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Violence, Fear, Perception and Agency

Deepali Bhattacharya

In conversation with TD, Clinical Psychologist  ·  An eleven-part reflection, with notes and references

PART X

Kindness Is Not Softness. It Is Prevention.

“Violence rarely begins with a weapon. More often, it begins with everyday indifference.”

When people speak about preventing violence, the conversation usually turns towards stricter laws, policing, surveillance or harsher punishments.

These conversations are important.

But they often begin too late.

By the time the law intervenes, someone has already been hurt.

TD offered another perspective that stayed with me.

“Kindness,” he said, “is prevention.” ²¹

At first, I wondered whether the idea was too simple.

Then I thought about the people I have met over the years.

A teacher humiliating a child in front of the class.

Parents constantly comparing siblings.

A husband controlling every decision his wife makes.

Friends laughing at sexist jokes.

Neighbours choosing silence when they hear repeated screams next door.

None of these moments make the evening news.

Yet they quietly shape the emotional climate in which violence either grows or is challenged.

Violence is rarely born overnight.

It rehearses itself.

In language.

In ridicule.

In entitlement.

In humiliation.

In the belief that some people deserve less dignity than others.

Perhaps this is why TD insisted that we pay attention to our ordinary conversations.

Every joke that normalises dowry.

Every casual remark that blames survivors.

Every statement that dismisses emotional pain.

Every act of public humiliation.

These may appear insignificant.

They are not.

Children are always listening.

Young people are always observing.

Communities are always learning what is considered acceptable. ²²

If cruelty can be learnt, compassion can also be learnt.

If disrespect spreads through imitation, so can kindness.

I often think of development work in the same way.

Communities do not change only because policies change.

They change because everyday behaviour changes.

One respectful conversation.

One teacher who listens.

One police officer who responds with dignity.

One neighbour who chooses to intervene.

These actions may never become headlines.

Yet they prevent stories that otherwise might have.

Perhaps kindness has been misunderstood.

It is not a weakness.

It is one of society’s earliest warning systems.

It notices suffering before statistics do.

A QUESTION THAT STAYED WITH ME…

If kindness is prevention, what ultimately gives us the courage to keep choosing it in a world where violence still exists?

That was the final question I asked TD.

Notes:

21.  Public health reaches the same conclusion: the WHO’s World Report on Violence and Health (2002) locates the roots of violence in an ecology of relationships, communities and norms — prevention therefore begins long before law enforcement. On learned aggression, see Bandura (1977).

22.  WHO (2009) reviews the evidence that changing cultural and social norms — including the everyday speech, jokes and silences that signal acceptability — is a core violence-prevention strategy in its own right.

Violence, Fear, Perception and Agency

Deepali Bhattacharya

In conversation with TD, Clinical Psychologist  ·  An eleven-part reflection, with notes and references

PART IX

Agency: The Antidote to Fear

“Fear tells us what we cannot control. Agency reminds us what we still can.”

After several conversations on fear, I found myself asking TD a question that many of us quietly ask ourselves after every disturbing news report.

“What can one ordinary person possibly do?”

It is an honest question.

We cannot eliminate violence.

We cannot predict every danger.

We cannot control the choices other people make.

So where does that leave us?

TD’s answer shifted the conversation in an important way.

“Psychology uses a simple but powerful word—agency.” ¹⁹

Agency is our ability to recognise that even when circumstances are beyond our control, our response is not.

Fear narrows our world.

Agency begins to expand it again.

It is the difference between saying,

“The world has become unsafe.”

And asking,

“What can I do to become safer?”

The difference may appear small.

Psychologically, it is enormous.

Agency restores something that violence often steals.

Choice.

I have seen this repeatedly while working with women rebuilding their lives after violence.

The turning point rarely arrives through one dramatic event.

It begins quietly.

A woman decides to attend a support group.

Another applies for a job.

Someone learns self-defence.

Someone else files a complaint after years of silence.

Each decision appears ordinary.

Yet together they represent something extraordinary.

They mark the return of agency.

The same principle applies beyond individual lives.

Communities become stronger when people know one another.

When neighbours exchange phone numbers.

When commuters intervene instead of merely recording.

When schools teach children not only mathematics and science but also empathy, emotional regulation and responsible citizenship.

Preparedness is not paranoia.

It is confidence.

The purpose of preparedness is not to convince ourselves that danger is everywhere.

It is to reassure ourselves that if danger appears, we are not entirely helpless.

Perhaps that is why agency is so deeply connected with hope.

Hope is not wishful thinking.

Hope is believing that our actions still matter. ²⁰

A QUESTION THAT STAYED WITH ME…

If agency helps us respond after violence, what helps prevent violence from taking root in the first place?

Perhaps the answer lies much closer to home than we imagine.

Notes:

19.  Bandura (1997, 2006) places agency and self-efficacy at the centre of psychological functioning: the belief that one’s actions can influence outcomes is among the strongest protections against helplessness.

20.  This is close to Snyder’s (2002) hope theory, in which hope is not optimism but the combination of goals, pathways and the sense of one’s own capacity to act.