Does the viewing of violence dull our reactions?

J

John/az2

New member
As I was pondering the events that took place yesterday regarding a friend of mine being gunned down in the afternoon in the parking lot of a busy grocery store, I marveled at the news article that I read.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I thought they were making a movie. A lot of people seemed to be pretty indiferent to what was going on. I have to admit it seemed pretty surreal."[/quote]

It seems that I see more and more of these types of reactions when real violence occurs.

We talk about the need to train like it was real, and yet, when we view violence on a regular basis sitting down passively, aren't we training ourselves to do this very thing when the violence becomes real?

Would our reactions be faster, more potent, if we abstained from passively veiwing simulated violence?

Please share your thoughts about this, I am very interested if there are any studies or stats directly related to this question.


------------------
John/az
"When freedom is at stake, your silence is not golden, it's yellow..." RKBA!
www.cphv.com

[This message has been edited by John/az2 (edited July 15, 2000).]
 
Lt. Col. David Grossman's latest work, "Stop Teaching Our Kids How to Kill", seems to addresses this same issue: the desensitization effect upon young minds of TV, motion picture and video game portayals of violence.
 
Scripture says, be wise in what is good and simple concerning evil. (Romans 16:19) Also Philippians 4:8 speaks to this. My wife and I have restricted what the kids watched on TV growing up. It helped them be more interested in learning. Too much intertainment is hard for education to compete with. I think you are on the right track with being desensitized to violence. It seems to me that it would lower our adrenalin out put when faced with danger.

------------------
Alexander Solzhenitzyn:
"Freedom is given to the human conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility."
 
John,
Sincere condolences on the loss of your friend.
You just made a heck of an observation: people don't react to real violence because we are conditioned not to. What are most people doing when they see violence on TV or movies? They are sitting on their butts and doing nothing.
I am not one of the 'black helicopter' crowd but find it scary how we are intentionally or unintenionaly conditioned by the mass media.
I could go on and on about how many of the kids' commercials portray teachers and other adults as morons, that good places are where kids 'they make their own rules'. Watch how many adult commercials have the standard comedy setup- one smart person, one moron- and how many of the morons are straight, white males. Watch how many early afternoon talk shows are full of I'm-having-your-German-shepherd's-love-child type topics (when mom and dad are still at work and the kids have just come home from school). :eek:
Keep an eye on your watch during the news. The other night they spend about 1 minute on the police/suspect brawl in Philly and at LEAST 5 on an update on the show "Survivor". Keep an eye on your watch and see how much time is spent on entertainment versus on national/international news.
... and people pretend horror at the old Roman spectacles. :rolleyes:

------------------
Those who use arms well cultivate the Way and keep the rules.Thus they can govern in such a way as to prevail over the corrupt- Sun Tzu, The Art of War

[This message has been edited by Apple a Day (edited July 15, 2000).]
 
There may be some validity to the theory. After all, we have become "dull" to the corruption in the white house after seeing it go on for seven years.
 
John,
Let me add my condolences for your loss.
In answer to your question: Yes. Violence, like sex, sells.

Apple-a-Day: Good point about Rome. How much like Rome has the US become? Nero-Bill fiddles in the Whitehouse while the country burns. UN troops train here in the US while our own troops reside in foreign countries. Violent games are hyped and brought into our living rooms-no need to visit an arena anymore.

Sad. God is either laughing at it or crying.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top