Violence is not the answer
RobertPublished: Jan 5, 2005 3:50 PM | Updated: Jan 29, 2008 6:21 PM
Malaysiakini published an interesting piece entitled Exploring the psychology of violence (Part 1) by James Wong Wing On.
It quotes Dr Edward Chan who seems to have some confusing opinions. He states when asked about media portrayal of violence, "This has caused incidents of physical violence to rise in Malaysia." However, he also says, "Most of the time, the abusers themselves have had a history of being abused."
There is within those two statements a conflict, as if most abusers were abused themselves then this would seem to be a historical cause (potentially going back several generations) whereas violence and the explosion of the media from simple things like newspapers and books to TV, video, DVD, video games, etc, is a modern phenomenon.
Thus it seems unlikely that either answer is a complete answer. I would suggest that there are two categories of abuser, one is the serial abuser and this person (man or woman) has probably grown up being abused themselves.
The other category is the stress abuser - this is a person who turns to abusive behaviour as it (sadly) provides them a release from stress. Potential causes of the stress have risen hugely during the last 50 years and show no sign of reducing. This second kind of abuser is the one where the 'training' given by events portrayed in the media is possibly the cause.
There is a huge need for better research in this area, however in the meantime we need to educate people so that they will realise that abuse and violence are not the answers to work or life pressures.
It quotes Dr Edward Chan who seems to have some confusing opinions. He states when asked about media portrayal of violence, "This has caused incidents of physical violence to rise in Malaysia." However, he also says, "Most of the time, the abusers themselves have had a history of being abused."
There is within those two statements a conflict, as if most abusers were abused themselves then this would seem to be a historical cause (potentially going back several generations) whereas violence and the explosion of the media from simple things like newspapers and books to TV, video, DVD, video games, etc, is a modern phenomenon.
Thus it seems unlikely that either answer is a complete answer. I would suggest that there are two categories of abuser, one is the serial abuser and this person (man or woman) has probably grown up being abused themselves.
The other category is the stress abuser - this is a person who turns to abusive behaviour as it (sadly) provides them a release from stress. Potential causes of the stress have risen hugely during the last 50 years and show no sign of reducing. This second kind of abuser is the one where the 'training' given by events portrayed in the media is possibly the cause.
There is a huge need for better research in this area, however in the meantime we need to educate people so that they will realise that abuse and violence are not the answers to work or life pressures.
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