Title: The violence mythos
First published: 1997
Description: The violence mythos is a collection of beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and social expectations about violence in Western culture. It includes the war hero myth, the victimizer/victim exploitative dynamic, the theory of innate violence, the mind/body dualism, the myth of male aggression and the subordination of women, the marginalization of trust, and the development of technology in a tradition of destructive instrumentalism.

At the core of the violence mythos is the belief that humans are innately violent. The cultural system is then able to legitimate, rationalize, and use violence to control "violent humans," and thus becomes a self-reinforcing, self-perpetuating system of direct and indirect means of social control. This is the repetitive cycle of violence in trauma reenactment, transferred intergenerationally through the roles and rituals of the hero/perpetrator myth.

The cycle ceases with the understanding of trauma in the trust triad of the interdependent mythos.
Subjects: History, Psychological aspects, Psychological aspects of Violence, Violence, Violence in popular culture, Violence, psychological aspects
LC classification: HM283 .W55 1997