The Incomprehensible

Recently, far too often, our news seemed to be filled with murder-suicides. A parent killing a spouse or ex-spouse and their children. The murder of a child is an event I can’t grasp. One is far too many, but Lord, we have had our share.

I spent a good portion of my career in forensic evaluation attempting to understand the incomprehensible, attempting to find logic in the illogical. I always wound up trying to explain to myself and to others how and why people caught in the throes of fragmenting relationships could choose to be so cruel to those they professed to love.

In the end, I always knew the logic would escape me. It just made no sense. What kind of personal pain does someone have to be in to murder their children? Such killings fly in the face of everything our society professes to value. Something, somewhere is markedly flawed.

Clinically, hostility is viewed as a wish or a desire. A desire to inflict discomfort upon another. Aggression is a behavior, an act, overt and tangible.

Hostility and aggression are common to all of us. Both have their roots in frustration and the resulting anxiety and depression. In our society, we teach the expression of hostility, aggression.

Violence is uncommon. Violence is an extreme form of aggression that has intentional injury as its goal.

After 15 years of struggling with the dynamics of aggression, I made my first formal attempt to address the gender variance involved with hostility and aggression in an article I published in the December1993 issue of the Family Law Journal titled Communication, Aggression and Gender.

I addressed in straight-forward terms that we, society, teaches our males to express their anger with direct overt fashions. You can hear its roots on our playgrounds. Boys verbalize their anger with threats of physical injury, they say, “I’ll hit you”, “I’ll break your nose for you.” Their direct aggression emerges in shoving, hitting, kicking and physical expressions their hostility.

On the playground, boys play games that bring them into direct physical competition. There will be a winner. Girl’s play will be more cooperative. Girls are taught passive aggression, expressing their displeasure through withholding, non-cooperation and uncomplimentary verbal sniping.

Girls come to value conversation. Boys not so much. For the woman, as long as we’re talking about it’s okay. For the man, if we are still having to talk about it, there is a problem.

It is too hot to sit out back. But a coke will fizz when poured over ice, inside or out. The process makes me think. If we learn how to manage our hostility, what are television programs, movies and video games teaching us? Violence can’t be seen as an acceptable and successful problem-solving technique.

Quentin Tarantino, the movie director, has Killers of the Flower Moon hitting theatres this fall. The motion picture is based upon a David Gann’s book of the same name. The book speaks to an incredibly violent time in Oklahoma.

Tarantino says, “Violence is one of the most fun things to watch.”

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. – Isaac Asimov

Hal McBride writes a column, Just Thinkin’, published each week.