July 4, 2008 11:49pm A Culture of Violence
I started watching the movie "300" recently, on cable. This is the battle epic about the 300 Spartan warriors who battle 25,000 invaders and make a serious dent in their numbers. But the movie begins with a tale of how boys in Sparta are raised. They are taken from their parent at six, made to survive on their own for a week or so. If it kills them, they weren't to be. When they returned they were put in a martial boarding school and made to fight daily. They learned to beat each other mercilessly and to have no feelings of restraint. They needed to display daily what appeared to be courage, but was really some kind of PTSD/insanity. When they grew up, they were just crazy.
I couldn't watch a movie that glorified child torture as a rearing style. And the warrior automatons they became do not warrant respect. They are no different from the Rutger Hauer android assassin in Blade Runner or the Terminators chasing John Connor.
I am what's known as a Vietnam Era Veteran. I served in Thailand in 1969. No one ever shot at me, nor did I shoot at anyone else. I did some drinking with Navy Seals and Green Berets, I talked to combat veterans at the VA and whereever I encountered them. I also read about combat. I heard and read repeatedly how these vets, as young recruits, had been pumped up by the war movies and TV shows we watched as kids. Speaking to me, they sounded like they'd all read the same review of combat. "It sucked, man. Combat was NOTHING like it was with John Wayne. You see these movie guys running at the enemy, or running from tree to tree shooting. What BS. You kept your head under that log or that rock and reached up and fired bursts in their direction to try to pin them down.
I have seen movies like Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket. These are no recruitment videos. "300" tries to honor a culture that beats its youth to insanity, teaches them to fight to the death, and removes any humanity from both genders. How many current gangs try to emulate that stuff?
I guess I have one standard recommendation and one surprising wish for ideal parenting. Standard: talk with your kid everyday. About school, ethics, bullying, studying, sports, clothes, your work, your childhood and everything else. Surprising: Teach or get your boy (and maybe your girl) in a martial art: wrestling, grappling, karate, judo, tai-chi, boxing, capoeira, kung-fu, aikido. They're great activities, great exercise, great topics of conversation, and great confidence builders. Being prepared for unwanted aggression can be a great help to making it through school with minimum psychic scarring. Raising a non-violent child doesn't mean raising a victim.
The financial tycoon, Bernard Baruch, became a golden gloves boxing champion in his mid and late twenties. After advising six presidents and serving as a US envoy in important circumstances, ninety year old Baruch was asked if his boxing had any impact on his later life. "Very much. I could sit down with a head of state and be much more conciliatory, because I knew I still had that old SOCK"
My favorite episode of Star Trek involved the appearance on the ship of representatives of a "Peaceful People." They had evolved some serious mental-kinetic power. They used it like psycho-aikido (the non-violent, or non-aggressive martial art.) The Starship Enterprise defenders drew their "phaser" weapons and the Peacefuls heated them to unbearable heat, forcing them to be dropped. So the Peacefuls knew how to act in the face of weaponry and aggression.
Sun Tzu or Lao Tzu wrote, (and I paraphrase) a warrior who depends on the good will of a potential attacker is a fool.
I encountered some bullies, and wish I could have taken care of myself better. So I think a kid should learn how to take care of him/herself, and learn rules about not using it except in self-defense.
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