in only two dimensions, it is exceedingly difficult to envision a third. A long term strategy of both explanation and example is necessary to create an environment in which we can discuss nonviolence as an effective method for engaging the problems in the world.

:kick:

Welcome to DU! :hi:


Having been a pacifist all my life (really), and always seeking nonviolent solutions to conflict, I found this piece inspiring. My feeling has always been that Barbarianism is the easy way out, and that what requires insight and intelligence is deescalating conflict w/o resorting to violent force.

Being a large male, this viewpoint has been met with consternation from many of those who by into the Myth of Redemptive Violence, as they saw me as a primary enforcer of their myth. Not accepting this dubious title has made me an outcast in mainstream American culture. It affects most aspects of living: love, work and success, to be sure, with one of the few exceptions being intellect.

Intellect, as many here know, is not popular in American culture. Quite the opposite. Intellect is seen as weakness, as promoting passivity and inaction.

Examples of this can be seen in every facet of mainstream American culture, and will ultimately be the downfall of humanity, in my opinion. Humans have incredible powers of intellectual conception, but almost no vision. This is a dangerous combination.

Will 'we' learn this lesson collectively? Well, that's the million dollar question, is it not? I used to believe that it was possible. However, as I grow older, as I see more of the world, as I take in more the history of our species, I become less confident that we will move beyond the myth into a more enlightened existence.

Time will tell, but the odds are not in our favor.