My baby daughter has a good right hook. How do I know this? Because she used it on her dear old dad just yesterday morning, knocking my glasses off my head in a fit of rage when I failed to produce her Mama on demand.

Some people believe that violence is unnatural, a twisted creation of an unhealthy society. Those people are drastically, completely wrong. They are actually so wrong I think they must be willfully blind, because if there's one thing I know about violence it's that it comes very naturally to all of us.

When you don't do what a baby wants when the baby wants you to do it, that baby will start hitting- not with any intention or aim at first, although that will come later. Initially it's just a crazy flailing of fists in frustration, possibly knocking your glasses flying. When the baby gets a little bit older, though, it becomes deliberate. My older daughter once made a fist, looked at it, then socked me straight in the jaw because I didn't get her the toy she wanted.

So, what's my point? My point is that if we tell ourselves that violence is somehow an aberration or an unnatural thing, we'll just ignore it or suppress it instead of dealing with it honestly. Civilization is not a natural thing- it's a learned behavior. If we want our kids to be gentle and kind, as almost everyone does, we have to start by understanding that aggression is a natural instinct so that we can teach them to control it. If we want our kids to be able to defend themselves and others- as I certainly do- we need to teach them to be just civilized enough, but never too civilized. We must not completely suppress those instincts. The best adults are gentle and calm except in the very worst circumstances, at which point they can suddenly channel their barbarian ancestors.