23 September 1999, 830 words
The most frightening thing about human irrationality is that, if you dig deep enough, you discover it isn't really irrational at all. Can a man who runs amok, killing his spouse, burning down their home and then killing himself have any logical reason for these heinous acts? Unfortunately, yes.
Psychiatrist B.B. Burton-Bradley, after interviewing seven hospitalized men in Papua New Guinea who had run amok, composed the following summary of their mindset: "I am not an important or 'big man'. I possess only my personal sense of dignity. My life has been reduced to nothing by an intolerable insult. Therefore, I have nothing to lose except my life, which is nothing, so I trade my life for yours, which is favoured. The exchange is in my favour..."
Men also run amok because their feelings control them. Human beings have evolved in this way so that our passions can be credible guarantors of our offers, promises and threats. What we call civilization is a system designed to replace these biological guarantors with sociocultural ones. Consequently, only changes in social attitudes can help reduce domestic violence.
One aspect of such change must be, paradoxically, a strengthening of individualism. Neurologist Itzhak Fried has hypothesized a condition called Syndrome E, which may explain how human beings can commit atrocities so readily. Two characteristics of this condition are an obsession with a set of beliefs and group reinforcement. These two factors underlie both the horrors of Auschwitz and men murdering their spouses in Trinidad. Religion and team sports are influential systems that inculcate and encourage irrational beliefs and an overwhelming desire to please one's peers.
Pragmatic measures can do little to fight such attitudes. The most efficient police force in the world can never prevent all, perhaps not even most, domestic murders. It is also quite obvious that all the moralizing in the world won't change the attitudes of men who have descended to the levels of desperation described by Burton-Bradley. All we can do is try to change the culture that encourages men to view women as property to be disposed of.
This is hardly an easy task. The male concept of female inferiority is rooted in anatomy (men are bigger), bolstered over the centuries by established religion (every Holy Book gives men authority over women), and is supported by modern economic practice (men still earn about 25 percent more than women for doing the same work).
Counter-balancing this, women are becoming better-educated, more liberal sexually, and more independent economically. The law is also starting to recognize their rights as women. I think these forces will eventually prove more influential than the traditional ones. But, given that ours is still a society where religious leaders are defending the indefensible - viz., child marriage - we clearly have a long haul ahead of us.
The defence of child marriage is, of course, rooted in the belief that females are property before they are human beings. The Maha Sabha's argument that allowing 14-year-olds to marry provides a "safety net" assumes that, once a girl gets pregnant, her parents are no longer responsible for her. (Why should they? She has "shamed" the family.) The ASJA has no argument at all, not even from the Qu'ran. (Their "argument" is based on the Prophet Muhammad marrying nine- and 13-year-old girls in a desert society 1400 years ago.) Even those religions, like Catholicism, which do not approve of child marriage also portray women as inferior (not fit to act as intermediaries between God and man). When a woman refuses to be treated like property, the step to murder is shorter than you might think. You don't let your sofa give you backchat.
Only a confident man is not threatened by an independent woman. Since all men are warriors at heart, the man who is physically healthy, intellectually capable or self-disciplined is more likely to be secure about his manhood. But tobacco companies like Craven A flagrantly target teenagers for their product, and nightclubs have free-drinks fetes every weekend. (I have a suspicion that a lot of older Trini males' insecurity is rooted in poor diet and legal drug use, especially if we keep in mind that tobacco is more addictive than marijuana and alcohol more dangerous than cocaine.) Boys also think it's sissy to read, so the vicious homophobia displayed by Cro Cro in the King of Kings competition ensures that stupidity and macho-ness will continue to travel together. So popular culture also fails men.
Human nature being what it is, I don't think we can ever eradicate domestic murder. But there are measures we can take to ensure that men who are on the borderline don't actually cross it. At present, our cultural norms encourage them to leap over. It is those norms we must change because, as the philosopher Bertrand Russell noted, "Evil passions make men incapable of seeing the truth and false beliefs afford excuses for evil passions."
Copyright ©1999 Kevin Baldeosingh