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Vocabularies of Violence and Affection

by Naya Arbiter and Fernando Mendez

Overview

This is a Teaching and Therapeutic Community curriculum regarding violence, violation and its contrast with affection. Drug abuse, racism, violence, and hatred often weave their poisonous threads into an impenetrable personal tapestry. The purpose of this curriculum is to help people start the process of unraveling this tapestry and consider the alternatives that are available to all of us. Can we honestly assess our experience with violation and explore expanding our vocabularies of affection?

This curriculum is designed to facilitate personal investigation into the role that violence has played in each students life, whether as a witness, victim, predator or instigator. The curriculum begins with a series of individual and group chronology exercises that focus on lying and honesty. Violence that people have experienced, witnessed and participated in is one of the most difficult subjects to disclose, and if repressed, has long lasting effects on behavior. Chronology work begins with childhood years in order to address the effects of domestic and emotional violence. Although parenting is not directly addressed in the chronology exercises, the exercises bring to light childhood experiences with fear and emotional violence, and challenge them to make healthier choices for their behavior with respect to the young lives that they affect. Through the inclusion of Sam Keen’s work (Faces of the Enemy), students are encouraged to begin to identify relationships in their lives that are power/control/fear-based relationships as opposed to information/affection/communication-based relationships. This curriculum oscillates between the personal, the global, and the historical. Sample letters are included that were written to victims of violence, as well as letters to predators. The curriculum addresses questions regarding the right to bear arms (Thucydides) as well as the effects of war (Holocaust). A few excerpts from academic theories regarding the creation of violent individuals are included for discussion. The intent of the curriculum is to begin the process of acknowledging experiences with violence, to initiate the process of healing from experiences of victimization, and developing remorse for predatory behavior.

The latter portion of the curriculum contrasts violation with affection and includes chronology work and group exercises that contrast violation with affection, community-building, acceptance, and validation. Throughout the curriculum, students are given exercises that include presentations to the larger TC community that help them to teach others the issues they discuss and study within their curriculum circles.

 

Vocabularies of Violence & Affection Documentary Movies:

• Bowling for Columbine Acclaimed filmmaker Michael Moore takes aim at America’s love affair with guns and violence in this Oscar-winning film that “demands attention” (People)! Mixing riveting footage, hilarious animation and candid interviews with everyone from the NRA’s Charlton Heston to shock-rocker Marilyn Manson, Bowling for Columbine is “brilliant” (The Hollywood Reporter) tour de force of filmmaking.

• Children of War (HBO Documentary) This documentary film by Alan and Susan Raymond has been endorsed by the Global Health Council as one of the best statements regarding the effects of violence on children. By 1999 more than 2 million children had died in wars of the previous decade. In today’s wars, 90% of the casualties are civilians as compared to 50% in World War II. This documentary film shows interviews with children who have survived wars in Bosnia, Israel, Rwanda, Ireland and more. The documentary outlines the conflicts and then, through the voices of the children explores perspectives on their lives, and the lives of the social workers and psychologists who have worked with trauma. Although the Principles of Protection and the Conventions on the Rights of the Child in Wartime are clearly defined by international law, many of these accepted standards are routinely violated and ignored. Through global cycles of violence, students are able to personalize their own cycles of violence and violation.

• Faces of the Enemy (Sam Keen) This award-winning documentary film by Bill Jersey and Sam Keen is based on a book of the same name written by Sam Keen. The film explores the dynamics of “making enemies” whether we create them, find them, or need them. Keen articulates and gives examples of “enemy-making,” the need for polarization, and the ways we find to make ourselves the opposite of our enemies. Sam Keen was, in his words, “overeducated at Harvard and Princeton” and was a professor pf philosophy and religion at “various legitimate institutions” and a contributing editor of Psychology Today for 20 years. This film raises more questions than answers and helps students examine the role of violence and enemy-making in their own lives. In Sam Keens own words: The practice of philosophy is a way of life that results from falling in love with questions - the great mythic questions that can never be given definitive answers. My work as a writer, lecturer and workshop leader has focused on exploring these questions:

• How can I find a meaning, purpose and vocation for my life?
• What ought I to do?
• For what may I hope?
• Is there life beyond death?
• Whom do I love? Who loves me?
• What curtails my freedom?
• How can I escape from the constricting social, political, sexual, and economic myths that were imposed on me by my family and culture?
• To what cause, ideal, or faith may I surrender without destroying the integrity of myself?
• What does it mean to experience the sacred?
• How can I live a spirited life in a world dominated by a secular-technological-economic vision of reality?
• How can we create a more just and peaceful world?

• Violence, an American Tradition: (HBO Documentary) This HBO documentary gives a history of violence in the United States and the American fascination with it. Questions are raised regarding the media coverage of violence, racial violence, and kinds of violence that have become socially acceptable given a variety of social conditions.

The DVDs are an integral part of the curriculum. When using videos the teacher/demonstrator must watch the DVD before the presentation in order to be prepared to discuss it and to deal with the ideas and emotions that may be generated. Always be cognizant of your group: who in the group might have some experience that relates to the material? Who might be able to contribute something to the session about the DVD? Stopping points and discussion prompts are included in the Demonstrator Guide Tasks. If you are going to utilize the interchange format after watching a DVD it is recommended that the polarizer watch the movie prior to the session also.

 

Vocabularies of Violence & Affection Recommended Reading

Books:

1. Faces of the Enemy: Reflections of the Sam Keen Hostile Imagination

2. The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology Scott Peck of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth

3. The Four Loves C. S. Lewis

4. Strength to Love Dr. M. L. King

5. Why They Kill: Discoveries of a Maverick Richard Rhodes Criminologist

6. Ghosts from the Nursery: Tracing the Roots Robin Karr-Morse and of Violence Meredith Wiley