My mind boggles at the amount of violence inflicted upon children in today's society.

Drama lives on conflict. If you're trying to deal with social issues seriously there's no way of avoiding violence which is so present in society.

You just let your lower self go and then it takes on all these aspects of the society - the city with horns blowing the people yelling things at each other and the all-in-all violence and chaos of the city. Put that on stage with music and that's what this is.

How a society channels male aggression is one of the greatest questions as to whether that society will survive. That's why I am not against violence in the media I am against the glorification of immoral violence.

I have to admit that when I watch a movie in which there is no moral context for the violence - I find that offensive. I think that's potentially damaging to society.

The most important element of a free society where individual rights are held in the highest esteem is the rejection of the initiation of violence.

Violence against women in all its forms is a human rights violation. It's not something that any culture religion or tradition propagates.

You can't write about the past and ignore religion. It was such a fundamental mind-shaping driving force for pre-modern societies. I'm very interested in what religion does to us - its capacity to create love and empathy or hatred and violence.

First of all my persuasion is what really breeds violence is political differences. But because religion serves as the soul of community it gets drawn into the fracas and turns up the heat.

Zionism was originally a rebellion against religious Judaism and the PLO Charter was essentially secularist. But because the conflict was allowed to fester without a resolution religion got sucked into the escalating cycle of violence and became part of the problem.