Juggling Our Inner Killer

We Americans hail ourselves as a Peace loving society, but we have dictates for acceptable occurrences of killing.

Rules for executing certain types of criminals, the equipping and maintaining of armed forces, law enforcement personnel armed with lethal fire arms, and the rights of the citizen to protect themselves paint this out, although not entirely clearly, definitely distinctly.

Because other people may try to kill us we accept that we need to maintain at least some of our killer instincts.

Society knows this and has specific mechanisms to insure that the killer instinct does not die out in the species.

We criticize the uber violence of some video games, yet it serves a useful purpose as simulation training for the violence our children may have to inflict and endure in their future(s).

And video games are far from the first historical influence of violence on youth. Before video games there was television, rock and roll, pulp fiction, comic books, movies, toy soldiers, toy guns, cowboys and indians, soldiers of fortune and the legends of great conquerors.

We keep our killer mentalities alive in the species so that they will be there to draw from should we need them; and we often do.

Depending on how you grew up you were likely conditioned to be either a noble knight, a civilian footman or a brawler.

Noble knights are defenders against injustice. They wield violence, sometimes daily, to protect others. Police officers and soldiers are the primary career callings for these folk. Interestingly, they are often known as peace keepers.

Civilian footman is the term for the general masses. They are the people whose violent tendencies might include an occasional brawl, but they generally reserve violence only for an immediate self defense; or a calling by national defense. They generally channel their aggression to various kinds of games and prefer to work and live in as much peace as they can have.

Brawlers are those who wield violence, or threat of violence, in the off hand way; like a nature. They see violence as just one other part of daily life to be actioned whenever it suits. They wear their killer instincts on their sleeves; like badges and warning signs. They are content that Peace comes to them in short snatches.

For all the differences, the motivations are the same: self defense; defense of loved ones, acquaintances or property; and retribution for grave injustice.

Our philosophers long ago accepted that killer instincts could never, nor should they ever, be completely routed from the species. We to often need them in order to maintain preservation.

As much as we would love to create a peaceful utopia, the need for our killer instincts will always prevent it from being attained.

A double edged sword that we juggle with the voice of our conscience.

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