Fresh off the most recent series of political accusations and counter-accusations by candidates and commentators, it is useful to understand something of the nature of aggression.
Whether verbal, physical or psychological, aggression inspires a cycle of revenge that continues to poison relationships through time.
Why is it we human beings are so prone to engage in violence? How is it that when we attack one another aggressively we find ourselves caught up in ever-expanding cycles of aggressive behavior?
The poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, in his 'The Sonnets to Orpheus,' asks: “Does it really exist, Time, the Destroyer…? / Are we really as fate keeps trying to convince us, / weak and brittle in an alien world?” *
His insight is profound. Most of our inability to live in harmony with the natural world and other people – individuals, family members, or other tribes/nations – all stem from a deep fear.
It is the fear of death, the “Destroyer,” who inevitably comes with the unfolding of “Time.” In the face of death, we experience our lives as “weak,” “brittle,” and taking place “in an alien world.” This world, we believe, is not our true home and we desire the timeless, death-negating paradise of the mythological garden of our beginnings.
In the realization of our impending deaths, and our weakness, we cope by attempting to prove to the world, to ourselves and to one another we are not as fragile as we believe ourselves to be.
Secondly we respond by establishing a faith in the re-establishment of the garden of our origins, either in this life or in a life after death. In both instances, we deny the reality of our lives.
First, as we display our feigned toughness, we assure that cycles of aggression will be born. Secondly, we find comfort in the belief suffering we cause and experience will be alleviated in the new life for which we hope. In the process, aggressive behavior and the cycles of revenge are made a permanent characteristic of human culture.
Politicians are not very different from the rest of us. We act in ways that are hurtful to others and to the world to prove to ourselves that we are not the “weak and brittle” people we believe ourselves to be. We force our will upon others and the world, and the results are hurtful.
When we experience the pain caused by the aggression of others, our natural response is to demand justice and to seek revenge. We are fearful our weakness will be revealed. Thus, the cycles of aggression is unleashed and we become both its perpetrators and its victims.
We see this phenomenon take place in nearly every facet of our lives, from the politics of retribution to the economic and financial pursuits that insure the success of the most aggressive.
The wars in which we are engage, and the wars we anticipate also are expressions of these aggressive cycles.
Rilke suggests a way out of the dilemma of suffering that we have created for ourselves. He closes Sonnet XXVII with: “As who we are, desperate, driving, / we still matter among the abiding / powers as a use of the gods.”
The inspiration for Rilke’s sonnets comes from an Italian Renaissance drawing of Orpheus playing a violin for two rabbits, two deer and a large bird. To Rilke, the drawing expressed a transcendence that allowed for a life of harmony with the natural world.
Our fate, which Rilke expresses through the sonnets, does not necessarily reside in a desire for power and control that leads to so much suffering. We can let go and find peace, and thus be an instrument, like Orpheus’ fiddle, that brings harmony to the world.
The ways of the world, with its cycles of aggression and violence, exploitation, pain and sorrow, do not have to be the reality out of which we live our lives. We do not have to live “desperately.”
There is another way, but we must choose it, practice it and not worry if others view us as fools. The operative proverb of our world is “nice guys finish last.” The problem, of course, is that "not nice" behavior damages the integrity of our souls, and the integrity of the world we create.
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*The Sonnets to Orpheus, by Rainer Maria Rilke, trans. by Stephen Mitchell, Simon and Schuster, 1985
