Along with corruption, violence is natural to man. We humans are either physically violent or possess violent thoughts. So far democracy has been established as the best form of government for us. Whatever flaws that democracy offers, whatever name that we choose for a government to rule us, violence exist is both a democratic form of government and in a tyrannical form of government. Otherwise how do we explain the violence in the Kashmir region or the Maoist thoughts that begins and ends with violence, or the religious violence, the political violence, the caste violence, the domestic violence et al? Violence is the most uncivilized, barbaric, crudest, and filthiest form of existence.
Nazism and Fascism may comprehensively have been defeated but by no ways or by any means we have eradicated barbarism or brutality.
We human beings have complicated histories. Our present cannot in any way be disassociated from the past. Corruption and Violence always existed in a particular place or time throughout history. We cannot discard our past and start with a scratch. By the time we mature and are able to make some conscious choice, we have already categorized ourselves in terms of our thoughts, languages, and behaviors, like generations before us who reached the same extent of development
It is not a question of being proved right. It is a question of learning from others. Not learning by just adopting the views and opinions of others, but by allowing others to criticize his ideas and theories and by being allowed by others to criticize their thoughts. Criticizing ideas and theories and not the person is a good way of learning. Nobody is in possession of the truth. Sheer criticism also does not offer new ideas. You either accept or reject an idea or a theory. But critical discussion of a theory may give us the maturity to comprehend ideas from different angles and perhaps draw a conclusion.
It has become our tradition to hold great men in awe, in respect, in reverence, a custom which we are not able to shake off. Great men make great mistakes. These great men have tremendous influence over the mass, an influence which is hardly challenged. This leads to these great men continuing to mislead the mass – into corruption and violence.
Violence is a path for non-rationalist. A violent person does not attempt to reach a decision by argument or compromise. He uses violence. He is a man who wants to be successful not by convincing another man by argument, but by crushing him by force, by intimidating him and by threatening him. He might also use persuasive propaganda.
Violence, in the name of religion which professes love and kindness, cannot be forgotten or eradicated. Bodies were burnt alive; people were cut to pieces, tortured and shot. We still have not given up our authoritarian attitude or opinion. We are yet to adopt a give and take attitude. We are not ready to learn from other people. We have however tried and hoped to control violence stimulated by godliness, piousness and duty.
The main difficulty is that one cannot have a reasonable discussion with another man, who prefers to shoot you rather being convinced by you or making his own point. It is hard to create an environment where people wouldn’t want to talk anyone into anything. There is no need to convince anyone. One can be wrong and may convince someone of something which may be wrong. People do not value the intellectual independence of others, otherwise why is it necessary to convince someone? Human nature does not welcome contradiction, or else the world would have been a better place, had a man instead of convincing someone, arouse the thoughts and challenge others to form free opinions. Sometimes even trying to convince someone may and can be interpreted as a violent act.
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