I’ll start off by acknowledging Karl Menninger’s Man Against Himself as my primary source of material for what follows. I do not intend to copy his text, but I do intend to summarize his ideas in many places for my own benefit. My reasons for doing so would fill both hands if I counted with my fingers. I could have selected books from other psychoanalysts, psychologist, anthropologists, sociologists, and others, and I will. But Menninger’s book goes to a far limit by calling nearly all of our “vices” suicidal. Homicide of course comes into play too as self-homicide and self-homicide projected onto the world.

As an Army veteran I’m not new to violence in its extreme forms. As a witness to many after death scenes involving homicide and suicide, I’ve come to place greater importance on what I observe and how I come to make sense of it all. There’s much more though about violence against ourselves, others, and our planet. I cannot help but think of the passing of our great social ecologist, Murry Bookchin, and his own writings about ecology and society’s place within an ecological matrix.

Bookchin’s insights go to the heart of the matter: we can’t save our planet from our violence against it until we can save ourselves from our violence against self and others. Bookchin's critics point to his utopian voice as a hopeless approach to problem solving on any scale. I'm reminded that his critics have of year under patriarchal control to right the wrongs of our species, and we've yet to make genuine progress.

Students of world literature know beforehand where I'm going with this -- struggle and conflict with self and others. Is it any wonder that Cain and Able's archetypal pattern fits today's sibling rivalry among spoiled, middle-class western juveniles?

My radio reminds me that in this last week, (today's October 25, 2010), at least 6 gay and lesbian juveniles took their own lives as a result of bullying. Bullying, I surmise, finds its way from homes to our streets. Parental attitudes passed to their children find acting out in our public schools and on our streets. This for sure explains why I begin Hostages of Hatred with a psychoanalytical approach to start.

Placing the dynamics of our world into as few words as possible, I find opposing forces from our internal world to our external world. Love and hate we find so often perverted during homicide cleanup. Our deadly, environmental consequences of production and consumption without regard to consequences feed a dynamic of creation and destruction. These tendencies would appear to be the dynamic heart of the world.

My take on life shows me many hazards of sickness and accident, bacteria and bloodborne pathogens, and county employees intent on abusing their power and authority for personal gain. Meanwhile, honest, competitive crime scene cleanup companies fail to survive. Victim's once traumatized by loss of a loved one become victim's of their own local government.

Science shows me the greatest light in an otherwise intellectually dishonest society. Is It any wonder so many people continue to look to magic and mystery. I'm reminded of my teaching experiences and poorly informed "educators." An earthquake shook Los Angeles, shaking many students trust in their own footing. While outdoors experiencing our moving earth below our feet, an opportunity to point to far off mountains (an unusually clear day) I pointed out cause-and-effect. The ground we were standing on belonged to a large tectonic plate in contact with another such plate. As a result the earth shook from time to time and our mountains grew and shrank as a consequence.

My fellow teachers shook their heads in sorrowful amazement and later warned their students against my "theory" of moving tectonic plates. One of those teachers taught as a "science teacher." Is it any wonder so many look to magic and mystery for explanations.

We would think these Los Angeles; students might seek a more universal cooperation in the face of these threatening earthquakes. We might hope the Crips against Bloods, and First Street against Rockwood Street gangs would manage a more cooperative, global consciousness. In no case could such an end to strife within their shared living space end in the face of greater, monumental forces beyond any one's control.

No more would Los Angeles students end their hatred for one another than their parents would cease paying taxes into a military, corporate, industrial complex dedicated to renewing itself generation after generation. War and death upon faces unseen by robotic drones direct hellfire missile strikes against innocent students using an unknown language.

Robotic homicide remains homicide, murder by another name given these tax paying hostages and hated enemies yet to be identified.

We may hide behind the idea that we have no "conscious" wish to kill and maim innocent people in far off lands, but an a consideration of our unconscious motives might prove otherwise.

These unconscious motives helped to move my thinking and writing to suicide studies. When I look at suicide I see behaviors and suicidal consequences that appear, on surface, simple cause-and-effect outcomes. If my reasoning were correct, I suspect we would have a great many more suicides. Suicide must have a great many more sources and a much more complexity than a simple cause and effect outcome.

Menninger uses an example so often used to explain suicide in simple terms, from rags to riches and back again. A rich man kills himself following his fortune's loss. As a consequence of his suicide, his family receives a great payoff from his insurance company. It's simple to see cause and effect working in this suicide, but there's much more if we care to burden our minds with more details.

In what state of mind would we find this suicide victim before he gained his wealth? While building his wealth did he create victims from those he did business? What family dynamics would we find in his early and later family life? Could we expect to find a thread of suicidal ideation in his unconscious thoughts far back to his childhood? Finally, perhaps the moment of his suicide came to represent a convenient time to annihilate his most hated object, himself.

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