Men and Violence

From Menletter September 2004

By Tim Baehr

I recently sent out an invitation to the e-mail recipients of this newsletter for a viewing of the TV mini-series "The Odyssey" and a discussion of how this myth might apply to our lives. One subscriber, Peter, wrote me this:

I won't be able to come to the viewing, but I do have a question. Why, why, why must myths always be about men killing people????

From Homer to Robert Bly, there is the worship of male violence. Why?

This got me to thinking. Why indeed? Does Peter have a point? We do and always have lived in a violent world. Is the violence all male-driven? Are we biologically natural-born killers - to the point that we worship violence?

Think about this for a second or two before you read on. Does society worship male violence? Why are there so many myths that involve killing and violence?

What follows is a slightly edited version of my answer to Peter. But form your own ideas first; my answer is only one man's ideas.

E-mail to Peter

Dear Peter,

I'm not a mythologist, so I don't have a ready or scholarly answer to your question. I do know that there are at least some myths with murderous women - Hansel and Gretel comes to mind, and there's at least Russian myth about an evil woman Baba Yaga. Snow White and Cinderella are also rife with tastes of female violence, if not exactly killing. Then there's the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz. I'm sure there are more.

As for the killing itself, I think that death is part of the circle of life; in fact, in the wild, many (most?) animals face at least the potential of a violent death when they become food for other animals. And it's of course not all male: among lions, for instance, the females do the hunting.

Some killing, almost all of it by men, is undertaken for the protection of the genetic bases of the community, particularly the women and children (sources of future generations). I think there's a genetic inheritance among men (and maybe males of many species) that impels them to perform that role. Modern wars (and Iraq is no exception) take place when (a) the instincts overwhelm human reason and - more importantly - (b) the need to protect is perverted by orthodox ideologies and rigid theories about right and wrong.

On a smaller scale, death is a constant companion of life. Mythologically, death in many of the tales can be interpreted as a kind of spiritual death from which a resurrection is expected. Sometimes it's the death of one phase of life and the rebirth into another - as in initiation rituals in which the mother's son dies and the father's son is born into the community of men.

Although some of his views have been challenged, Bruno Bettelheim ("The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales") has theorized about the usefulness of myths in giving form to children's natural and violent fears. The myths (if I remember Bettelheim correctly) show children the universality of their fears and the happy-ever-after endings for those who can master those fears.

I'm really not willing to go so far as to concede that male violence (or just plain violence - see the comment about females above) is "worshipped." Worship just seems too strong a word.

I remember your abhorrence of violence and death from a men's retreat we shared, and I deeply respect that. I believe there is an important place in our "real" and mythological and psychological realms for the gentleman and the gentle man. In an ironic way, part of the wisdom of violence is the very abhorrence it creates.

Violence will always be with us. We can't afford to ignore violence, and we can't afford to get used to it. One of Hannah Arendt's books had the phrase "the banality of evil" in its title. When evil becomes commonplace, we need the gentle people of the world to remind us how to shudder once more, and that there is another way to exist.

Thank you for being one of those people.

Love and peace,

Tim