Give peace a chance

Non-violence is gaining prominence today if only because it is so badly needed in a world that is post holocaust, post atomic bomb, post factory farm and post animal experimentation. It suggests that we should give peace a chance.
But are we ready for it? Isn’t the world too violent for such ideals to survive, let alone grow strong? Maybe we should go the other way? We’ll never get our point across unless we hit people hard with it? It’s rather like a constant tussle between two personalities within us. The hard versus the soft. We know we have to survive in this harsh world, we have to make money somehow, we have to go shopping and buy things for our daily existence, we have to be a bit rough with the kids or they’ll take advantage of our kindness. The ideal wears a bit thin and often gives way to pragmatism. We start to consider flirting with a little violence. A little corporal punishment might keep the kids from running riot. A few harsh words to our next door neighbour might quieten their noisy music! Even vegans who want to show the stupidity of the meat eaters use it in their language, to persuade people to show respect for animals. If ‘they’ don’t like it, too bad!
But I suspect we use it because we won’t exercise our imagination to argue our case more carefully and compassionately. Instead we hit out. We denigrate and show how much we dislike those who seem to not agree with us. It’s understandable enough and yet this ability of ours, to turn so readily to our violent, is something we may not like about ourselves and yet we don’t know how to achieve the results we want without it.
Perhaps violence is a close cousin of panic. When we are cornered, we search through the mad box for ways of making violence work for us, even without being fully conscious that that is what we are doing. It’s our safety valve and yet we refuse to acknowledge it as such. We "double-think", with violent attitudes wrapped up in a thin veneer of non-violence.