The root of violence   Intellectual education, detached from moral education, will not be able to conquer the moral evils that afflict mankind
José Estênio Gomes Negreiros

 
On the 1st of January, 1862, in his home in Hauteville-House, Guernesey, French writer Victor Hugo (1802-1885), wrote in the preamble of his masterpiece “Les Miserables”, the following: “So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century – the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light – are unsolved; so as long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;- in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot fail to be of use”.

The afore mentioned romance “Les Misérables” – narrates the political and social situation in France at the time of the “Democratic Insurrection” or “Revolution of 1830”, during King Louis Phillipe’s reign of France, telling the story of the main character in the plot, Jean Valjean, whose ordeal began in 1795, when he was arrested and convicted, at first to five years in prison, beginning in 1796, for stealing a piece of bread. His countless attempts to break out of prison bring him to a final prison term of nineteen years, partly spent in the galleys.

We made such reference in an attempt to understand the causes of violence, mainly “urban violence”, that has settled in our country – focusing only on it – from an unidentified moment in recent events, for what I understand we don’t have a reference point to “when” this wave started to hit our everyday shores, placing ourselves among the most violent societies on the planet.

According to Valvim M. Dutra, in his book “Renasce Brasil”, inspired by the ethics of the bible, violence can be classified in three distinct groups that is: a) urban violence – the one that happens in the streets, such as hold-ups, robberies, murder, killings, etc.; b) domestic violence – happening in the home and c) violence against women – in which the aggressor is the husband, boyfriend or former companion.

That author embraces the thesis that injustice and confrontation are the generating forces of a revenge wish that come into shape in aggression, robberies, hold-ups and homicide, and that irreverence and debauchery incite vulgar behavior and disrespect that usually end up in violence. Nowadays, it became commonplace the incidence of murder triggered by banal situations, such as, for example, denying a cigarette to an unknown or retaliate a small offense with a cursing word.

“Educate children so that you don’t have to
punish grown-ups” 

Valvim deems the most different kinds of disrespect, such as economical disrespect, social disrespect, marital disrespect, family disrespect and bad manners as the main source of physical and moral embarrassment. Therefore, according to him, the antidote to these deviations is sheer respect. By behaving with the utmost respect with everyone and in every situation, exorcises violence. In this way, it is advisable that the different State governments and the three powers constituted in the Nation foster among its citizens relationships anchored in Justice, in Ethics and the goodness of actions, curtailing corruption and vigorously punishing corrupts and corrupters, adopting measures to minimize unemployment, poverty, social imbalance and public inefficiency. We add up that the excess of “liberties” seen both in the educational system and on TV shows, needs to be reviewed. Teenagers must be guided more based on reality and not be given senseless rights that breed rebellion, brashness and disrespect. Vulgarity, violent scenes and some many other examples of a deviation of conduct practiced by fictitious or real characters shown mainly by our main channels of our “free-to-air television” corrode our moral values and contribute significantly in order to make our youth, stimulated by these examples, irresponsible, reckless, disrespectful and, above  all, inconsequential.

We must be in accordance with the affirmations of the author of “Renasce Brasil”. We adduce that violence is only one of the products bad education or the absence or inefficiency of the same education. “Educate children so that you don’t have to punish grown-ups.” This ancient proverb from the Greek philosopher Pythagoras sums up the importance of education for the moral and intellectual education of Mankind.

From the introduction to the masterpiece “The problem of Being, of Destiny and Pain” written in 1908 by Léon Denis (1846-1927), a disciple of Allan Kardec (1804-1869) who dedicated his heart and soul to the cause of study and propagation of the Spiritualistic Doctrine, we extracted a few excerpts that talk about undeniable truths and serve well the theme which we deal with here, because they are current as they had been written in the beginning of the 21^st Century.

About the lack of schooling and education in France in his time (which is a mirror of what happens in Brazil today) and the need to spiritualize man in order to fight the moral evils that corrode Mankind he states: “… the teachings given by human institutions in general – religions, schools, universities – if on the one hand they teach us many superfluous things, on the other hand teach us almost nothing of what we need to know for our conduct: the direction of exisntence on earth and the preparation for the beyond”. 

Classical education aims at ornating inteligence,
but does not teach how to Love 

  (...) In Academia, a complete uncertainty still lingers over the solution to the most important problem man has faced over the course of his passage on earth. This uncertainty reflects upon all teaching. A great deal of teachers and pedagogues rule out systematically from their lessons all that has to do to the problem of life, the questions pertaining its objective and purpose.

Strictly speaking, at university, as well as in the Church, the soul finds only obscurity and contradiction in everything regarding the problem of its nature and its future. It’s in this state of affairs that one needs to attribute, greatly, the evils of our time: the incoherence of ideas, the disorder of conscience, and the moral and social anarchy.

The education given to generations is tricky: it does not clarify the path of life and does not stimulate for the struggles of existence.

Classical education enables one to cultivate, to ornate intelligence, but does not teach to take action, to love, nor dedicate oneself to reach a conception of destiny that develops the inner energies of self and guides our impulses towards a higher aim. However, this conception is indispensable to every being, to all society, for it is the cornerstone, the supreme consolation in tough times, the source of virtues and high inspirations. One shouldn’t give it away, but frankly: philosophy at school, after so many centuries of study and labor, is still a doctrine without light, warmth or life. The souls of our children, shaken between various and contradictory systems – Augusto Comte’s positivism, Hegel’s naturalism, Stuart Mill’s materialism, Cousin’s eclecticism, etc, - fluctuate uncertain, aimlessly and without a precise aim.

Hence the precocious discouragement and the gloomy pessimism, illnesses of decadent societies, terrible threats to the future, to which we add the bitter and mocking skepticism of so many young people who believe just in money and only honor success.

The illustrious professor Raoul Pictet points out this state of spirit in the introduction of his last work about psychic sciences.

He speaks about the disastrous effect produced by materialistic theories about the mentality of his pupils and concludes: ‘These poor young people admit that everything that goes on in the world is a fatal and necessary effect of primary conditions, in which the will does not intervene. They consider that their own existence is, forcefully, a puppet of unavoidable fate, to which they are linked, with hands and feet tied. These young people stop fighting as soon as they find the first obstacles. They do not believe in themselves. They become living graves, where they store, confusingly, their hopes, efforts and desires. I have seen these corpses sitting in their chairs and in the lab and they cause me sorrow’. 

The origin of all evil is in our moral inferiority 

All of this is not only applicable to part of our youth, but also to many men of our time and generation, in whom we can see symptoms of moral fatigue and depression.

F. Mayers also acknowledges: ‘There’s sort of a restlessness, discontentment, a lack of confidence in the true value of life. Pessimism is the moral disease of our time’.

(…) It is necessary to prepare the spirits for the needs, the struggles of the current life and the future ones; it is necessary, above all, to teach the human being to know himself, to develop, with an aim, the latent strengths that sleep within him.

The turmoil and uncertainty that we witness in education radiate and are found, like we said, in every social organization.

Everywhere, there’s a state of unsettling crisis. Underneath the shiny surface of a refined civilization, hides a deep discomfort. The exasperation grows in all social classes. The conflicts of interests, the struggle for life become, day by day, harsher. The sense of duty has weakened in popular consciousness to the point where many men steer away from duty and responsibility (…) No human work can be great and durable if it’s not inspired, in theory and practice, in its principles and applications, in the eternal laws of the Universe. All which is conceived and built outside the superior laws is built on sand and eventually sinks.

(…) The origin of all evil is in our lack of knowledge and our moral inferiority. All of the society will remain weak and divided as long as distrust, doubt, selfishness, jealousy and hatred dominate it. You don’t transform a society through laws. Laws and institutions will be nothing without customs, and higher beliefs.

(…) In order to improve the way a society, being it a result of individual powers, good or evil, it is necessary to act initially on the intelligence and consciousness of individuals.

(...) There’s nothing to be sought but to attain rights.

However, the enjoyment of rights cannot be done without the practice of duties. The right without the duty, that limits and corrects it, only breeds more suffering and afflictions.

(…) This is the current state of society. There’s a huge danger that a great spiritualist and scientific revolution does not take place, thus leading the world to incoherence and confusion.

Our rulers, already feel how much it costs to live in a society where the essential Moral basis are shaken, and where laws are weak, fragile or superficial, and everything gets confused, even the elementary notion of Good and Evil. 

Our rulers have an urgent task to carry out 

(...) Our task is big, and man’s education should be redone completely. This education, as we have seen, neither the University nor the Church can provide, once they no longer possess the necessary synthesis to clarify the march of new generations. Only a doctrine can offer this synthesis: the Spiritualism; already rising above horizon of intellectual world and seems to enlighten the future.

(...) Education, as we know it, is the most powerful agent of progress; it contains the origins of the future. But in order to be complete, it should be inspired by the study of life under two alternating forms, the visible and the invisible, in its fullness, and in its Constant evolution towards the heights of nature and reasoning.

(...) The ruling masters of mankind have an urgent task to fulfill. It is to put Spiritualism back on the basis of education, and to work towards repairing man inside and restoring moral health.

(…) Until schools and Academia don’t have it in their programs, they won’t be doing much for the ultimate education of Mankind.

(…) Our task is to outline the path for the ones to come to which we will still be part of, as taught by the communion of souls, to the revelation of great invisible guides, the same way Nature teaches us, by their thousand voices and by the eternal renewal of all things, to those who can study and understand them.

Let’s walk towards the future, towards the ever-reborn life, through the broad path of Spiritualism.

Traditions, sciences, philosophies, religions, lighten up with a new flame; dust off your old shrouds and the ashes that cover them. Listen to reveling voices from the grave, as they bring a renewal of thought with the secrets from beyond, which man needs to learn in order to live better, behave better and better die!”

As taught by Kardec (question 872, Part 3, Chapter 10, from the “Book of Spirits”), Education will only truly fight our bad tendencies (among them violence) when it is based on a thorough study of the moral nature of man. That is, intellectual education, detached from moral education, will be incapable of conquering the moral evils that afflict Mankind.

References: 

Les Miserables – Victor Hugo.

Renasce Brasil – Valvim M. Dutra.

O Problema do Ser, do Destino e da Dor – Léon Denis.

The Book of Spirits – Allan Kardec.