Acceptance of Violence?
“We’re so used to seeing this thing on television” was Fanny Clain’s response to the Brussels attacks earlier this year. After being severely injured in the attack, Clain was more startled by the intensity of the explosion than the act itself. What’s shocking is that her attitude in response to violent attacks is not rare. In a world where media plays an influential role in shaping public opinion, we are unfortunately greeted with an immense amount of violence. Whether in movies or on a 24-hour news cycle, violence consumption is on the rise. And it’s not to say that there is anything wrong with such violence. In fact, many individuals find explosions and gore quite entertaining. This epidemic, however, stems from beyond the common action movie into our news cycles. Our local news channels are inundated with constant sound bites of mass shootings, police violence, and homicides. This constant violent feed is detrimental to the human psyche, and eventually, we begin to respond to traumatic events with sentiments like Fanny Clain’s, those of indifference.
In this paper, I will analyze the psychological …show more content…
This attitude has gone beyond our TV screens, and can be applied to violence in the real world. Our society has slowly become desensitized to issues of both domestic and police violence as well, two pressing issues that claim the lives of many individuals. In her dissertation on social relationships, Julia Wood addresses the normalcy of domestic violence today. Wood states that “although we recoil from labeling violence between intimates as normal, its frequency renders the adjective disturbingly appropriate” (Wood 240). Wood approaches this prevalence from a different perspective, claiming the desensitization of domestic abuse as the product of narrative, leading to the “cultural authorization of violence and women’s toleration of it” (Wood
“We’re so used to seeing this thing on television” was Fanny Clain’s response to the Brussels attacks earlier this year. After being severely injured in the attack, Clain was more startled by the intensity of the explosion than the act itself. What’s shocking is that her attitude in response to violent attacks is not rare. In a world where media plays an influential role in shaping public opinion, we are unfortunately greeted with an immense amount of violence. Whether in movies or on a 24-hour news cycle, violence consumption is on the rise. And it’s not to say that there is anything wrong with such violence. In fact, many individuals find explosions and gore quite entertaining. This epidemic, however, stems from beyond the common action movie into our news cycles. Our local news channels are inundated with constant sound bites of mass shootings, police violence, and homicides. This constant violent feed is detrimental to the human psyche, and eventually, we begin to respond to traumatic events with sentiments like Fanny Clain’s, those of indifference.
In this paper, I will analyze the psychological …show more content…
This attitude has gone beyond our TV screens, and can be applied to violence in the real world. Our society has slowly become desensitized to issues of both domestic and police violence as well, two pressing issues that claim the lives of many individuals. In her dissertation on social relationships, Julia Wood addresses the normalcy of domestic violence today. Wood states that “although we recoil from labeling violence between intimates as normal, its frequency renders the adjective disturbingly appropriate” (Wood 240). Wood approaches this prevalence from a different perspective, claiming the desensitization of domestic abuse as the product of narrative, leading to the “cultural authorization of violence and women’s toleration of it” (Wood