The mind and the cycle of violence

Dec 21, 2008 Letters

Dear Editor,
Great Britain’s brilliant naturalist Charles Darwin theorized for us that we were all descendants from the animal kingdom. This science found favour with many thus recognising and condoning mankind’s bestial behaviour.

Professor Edward Dewey held the belief that there might be other factors effecting our activities and attitudes. He claimed that there was a strong possibility that several planetary positions when they occur may exert some sort of immeasurable force that effects our actions.

How do we apply these diversified theories to the grim cycle of violence that has gripped the very moral fabric of the Guyanese society?

Recently we have read with much alacrity about systematic “Hammer Syndrome”. These actions can never be justified under the umbrellas of Darwin and ought to be condemned vociferously.

These, however, might be alternative factors, which may be responsible for such violent acts, but at the bottom line, the mind is involved. In extreme cases of insanity, where a person is not mentally responsible for his action, that can be dealt with on another plain.

“SENTECA” said that soil, no matter how rich, could not be productive without cultivation and neither could our minds.

Sir Joshua Reynolds wrote that our mind was only barren soil soon exhausted and unproductive until it was continually fertilised with new ideas. And James Allen wrote that man’s mind was like a garden which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild, but whether cultivated or neglected it will produce.

If no useful seeds were planted, then an abundance of useless weed-seeds would fall into the land, and the results would be useless and harmful, and impure plants. In other words, whatever we allow to enter our minds will bear fruit.

If we allow greed, hatred and jealously to creep into our minds, then the end factor could lead to the most heinous of crimes.

If the nucleus of our association is based on crime, then the mind will readily promote our behavioral pattern in that direction.

So it is very much imperative of us to cultivate good moral habits and to promote decent life styles which others can emulate, regardless of economic and financial constraints, or even domestic differences.

One should also not blame or justify poverty for violence and crime. For it is said that he is not poor who has little, only he that desires much, and that true security lies not in the things one has, but in the things one can do without.

So we must all be positive with our intentions and actions and God’s blessings and guidance should be sought each step of the way, for we pass this way but once.
Ronaldo Alexander Drakes