The Final Call

The Psychological and Genetic Roots of Violence (Part II)

By Harry R. Davidson, Ph.D. -Guest Columnist- | Last updated: Nov 16, 2009 - 10:52:24 AM

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In a recent article “The Psychological and Genetic Roots of Violence” which appeared in The Final Call, I suggested that we must investigate to determine what violence producing agents are being introduced into the youth of America and the world. When I visited South Africa, I found that they are experiencing similar occurrences. The common elements the youth of the various cultures are involved with are music, marijuana usage and video games.

Research has demonstrated that video games can also be highly addictive. A South African boy wearing a mask similar to a hard rock band's attire took a Samurai sword to school and cut off one student's head and slashed off another student's ear. Such occurrences are not solely associated with hard rock music. Some Black youth gangs reportedly get high, listen to rap music and go out on killing sprees. The consumption of alcohol enhances the effects of the music and the drugs. Video games are not the exclusive domain of children. Mothers and grandmothers have been known to spend large sums of money on violent video games that their adult sons are as obsessed with as the sons they have fathered. The populations that are most involved with these addictive agents are the most violent prone and most subject to auto accidents. In addition, they lack motivation, drive and the will to function in an independent, responsible and productive way, choosing to sleep their days away.

Marijuana, music and video games are potentially Mind Controlling agents. Mind control is also referred to as brainwashing, coercive persuasion, and thought reform. It refers to a broad range of psychological methods and processes thought to subvert an individual's control of his or her own thoughts, behaviors, emotions, or decision-making. Brainwashing and mind control theories originally developed to explain how the enemy indoctrinated their people using mind control techniques. Drugs and chemicals were also experimented with. The Nazis were heavily involved in such methods. Ecstasy was routinely given to the soldiers to keep them overly violent. What is not widely known is the fact that following the war, Nazi scientists infiltrated the American Psychiatric community, many becoming leaders.

In previous articles I have used the term Psychoneuro Linquistic Programming that is a powerful scientific alteration of hypnosis. These methods can also be conveyed through drugs, music and video games because they have the power to effectively capture and control one's mental processes. Hypnosis is normally preceded by a “hypnotic induction” technique. There exists an enormous variety of different induction techniques used in hypnotism. Music can affect the human mind, dramatically swaying our emotions and evoking memories. Video games have the same potential. Music can have a powerful influence on regions of the brain responsible for language, feelings, movement, and other unrelated systems. It can also dramatically effect one's emotions. Music can produce both positive emotions and negative ones. Much of today's controversial music has been linked to anger, depression, violence and even suicide.

Hypnosis, Psychoneuro Linquistic Programming, including music and videos have tremendous medical, psychological and scientific benefits in the treatment of a wide variety of areas. Conversely, science has also historically been used for extremely destructive purposes. An example can be seen in the discovery of atomic power. The inventors had little or no idea of the devastation the discovery would ultimately produce. Today, some are denied the use of hydrogen power out of a fear that they will use it to create weapons of mass destruction. Many of these nations claim that their only intention is to use hydrogen to power needed facilities for the creation of electricity, hospital and laboratory equipment and other useful sources.

The main mind-altering (psychoactive) ingredient in marijuana is THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), but more than 400 other chemicals also are in the plant. The amount of THC in the marijuana determines how strong its effects will be. Most innocent parents do not realize that the strength of today's marijuana is as much as ten times greater than the marijuana they grew up with, the drug popular in the early 1970s. Substances sold as marijuana on the street often turns out to be something else, such as the powerful hallucinogenic PCP.

Contrary to the popular myth, no scientific evidence indicates that marijuana improves hearing, eyesight, and skin sensitivity. Studies of marijuana's mental effects show that the drug can impair or reduce short-term memory, alter sense of time, and reduce ability to do things that require concentration, swift reactions, and coordination, such as driving a car or operating machinery. A common bad reaction to marijuana is the “acute panic anxiety reaction and loss of control that can lead to the death of the user or his victim.” Driving experiments show that marijuana affects a wide range of skills needed for safe driving. Research shows that these skills are impaired for at least 4-6 hours after smoking a single marijuana joint; long after the “high” is gone. If a person drinks alcohol, along with using marijuana, the risk of an accident greatly increases. Marijuana presents a definite danger on the road.

Some research studies suggest that the use of marijuana during pregnancy may result in premature babies and in low birth weights and is known to produce hyperactivity and behavioral problems in children. Studies of men and women may have a temporary loss of fertility. These findings suggest that marijuana may be especially harmful during adolescence, a period of rapid physical and sexual development.

People often try drugs such as marijuana because they feel pressured by peers to be part of the group. The group is most likely locked into the same sense of futility and hopelessness as the induced user. Children cannot merely be taught to “say no” to the peer pressure. The problems are most often deep seated and must require a treatment regime that includes: detoxification, psychotherapy, family therapy and often a commitment to religious involvement. Parents can get involved by becoming informed about marijuana and by talking to their children about drug use. But mostly, parents need to address their own personal, family and relationship problems, problems that contribute very heavily to their children's addictions.

Like alcoholics, marijuana users most often deny the degree of their involvement. Therefore, professionals should be consulted to assess the problem and to assist the parents in developing treatment and preventive strategies. Detoxification within a clinical setting is a must. When marijuana is smoked, most tissues and organs in the body absorb THC, its active ingredient; however, it is primarily found in fat tissues. The body, in its attempt to rid itself of the foreign chemical, chemically transforms the THC into metabolites. Urine tests must be used to detect THC metabolites for up to a week after people have smoked marijuana. Tests involving radioactively labeled THC have traced these metabolites in animals for up to a month.

Economic systems both in America and throughout the world no longer need an excessive work force. The youth of America and the world have become surplus in today's world wide economic system. The analogy is an agricultural based system that once produced large numbers of horses to cultivate the soil and produce crops. Automation decreased the need for the horse. Hence, the horse, like our youth, has become a source of show and sport, surplus in an economic system that no longer needs manual labor to produce a profit. In too many instances marijuana smoking, drinking, listening to hours of music and hours of playing video games has become their primary reason to exist from day to day. It is because they do not see a future for themselves that they become dependent on mind-altering agents to mask the futility of their reality.

I am not on a moral crusade against Hip Hop, rap or any other form of music. The purpose of this article is to provide information to our youth, parents, educators and religious leaders, all of whom have a vital role to play if we are to solve this problem.

(For more information send $20.00 each for my books God Save America and Somebody's Trying to Kill You: The Psychodynamics of White Racism and Black Pathology, to Harry R. Davidson, Ph.D., P.O. Box 11783, Kansas City, Missouri 64138.)