Education Quote by Sulak Sivaraksa

Sulak Sivaraksa is deliberately unsettling the easy equation between "human nature" and aggression. In common political language, violence is often treated as inevitable: tribal, ancient, hardwired. He flips that script. "Normal and natural" here does not mean surrendering to instinct; it means recovering a condition that modern life has distorted. The line is awkwardly phrased, but its moral force comes from that pressure point: violence is not our baseline truth but a learned deformation, and if it can be learned, it can be unlearned.

That idea tracks with Sivaraksa's larger project as a Thai Buddhist activist and critic of militarism, consumer capitalism, and authoritarian culture. He has long argued that systems of domination train people into numbness, competition, and fear, then present those habits as realism. His intent is not merely therapeutic. It is political. By redefining what is "natural", he challenges the excuses nations, markets, and institutions use to justify cruelty. He is pushing back against the fatalism that makes reform seem naive.

The subtext is quietly radical: nonviolence is not saintly excess, reserved for monks or heroes. It is a form of human restoration. In that sense, "teach ourselves" matters as much as "less violent". He is locating responsibility in practice, culture, and discipline rather than in abstract moral wishing. Peace is not a mood; it is training.

What makes the line work is its inversion of common sense. Sivaraksa turns "normal" from a defense of the status quo into an argument against it. The result is a compact rebuke to any society that calls brutality practical and compassion unrealistic.