Cause Of Violence Essay

Throughout human history, violence, for the most part, has been a perpetual struggle we’ve faced. It does not discriminate against location, color, or creed, and it has an impact, lasting or not, on each of us at some point during our lives. Living in a Western country, many of us have become accustomed to the idea that true violence only lives in the ravaged lands of warring countries or the dilapidated streets of rundown neighborhoods, but in truth it can be found anywhere. Community center’s, schools, churches, and even the most secluded towns all encounter violence, though sometimes behind closed doors, everyone is vulnerable to it. But what prompts it to occur exactly? Violence itself stems from the causality of several different factors,

such as: biological characteristics, family attributes, individual traits, academic opportunity and intelligence, child and youth development and upbringing, relationships with others, cultural molds, and emotional and mental fortitude. Each of these factors have the capacity to impacted and be impacted by each other, therefore determining how exactly an individuals life could, or will, play out. The aforementioned factors each hold positive and negative influences.

For example, lets look at academic opportunity and intelligence.

A positive influence would be a student attending a highly regarded secondary school, allowing the youth to truly cultivate their academic knowledge. Whereas a negative influence would be their attendance of a secondary school known for its involvement with gangs, increasing the likelihood of the youth joining one. When these negative influences pile up, leaving the positive influences by the wayside, an individual may come to find themselves on the brink of exhibiting violent behavior. Once someone has arrived at this point it is likely they will begin to use violence to grapple with life’s problems. To better describe this process let’s look at an

example.

On November 24, 1946 a teenage girl named Louise gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, but because of her age and unmarried status she was unable to properly care for the infant. Louise went to her parents for help, hoping they would assist in raising the child. They agreed, and to shelter Louise and the baby from the social stigma surrounding children out of wedlock, Louise masqueraded as her child’s sister (a sobering reality that would be revealed to the boy in his youth). While living under his grandparent’s roof, the boy (as well as his mother, aunt, and grandmother) often suffered abuse from his grandfather Samuel, abuse that was prompted by delusional episodes Samuel often had. Despite this, the boy respected and clung to his grandfather without question. Eventually Louise and her boy would move away, however; living with his abusive and mentally unstable grandfather had done its damage. Not long after moving, the boy began to show signs of worrying behavior. One afternoon his aunt, Julia, took a nap, only to awaken an hour later to find that the boy had surrounded her with knives and sat at the foot of her bed smiling.

During his youth, the boy was regarded as handsome, but was a social novice, leading to a particularly cruel brand of bullying in middle school. When he finally moved onto high school, he was incapable of acting naturally social, forcing him to pretend to be as such. He turned to trouble making to express his social frustrations and was known to shoplift, steal, and even spy on his neighbors. Even though the boy excelled in his academic career, his job record was unreliable. When he finally moved onto college he was too socially inexperienced to properly integrate into the environment, though eventually, he met a girl, but became overly obsessive and infatuated with her; an obsession that continued on even after she broke up with him. After the breakup he was emotionally distraught and unable to focus on his work, eventually leading him to drop out of college and resort to working several odd jobs for short periods of time.

Many years later he would take his vengeance on his first love using a series of mind games and tricks, ultimately allowing him to manipulate her into falling back in love with him. Once he was certain she loved him he proposed only to cut all contact with her immediately after, leaving her heartbroken. In the coming months the murders began. Though the first suggestions of his killings began at 15, his first confirmed murder occurred when he was 27. The man’s four-year murderous rampage had begun, extending all the way across Washington State, Utah, and finally Florida. He used his handsome looks and likeable disposition to bait women into an ambush, where he would do unspeakable things. He was tried, convicted, and then executed in 1989, but not before he confessed to 30 murders, though even today it is still suspected that he killed around 100 women. The name of this man was Ted Bundy, one of America’s most infamous serial killers, and a monster that would forever be burned into the American psyche.

Though what Bundy did is beyond inexcusable, in a case like this one it is easily seen that the negative influences overwhelmed the positive ones, ultimately leading to his violent behaviors.

He was smart, had an upbringing in a fairly regular part of town, was fairly handsome, and had a myriad of opportunities surrounding his education; though he still ended up as a monster due to the negative influences of his external environment, which undoubtedly shows their importance. It is well understood that Bundy suffered from serious psychological issues, most likely an after effect of the physically and mentally abusive environment that he lived through as a child; and in particular the lies regarding his lineage and the lack of any responsible familial adult figures only furthered his descent into

madness