Spiral of Violence

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Have I heard it in a movie or a sitcom? I am not exactly sure. The only thing I remember is that the person who said it was a social scientist and a woman... The sentence was: "I suggest you watch documentaries about primates if you truly want to understand men".

First I laughed hard, then I started watching that kind of documentaries whenever I came upon one. I saw that it was not a very wrong observation... Especially the relation between testosterone and violence in primates was illuminating.

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In my childhood, beating was considered a part of childhood education at home and school. Childhood and youth were periods when you were living with the language of violence even if you were not personally subjected to physical violence... And this was the case in every single field of life...

In face of bullies, the good ones were also supposed to know how to beat people up when necessary. In neighborhoods and schools, the balances among men were established through violence or the language of violence. It was a mandate to know how to fight and protect yourself. I don't think the situation is any different nowadays either.

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If it all comes down to "taught, learned masculinity", then could it all be about family? I don't think so. For instance, in the all-boys boarding high school I went to, it was a tradition for the boys in upper grades to punish the younger ones by beating them.

Teachers couldn't even lay a finger on the students but the violence of older grades was one of the indispensable elements of school life.

I don't have a bad memory about violence from my high school years except for the slap of an "elder brother" who had set his eyes on my spending money. I don't even count the routine beatings which we accepted as an ordinary part of daily life. They were part of the tradition. Anyways, most of the "elder brothers" who gave us beatings during the study hours were loved. They were just the elder brothers who had to continue the tradition of beating.

Joking aside, frankly there wasn't any major bullying at our school. If you ask why, the bullies were afraid of being tattled on to another elder brother. Telling the school management on the elder brothers for beating us, that is, snitching was the biggest crime one could imagine.

Most of the time the elder brothers wouldn't beat the students in lower grades but in any case the school had unwritten rules and these rules would be enforced through violence.

Let me give you an example. In our first year at school in prep class we were studying together with girls. There were only the elder sisters at school, the elder brothers were at a different building.

In order to maintain order in school and establish their control over us, the elder sisters would say, "If you don't follow the rules we'll give your names to your elder brothers, and next year you'll get your beating". Indeed, we would listen to whatever they said... As a result, that first year at school the elder sisters were calling the shots.

As of 1978, the leftist political organizations had brought an end to the violence of upper grades at school, but they too had fought among themselves, beaten the boycott breakers and snitches black and blue; they couldn't stay away from violence or the language of violence either. Needless to say, the tradition of elder brother beatings was reinstated right after the September 12, 1980 coup.

I really had fun at that school, I had beautiful days there, but it certainly did not change the fact that a system based on brute force was a part of my life.

When I finished the all-boys high school and went to university, I immediately noticed the difference. Because there were girls there, and a civilized, civilian era had started in my education life, albeit late.

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I know a lot of men who like to fight or quarrel physically. Most of them are good people. They do not bully anybody, they protect the weak. Some even watch for an opportunity to protect them. There must be many of you who have witnessed cases where men molesting a woman on the bus are beaten by other men. Many more examples of "acceptable violence" can be listed.

What I am trying to lead up to is this: The language of male violence and brute force dominates all areas of life even though it sometimes sides with the good and sometimes with the bad. This is a kind of spiral of violence.

That spiral is like an energy. The real problem is that all these men who beat and kill people, be it men or women, are fed by the same energy as well. Unless the energy producing that violence is eliminated, the problem will never end.

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In fact, it is not too difficult for a man to get out of this spiral of violence, which has seeped into all areas of society, and to keep the testosterone in his body under control.

Most men manage to do it. However, the stronger the bond between violence and the manhood that was "taught" him, the more difficult it becomes for him to actually get out of that spiral.
A man who equates anti-violence with weakness, cowardice and spinelessness lives in that spiral all through his life. He has to live there.

Therefore, the idea that male violence and brute force are necessary is like an invisible net spreading over the entire society. The real problem at the heart of the matter is that most people consider it natural and think that it is not all that harmful.

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It would do all men some good to watch documentaries about primates that become violent due to testosterone. Perhaps, we can then think that being a human should have a difference and say, "Evolution is a must!".

Or we can rebuild the entire education system based on the elimination of male violence and brute force... But, in a world where power has come to mean everything in every sphere of life, it is undoubtedly not very easy to achieve. (MA/ŞA/APA/SD/TK/IG)

* Images: Kemal Gökhan Gürses

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