While watching TV with a friend yesterday, I made a
disturbing discovery. A good many
of the offered programs or movies highlighted people being tortured, getting
hurt due to their own carelessness or folks consumed by violence. That got me to thinking. Why is it that society’s so fascinated
with these things? So much so as
to consider it entertainment to watch them play out?
Whatever happened to people displaying empathy for their
fellow man? Cringing when someone,
even if it’s a total stranger, gets hurt?
At what point did it become an acceptable sport for individuals to gleefully
embrace the concept of others’ suffering?
And then there’s the whole disturbing thought of those who like—really
and truly enjoy—viewing others who are consumed by violence. The lengths they’ll go. Chaos they cause. The living beings that they’ll delight
in hurting.
Now I admit, I’m not the most TV savvy person. In fact, I watch so little as to
constitute not watching it at all.
So perhaps I missed some gradual uphill swing that caused viewers to
gravitate towards what I consider disturbing images. Things I’d rather not see. But…based the number of programs that offer such visual
images, I must be of the minority mindset.
If that’s the case, then so be it. I’m fine being openly empathetic…. Cringing when someone, even a stranger, gets hurt…. Refusing to gleefully embrace the concept
of others’ suffering. And when it
comes to violent people, most often, I make it a point to steer clear of rather
than applaud those individuals and their actions.
It used to be that implied violence in programs and movies
was enough. Viewers didn’t need to
actually see someone beaten to death by a baseball bat. Or have their fingers chopped off,
one-by-one, with a rusty saw. Or
have images carved into their flesh as visuals reminders, to the rest of the
world, of who that person was—on the inside.
Over the past couple of decades, however, people have become
desensitized to these things.
Worse, they’ve become blaze about them. Then, even more disturbing, they began to take pleasure in
watching them play out. And that’s
where I draw the distinction between the masses being “entertained” and myself.
Some might say I’m old-fashioned due to the way I feel. Probably am. But if becoming a “modern-day thinker” entails embracing
violence, then count me out!
