The Cost of Tolerance for Violence

Our society evinces a high tolerance for violence. This acceptance of certain forms of violent behavior is ingrained in the American value system, established through our history in the simple struggle to survive. Beginning with the colonial era, through the settlement of the western frontier, and during the wave of immigrant arrivals, Americans often used violence to establish basic rights. Sociobiological explanations of individual violent tendencies focus on genetic predisposition established through natural selection-or survival of the fittest-while psychoanalytical perspectives define extreme violence as a deviant form of natural aggression. On the other hand, criminologists define all violence as deviant. In today's society, physical force is considered to be justifiable when expressing political dissent and protecting self and property, and less so during domestic disputes.