The four levels of violence

I honestly believe that the modern definition of violence has done a disservice to mankind.  

Violence: behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something - dictionary.com

If we only view physical force as being the only way to hurt other people, then we have isolated and ignored the other three levels of violence, which can have far greater and longer lasting implications.  In the interests of having discussions about what actually constitutes violence, permit me to explore what I've found in my own life and why I take the stand that I do.

Physical violence

This form of violence manifests in what we can actually see.  It is hard to miss broken bones, cutting, bruises, blood and other trauma to the body.  However, even if I never physically hit or injured anybody, I do know that kicking down doors, flipping tables, throwing chairs and other forms of physical action has a tremendous impact on the other three forms.  

There is a covert form of physical violence and it has to do with violence by proxy.  If our actions at one end put a chain of events into motion that results in injury at the other end, we must contemplate our role and involvement in that injury, even though we did not do it physically face-to-face.  One of the errors we make is to claim ignorance or innocence when we engage in violence by proxy.    Voting is a perfect example of violence by proxy!

Mental violence

This was one form of violence that I engaged in on a regular basis in order to pick myself up at the expense of putting somebody else down.  How?  By leveraging my intellect to make other people feel stupid, inadequate and incompetent.  When I was younger I had the ability to remember vast amounts of knowledge and I also had a very logical mind.  It is no wonder that I was attracted to the computer industry when I was in Junior High and High School.  I wielded my intellect like a sword and I was merciless.  

Being hyper competitive did not serve me at all as I found over time that nobody wanted to play with me. I was a poor loser and a horrible winner.  As a result of my mocking and bragging, I took my mental abuse to the next level.

Emotional Feeling Violence

It was fairly easy for me to recognize the physical and mental violence that I was engaged in as that is the realm upon which I lived.  I ignored the rest and as a result, I really struggled trying to comprehend what feeling violence was all about.  Before I could see this level of violence I had to do the work to accept the idea that people had feelings.  I had to learn how to express them using words, body language, tone of voice and other subtle methods of communication.  

Doing this type of work on line is really difficult because I don't have the advantage of using modes of communication that express 90% of what I am attempting to share with people.  That is why conflict resolution is best done face-to-face.  As I found ways to put my feelings to words I was then able to start processing and feeling.  

That is when I realized how hurtful and damaging my words and actions really were.  I was then able to empathize with others once I got in touch with my own feelings.  Now that capacity to empathize extends to plants and animals as well, it is not just limited to people.  Anything that I do that results in hurt feelings in other is violence.  The challenge with this form of violence is that it may be different for some people as it is always up to the other individual to express when they are hurt.  

What complicates this form of violence is that hurt feelings is often confused with emotional reactions.  We do a disservice by calling it Emotional Violence when it is actually Feeling Violence.  We often resort to emotional reactions to mask our feelings.  Finding ways to work through the emotional plague reactions is necessary to see the violence associated when our feelings get hurt.  

Feeling Violence is really tough as a result of the emotional masks that we wear.  If we can find ways to remove the masks and really get down to the root core feelings that we experience as a result of our interactions with others, then we can resolve this form of violence.  

Teasing, mocking, name calling or any other action or behaviour that attempts to dehumanize, demean or diminish other individual has significant impacts on how they feel about themselves and their relationship.  Terms like passive / aggressive is usually used to describe these behaviours, but the better term to use is covert violence.  Pouting, laying guilt trips and shaming others are all covert violent attempts to hurt peoples feelings.  

Spiritual Violence

This one took a really long time for me to comprehend as at first it made no sense to me.  Spiritual violence is when our very thoughts betray us and harm others spiritually and / or energetically.  Before you dismiss the idea, this is the foundation behind this passage in scripture:

That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. - Matthew 5:28

This form of violence does not require any interaction with another individual, whether it be physical, emotional/feelings or mental.  In fact, it does not require any physical connect at all.  Both individuals could be complete strangers on opposite sides of the planet, having never met one another before in their lives.  

However, because we are spiritual beings, we are still connected, spiritually.  Our very thoughts can betray us and cause harm to another being.  That is why things like pornography are so harmful to people who watch it and to those who make the films.  

This level of violence may have physical consequences but most of the violence is done spiritually.  We may not even know the level of harm until we pass away and return to the spiritual realm.  So now our own thoughts, behaviours, lusts, impulses and desires are under the microscope.  

First things first

For somebody just starting to explore these forms of violence, it may seem very overwhelming.  This is a life long journey and perhaps also include many life times to work through all of this stuff.  I found it helpful to deal with the first three forms of violence before I was even ready to start tackling the fourth.  Mean while, exploring all my relationships and evaluating them on this platform has helped me to determine whether a specific action was violent or not.  

If I depend on the opinions of others, the legal system or any other 'system' to make that determination, then I will fall pray to justifications for actions in order to make them 'okay'.  I refuse to use systems as a benchmark for the evaluation of whether or not specific actions or behaviours are violent.  I always go back to the foundational benchmark to make that determination.  

 Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. - Matthew 22:39

In order for me to use this as the foundation, I first had to find a way to love myself first.  Until I accomplished that goal, it would be impossible for me to make any reasonable assessment of my behaviours, words and actions.  

If we want peace, then each individual will go through a process similar to what I just highlighted.  When we realize just how violent we really are towards our selves and each other, we will be confronted with guilt and shame.  We will have to find ways to forgive ourselves, change our behaviours and move forward.  

Fear tends to block this process.  However, there is hope.

 "Hope is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective. A lot of hope is dangerous." -  Robert Ludlum 

May hope spring forth a flood of inspiration for change.  

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