Can You Beat Up Your Brother-In-Law?
I’ve seen a lot of disturbing things on the internet, napalm attacks, public executions, disgusting dermatological surgeries, but the one that hit me the hardest was a PG-rated youtube video of a snake killing another snake after mating. Immediately after copulation the male python bit the female on the neck and then twisted until she was dead. There was minimal bleeding but it was a very thorough job. Having ensured that the eggs inside his partner would never gestate, the snake slithered away into a nearby bush, leaving me traumatized.
I cared for snakes for years, and I’m certain that they are too stupid to form any malicious intent. Saying that the male python mistook the female’s neck for baby bird, would be giving him too much credit for subjective experience. The brutal murder was nothing more than a short circuit. I refrained from hating the snake and moved on to the question “what kind of God would build a mate murdering reflex into a python anyway?” or to put it another way, “How could such a senseless behavior evolve?” These are important questions, because human beings possess a similar reflex, and we haven’t found a good way to curb it. I’m referring to the tendency of human males to murder their wives and children and then kill themselves.
The topic didn’t require an introduction, but I hoped that if I got that snake story off my chest the nightmares would stop. How can a member of a species that invests so much into it’s offspring, do something so wildly counter productive? Where are the selfish genes when you need them? The behavior is too pervasive to be a bug and too harmful to be a feature. Perhaps this behavior is the result of modernity fatally confusing our nervous system the way a porch-light kills a insect by outshining the moon? It makes me wonder if the solution to this problem lies in darkness.
As you probably guessed by now, I recently lost 2 friends, in unrelated family murder suicide. In one case my friend was the victim and in the other case he was the perpetrator. From the outside, both couples seemed happy and emotionally stable until things suddenly went bad. I can no longer name a man who I deem incapable of murdering his wife or girlfriend. On the other hand, now that my eyes are open, I see more and more cases that make me worry.
There seems to be a predictable narrative to these domestic murders. Unlike our reptilian friends, human thought can develop over the course of months, and changes in attitude noticeable effect our social behavior. The stereotypical progression of, possessiveness, mood swings, shouting, breaking things, instrumental physical violence, and finally murder, seems about as reliable as the stages of grief. Not everyone goes that far, but when someone starts breaking things, you know you’re on road to murder. Sadly, by the time the signs are clear to people outside the relationship, the murder suicide clock is about five minutes to midnight. At this point, experience seems to indicated there’s nothing you can do except wait and pray.
Of course it would be madness to stand by and do nothing, it’s just that there aren’t many good options. The list of things that don’t work very well includes, calling the police, getting a restraining order, counseling with church elders, and filing for divorce. I’ve read statistical claims that many of these things actually increase the chances of being murdered by a partner, but I think it’s sufficient to say that once murder suicide is on the table, it’s hard to provide an effective deterrent. Even reasoning with the victim, or summarily executing the perpetrator of domestic violence is an imperfect solution because, the severity of the punishment acts as a disincentive for the victim to cooperate with the authorities.
Clearly, these situations which require a delicate touch and individual attention. However imperfect they may be, all the tools society has to offer should brought to bare, including education for both young men and women! Moreover, there is an under appreciated which we can scarcely afford to ignore given the scale of the crisis: Have you ever considered taking abusive men aside and beating the shit out them?(Haha, this is just for fun. Don’t actually do it. Never break the law for any reason ;)
Clearly, this is not a job for the authorities. What with contentious divorces, the rule of law, and all that “he said she said” stuff, this wouldn’t work as an institutional practice. What I’m talking about is those moment’s when you see a man displaying some sort of abusive behavior, and he’s already within sprinting distance. What, for example, would be the long term psychological impact of a swiftly administered slap to the back of a brother in law’s head second after he grabs you sister by the arm and yanks her away from a table? Could it be that a vigorous physical gesture, properly administered, would reach into the core of an abusers psyche and cause his instinct of self preservation to override his maniacal desire for control? The possibility can’t be ruled out, and with death rates from domestic violence so high, what do we have to lose?
It’s hard to know the exact outcome since the territory is unexplored, but isn’t it at least possible that choking a man unconscious after he disrespects your daughter, then telling him “You’ve just had a seizure, don’t move yet it’s not safe! The key to living with epilepsy is to think back to what triggered the seizure and then never do it again!” might become a signpost on a young man’s path to self reformation?
While I’m still in the preliminary stages of data collection, the basis of my theory is two fold. Being an evil, controlling, violent bastard, is clearly an adaptive advantage, in certain environments. After all, these murders have successfully found wives and girlfriends, a feat many men struggle to achieve. However, no adaptation that causes you to systematically murder your spouse, yourself and, your children can be highly adaptive. Perhaps, this behavior is a maladaptive result of a social environment which discourages violent beatings as a form of communication, but cannot enforce this norm in a domestic setting. Could domestic violence be the result of an artifical asymmetry where violence against the people we love is the only kind of violence which is safe to perpetrate? Much like those of us who feel, something was lost when corporal punishment was removed from schools, I can’t help but wonder if the message “stop systematically destroying that woman’s self esteem as a prelude to murdering her” might be getting lost in translation because we’ve banned the only efficient method of conveying it to the people who need it most.
This brings me to my second point. Some types of learning have to be visceral. In particular, knowledge doesn’t seem to affect behavior unless it is accompanied by experience. We all know for example that some foods are bad for us, however, eating patterns remain very difficult to change. On the other hand, suffering violent vomiting after consuming a food can put you off the taste for life. Likewise, high doses of psilocybin, seem to produce therapeutic effects only when they produce transcendent experiences. Lived truths seem to convince us on a deeper level than dry reasoning. Could the mortal terror engendered by having his head forced underwater until his sympathetic nervous system forces him to aspirate fluid, cause a shift in an abusers perspective which would have been unattainable by reason alone? Maybe the violent impulse we experience when confronted with abusive behavior originally functioned as a natural check on the murderous instincts of our abusive ancestors?
As I’ve said before, it is far to early to tell if my theory is correct, and it may be hard for me to get a large scale clinical trial of this methodology past an institutional review board. Furthermore in the interest of fairness, we need to get the other side of the story. If you know anybody who reminds you of the snake in my Youtube video, please send them a copy of this article and ask them if they need to have the Shit Kicked kicked out of them. If they say anything interesting, let me know in the comments below.
