Review of "Are we all capable of violence"

The author has mentioned that we are born to be violent and have the capability to do so due to our human nature ability and our liking for it. I agree that all humans can be violent if they choose to be so and that we have our nature traits to thank for attributing to the violent state we can be at. There was never doubt that anyone can be violent as mentioned in the article. However, we have controlled our actions and emotions to prevent us from being aggressive and turn to violence. There are various factors that make us less violent and more forgiving in the sense that we do not always resort to violence to solve everything.


The author mentioned that aggression or being violent is a type of characteristics we always have as humans. This is true that in fact almost all living organisms can turn to violence when needed. This is a natural trait or feature that has helped evolved us, humans, to be more superior than the others on Earth. We are able to control it within us. That is what makes us special. But we are still potentially able to unleash it if we become emotionally unstable or not in the right state of mind. All this will then come to the issue of how to develop humans and to inculcate them the right set of moral values and senses. It is the environment that we live in and the influence we get from the people around us that define our characters. Imagine born in a culture where killing others and using violence to resolve conflicts are the norms, then you will definitely be violent and abusive. Hence, environment plays an important part in curbing or promoting violence to the humans.


Also, humans can turn to violence when they become desperate or being stimulated to be so. As previously mentioned, we can controlled our own actions and behaviour due to our ability to think. However, sometimes humans can be too emotional and become very agressive. For instance, the tamil tigers in Sri Lanka. The tamils there are badly treated and there is no way the tamils can do to alleviate the problem.They were denied basic human rights and were not treated equally. Thus, some turn to violence and to use force against the goverment to show their anger.Using violence then is their last option and they will definitely take this chance to make their point across to the government. This shows that when humans are to being driven to a corner or being badly treated, they will retaliate and become very mad, thus going on to use violence. This is a simple logic that can make anyone violent, even animals too.


In the case of Singapore's society, there are only rare cases where humans resort to violence to get what they want. There is one recent case of a professor in NTU being stabbed by a student from Indonesia(or Phillipines) who was rejected a scholarship to study here in Singapore. This is one isolated case where the student felt that the professor is against him and hence decided to stab him before killing himself. The students here in Singapore are actually well educated to be wise enough to control themselves rather than being too emotional and resort to violence. Whereas in other countries like America, there have been students commiting suicide killings just because they feel they are unwanted or bullied. Nevertheless, they too have their 'reasons' for doing so and all this goes to show how violent we can be if we are to be 'forced' to do so.