Violence is a failure of compassion. Compassion provides children with a sense of inherent importance, value, worth, and equality a kind of Core Value that prevents recurring states of shame and powerlessness. States of powerlessness stimulate anger, hostility, and an urge for revenge. Humans are hard-wired to discover the self by caring about others. Accurate self-knowledge, a prerequisite of genuine power, is possible only with clear focus on our enormous capacity for healing, nurturing, growth, creativity, building, and compassion.
Compassion is power.
The tone of community response to violence must firmly ally with the compassionate part of the offender s core self, which does not want to be violent. Bonds formed for something, e.g., compassion and safety in the community, draw energy from an underlying mobilization of passion, conviction, and dedication to a higher good. The Empowered Community is not against anyone. It is for healing, correcting, and improving the shame and alienation that cause violence. When the dignity and value of persons is denigrated by their society, individuals blame the system for their misery and set about to oppose, subvert, or cheat it any way they can.