Thursday, July 14, 2005
Violence is a guys best friend
Like most human beings, I love legalized violence. Football, boxing, and UFC are examples of sports which I spend a substantial amount of my life following (football mostly) where a portion of my enjoyment is garnered from seeing two human beings pummel each other. In all three sports, I can appreciate the strategy involved in achieving an outcome, be it a knockout or a touchdown, but I do like seeing a few sick hits.
Moreover, unlike most of the moralizing media outlets, I am not automatically “turned off,” by violent acts that break the rules or cause injuries. The enjoyment I get out of the violence of the act far outweighs any moral outrage I am supposed to feel. I understand the need for rules to protect the safety of the players, but to me any moralizing on excessive violence in sports is total hypocrisy, since it is the attraction to violence that helps to sell the product. The Todd Bertuzzi hit on Steve Moore, (where he slammed him into the ice,) is a prime example. What caused the outrage and Bertuzzi’s subsequent suspension was the consequence, (Moore’s severe back injury) not the action itself.
The hypocrisy of violence spreads to television and music, where violent personas sell records and violent television shows and video games are simultaneously vilified and critically acclaimed. Once again, it is the consequences that determine the agenda. Following an incident such as Columbine, moral outrage peaks until time and other facets of life distract our minds, and the companies that market these products can feed the market for more realistic first person shooters, or shows that are more “cutting edge,” in how they display someone being murdered.
Of course, I find these games and programs to be wildly entertaining. But it is not the violent acts themselves that make them entertaining. Grand Theft Auto is simply a well designed expression of rage and criminal hedonism, well thought-out, with incredible depth in terms of missions to accomplish, gameplay, and humor. Of course, you can also spend most of your time throwing Molotov cocktails at innocent bystanders and killing police officers if you so choose. The problem is 10 million people might play the game, but it takes one to not understand the disconnect between entertainment, fiction, and reality to ruin it for the rest of us.
I have seen thousands of murders on TV and movies, killed thousands of computer generated bad guys in various video games, but how much real violence have I been exposed to? A few minor scuffles here and there. I’ve been punched in the face and bleed all over the place. I’ve been attacked by a bunch of random Greek kids. I’ve headbutted Jay in the face because he broke my sauerkraut. I’ve seen puddles of blood spilled outside a neighborhood convenience store due to a stabbing in a robbery gone wrong. But like most people like me, I have not seen death, or genocide, or war, the worst of what humanity has to offer. What we sit and wonder about, what TV and movies are obsessed with trying to express to us. And if I did, my reaction would not be one of lustful excitement, but horror and revulsion.
Yet human beings are prey to the forces of the world, to the forces of nature. And Nature is a violent place. Weather is cruel and punishing. Animals eat each other and fight constantly with their own kind for dominance. Humans starve, and rob, and loot and kill each other. But through our self-consciousness, ability to moralize, and social organization, we have come to distinguish between right and wrong, and mandated the need to control our violent instincts. But those instincts are still there, waiting to be quelled. TV, video games, and sports are three relatively safe ways to quell such instincts; but when control is lost and violence has consequences society flips out.
Violence is supposed to be contained, or, if not contained, monopolized and legitimized through an apparatus like the state, military, or police force. Justifications must be attained at a macro-level, and there are rules of war, once again to control humans’ violent impulses. Yet on the level of the individual soldier, at what level are they simply expressing their violent instincts? Is this impulse an aid or a hindrance?
Violence is all around us. It takes many forms, be it a man getting shot on TV, a boxing match, or exploiting the world around you for personal gain. Violence thrives on fear, fear of people different than ourselves, fear of the world around us, fear of losing what we hold close. In some ways, it helps humans survive, and has been helping us survive for millions of years. Yet there is another force that can guide and shape humanity, and create what I believe would be a better world. through violence’s antithesis. Love. I’ll be back with you on this subject after I figure that one out. Give me about 8 years.
Moreover, unlike most of the moralizing media outlets, I am not automatically “turned off,” by violent acts that break the rules or cause injuries. The enjoyment I get out of the violence of the act far outweighs any moral outrage I am supposed to feel. I understand the need for rules to protect the safety of the players, but to me any moralizing on excessive violence in sports is total hypocrisy, since it is the attraction to violence that helps to sell the product. The Todd Bertuzzi hit on Steve Moore, (where he slammed him into the ice,) is a prime example. What caused the outrage and Bertuzzi’s subsequent suspension was the consequence, (Moore’s severe back injury) not the action itself.
The hypocrisy of violence spreads to television and music, where violent personas sell records and violent television shows and video games are simultaneously vilified and critically acclaimed. Once again, it is the consequences that determine the agenda. Following an incident such as Columbine, moral outrage peaks until time and other facets of life distract our minds, and the companies that market these products can feed the market for more realistic first person shooters, or shows that are more “cutting edge,” in how they display someone being murdered.
Of course, I find these games and programs to be wildly entertaining. But it is not the violent acts themselves that make them entertaining. Grand Theft Auto is simply a well designed expression of rage and criminal hedonism, well thought-out, with incredible depth in terms of missions to accomplish, gameplay, and humor. Of course, you can also spend most of your time throwing Molotov cocktails at innocent bystanders and killing police officers if you so choose. The problem is 10 million people might play the game, but it takes one to not understand the disconnect between entertainment, fiction, and reality to ruin it for the rest of us.
I have seen thousands of murders on TV and movies, killed thousands of computer generated bad guys in various video games, but how much real violence have I been exposed to? A few minor scuffles here and there. I’ve been punched in the face and bleed all over the place. I’ve been attacked by a bunch of random Greek kids. I’ve headbutted Jay in the face because he broke my sauerkraut. I’ve seen puddles of blood spilled outside a neighborhood convenience store due to a stabbing in a robbery gone wrong. But like most people like me, I have not seen death, or genocide, or war, the worst of what humanity has to offer. What we sit and wonder about, what TV and movies are obsessed with trying to express to us. And if I did, my reaction would not be one of lustful excitement, but horror and revulsion.
Yet human beings are prey to the forces of the world, to the forces of nature. And Nature is a violent place. Weather is cruel and punishing. Animals eat each other and fight constantly with their own kind for dominance. Humans starve, and rob, and loot and kill each other. But through our self-consciousness, ability to moralize, and social organization, we have come to distinguish between right and wrong, and mandated the need to control our violent instincts. But those instincts are still there, waiting to be quelled. TV, video games, and sports are three relatively safe ways to quell such instincts; but when control is lost and violence has consequences society flips out.
Violence is supposed to be contained, or, if not contained, monopolized and legitimized through an apparatus like the state, military, or police force. Justifications must be attained at a macro-level, and there are rules of war, once again to control humans’ violent impulses. Yet on the level of the individual soldier, at what level are they simply expressing their violent instincts? Is this impulse an aid or a hindrance?
Violence is all around us. It takes many forms, be it a man getting shot on TV, a boxing match, or exploiting the world around you for personal gain. Violence thrives on fear, fear of people different than ourselves, fear of the world around us, fear of losing what we hold close. In some ways, it helps humans survive, and has been helping us survive for millions of years. Yet there is another force that can guide and shape humanity, and create what I believe would be a better world. through violence’s antithesis. Love. I’ll be back with you on this subject after I figure that one out. Give me about 8 years.
# posted by Marmaniac @ 1:07 PM 
