Traveling on Rt 64 in Apex, NC, someone had placed a small sign in their yard with the word Hate in the ‘no’ symbol and then an = sign and the words Gun Violence in the ‘no’ symbol as well. As I drove by I thought, hmmm…..is that right? Or should it read No Hate = No Human Violence.
Because it seems to me that’s the core issue here—why are we so violent towards other humans? Every day we see human violence—whether it is a man punching his girlfriend, a college swimming star raping a coed, human trafficking, child abuse, sexual abuse and debates on waterboarding and torture too.
Some will say it is ‘human nature’ but I would argue it is not. We are taught to be violent and nowadays we are teaching violence 24/7, 365. The 500+ media channels show it 24 ho
urs a day. It is the crux of every newscast and look at the line-up of television shows that are centered on violence! Take a peak at the movie selections in your area cinemas. I guarantee you that most of them are showing human violence. The last time I went to a movie, I sat through the previews—movie after movie for the coming summer crowds showed wars and fighting non-stop! I remember thinking—can’t they come up with anything else?
Even our futuristic movies like Star Wars (war!) show that the best we can hope for is that we’re at least on the winning side of violence. Where is the movie that shows us discovering new worlds and having an incredibly joyous welcome. Imagine the scene where everyone has been raised in an environment such that solving problems through violence would never even occur to them! I’d like to see that movie.
We see the results of this non-stop violence training. Nowadays killing someone is the solution to everything. Why shouldn’t a 20 something think this? All our crime dramas show people doing it as an “oh so no big dea
l thing”. Video games are all about killing and removing those we don’t like.
We seem to be in the Dark Ages right now. I want to call out for a Renaissance. It is time for us to change this. Let’s start teaching wholeness instead and let us stop teaching hate. Human beings have the longest childhood of any species on the planet—it now lasts almost 24 years (that’s when our brain has its final growth spurt). In those 24 years we have plenty of time to teach our children to love themselves and love others. But instead we seem content to let them learn to hate. And yes, many of us walk into adulthood hating our SELF and then we transfer that to hating others.
Teaching wholeness as a framework for building our lives is so easy! And it is far more fun and wonderful than letting our children grow up in a world of hate. We can make this choice. Let’s pull out of this Dark Age we’re in. Let’s put down our guns and let’s stop teaching hate. When we stop teaching hate, we can stop human violence. And that will take care of gun violence too.