Thomas Merton, the pacifist philosopher, theologian and mystic, wrote this (probably during the 1960s):
“The real focus of American violence is in the very culture itself, its mass media, its extreme individualism and competitiveness, its inflated myths of virility and toughness, and its overwhelming preoccupation with the power of nuclear, chemical, bacteriological, and psychological overkill. If we live in what is essentially a culture of overkill, how can we be surprised at finding violence in it? Can we get to the root of the trouble? In my opinion, the best way to do it would have been the classic way of religious humanism and nonviolence exemplified by Gandhi.”