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13. Violence is Weakness, Prayer
is Power (Part One) |
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Introduction
It is hard to tell what thoughts were running through
the minds of the terrorists as they plunged airplanes
into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a
field in western Pennsylvania on Sept. 11. Judging from
their irrational acts, however, it seems that they surrendered
their own power of reason and human decency to a higher
power of their imagination—whether it was their
political ideal or God. Such perversion of philosophy
and religion occurs when people subordinate the sanctity
of life to ideology and dogma.
As Nichiren Daishonin admonishes, “Life is the foremost
of all treasures” (The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin,
p. 1125). What we saw on that day was the destructiveness
of the human tendency to give up oneself to external authority.
This deep-seated human weakness is called authoritarianism,
which many people, if not all, share to some degree. As
the recent tragedy illustrates, violence is often an outcome
of an authoritarian orientation—a willingness to
give up our freedom and independence to external authority
in exchange for the false, temporary sense of security
that may be felt upon our release from the burden of responsibility
to seek self-knowledge and shape our own destiny, as Erich
Fromm suggests in his Escape from Freedom.
Violence
Violence is a deliberate wish for the destruction of life;
it is a symptom of the weak, passive self that seeks to
validate its existence through dominating and destroying
other lives or things of value to others. Violent people
are weak, for they cannot find the inner strength to overcome
their insecurity of aloneness and, therefore, must destroy
others so that they may feel empowered. Their power, however,
is an illusion since it is over others, not from within.
Power derived from subjugating others is merely a fancy
because it requires others and is dependent on them. On
the other hand, power from within is genuine because it
is independent and free. Despite their aggressive appearance,
violent people are passive at the core of their existence
because violence is essentially an easy escape from an
overwhelming sense of inner powerlessness and isolation,
from the responsibility and effort required to make personal
change. It is easier to hurt someone else than get real
about oneself. A person who resorts to violence as an
escape from his or her real challenge is not the originator
of self-willed action and is passive in his or her mental
reality. The sense of power felt by violent people, therefore,
is actually a sign of their weakness and passivity.
Moreover, the sense of power derived from destructive
acts is short-lived and addictive; it can only be sustained
through further destruction. Compelled by their inner
powerlessness, violent people continue to destroy, and
when they find nothing more to destroy or find themselves
prevented from further acts of destruction, they destroy
themselves to escape from themselves, which is the source
of their powerlessness. In this sense, violence is not
a reaction to external objects per se, but rather a destructive
drive arising from inner weakness simply waiting for a
convenient outlet.
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