Last night I watched a program by a tv & film actor who plays hard-man roles and wanted to know the truth about the kind of men he portrays.

The gentleman he interviewed in that episode, now a reformed character, once 'taxed' drug dealers with intimidation and violence. The program was intended to shock law abiding people about the reality of the dangerous men we so rarely encounter. The strange thing is that I wasn't shocked at all. Even when the character showed the passionate depth of his inner demons for the benefit of the camera, I saw something I'd seen in others before.

Is it my age and experience? Possibly there's an element in that, though in all honesty violence has never been a large part of my life. It is true I've associated with some people who were certainly more dangerous than me from time to time, but that association was superficial in nature. The danger was always somewhere else.

I could go into a lot of anecdotes about the aggression I've witnessed over the years, but why bother? You've seen it too. Violence is something deep in our animal psyche. It's a hunting instinct, a survival mechanism, a method we inherited from our genetic ancestors for sorting out who bonks who or where to put the fence. This is the huge problem with mankind. The one thing that ensured we went to the top of the food chain was the very same thing we now despise in ourselves.

And guess what? It appears this inner conflict between our instincts and our social conciense is nothing new. Crusaders may have broken the commandments by killing men, but since it was Gods work against heathens, they rationalised it and considered the entire act self-absolving. Buddhist Samurai fretted about their lethal lifestyle. They considered that the greatest punishment a samurai could receive for killing was to be reborn as a samurai.

It seems then that we have a love-hate relationship with our violence. Some enjoy it, others disdain it. Never be suprised by it. Nature likes a broad range of behaviour in social animals. It ensures the tribe has all the temperaments they need to survive as a group. However much we like to kid ourselves that we're somehow noble or special, we're still the same nasty animal under the skin. It's just that some are nastier than others.

Upset of the Week

It seems the alsatian dog that often gets it's exercise along the alleyway behind my home has decided the territory belongs to him. The mongrel being walked the other way didn't agree. The two dogs both decided they didn't like the other, and immediately began barking and straining at their leads, both owners shouting and cursing at their dogs to shut up and behave. Good grief, hounds, you can both widdle on lamposts here. Everyone else does.