\nThomas Meisenhelder<\/p>\n
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We shoot each other.<\/p>\n
We shoot each other in the streets. We shoot each other in our homes. We shoot each other in rural towns and in big cities. We shoot ourselves in the suburbs and in the ex-burbs. We shoot each other in large mass shootings and in small individualized events. We shoot each other in schools, at concerts, and at parties. We shoot each other in stores, at work, and on vacations.<\/p>\n
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What is wrong with us? Is this who we are? Some say we shoot each other because we have too many guns (I agree); others, like the NRA, say we shoot each other because there are not enough guns (I disagree). Some say we shoot each other because we don\u2019t have good mental health care (I am all for better mental health care, but the mentally ill are more often the victims of violence than the perpetrators of it). I am sure there are lots of reasons why we are shooting each other so often, but that is not the why I am writing.<\/p>\n
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What astounds and angers me is that our society considers guns and violence\u2014graphic, brutal, and horrific\u2014to be an acceptable form of popular entertainment. Our movies and television shows are stuffed full of beatings and shootings, microscopically depicted, glorified, and romanticized. In fact, loud and graphic images of deadly gun violence are perhaps the most defining commonplace element of our visual entertainment. A lot of money and efforts goes into making these colorfully exaggerated images of blood, gore, and brutality. Our films and programs, it seems, are based in the idea that guns and violence are entertaining. Is this really is who we are?<\/p>\n
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Please don\u2019t get me wrong: I am not saying that movies and television cause us to shoot each other. It may do so (most scholars seem to feel that visual portrayals of violence do fairly often lead to increased aggression amongst viewers), but that is not my subject. What I am trying to point out is just the simple fact that in our country ugly and stark depictions of guns and violence are a favorite form of popular entertainment.<\/p>\n
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We are habituated to the notion that deadly interpersonal violence is somehow normal and is to be expected anywhere and everywhere. Of course, this is not true; shooting each other is not normal everywhere and it is not considered entertainment everywhere.<\/p>\n
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So, why is it this way? Who provides us with these images and who teaches us to enjoy violence so much? What kind of person would be so foolish and irresponsible as to produce, as entertainment, the kind of slow motion, graphic violence that characterizes so much popular entertainment made in the USA? And why would they do such a harmful and ugly thing?<\/p>\n
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What astounds and angers me is that our society considers guns and violence\u2014graphic, brutal, and horrific\u2014to be an acceptable form of popular entertainment.<\/p>\n
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The only answer I can think of is that these images are the results of self-interested decisions made by the very wealthy people who create our visual mass media culture. These people, who sometimes preach to us about peace and love, seem to have no problem making movies and programs full of abhorrent images of guns and violence, blood and guts. They decry violence in our society while getting rich by producing and promoting violent images. They are the producers, writers, directors, and actors who we think of as glamorous celebrities.<\/p>\n
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To understand that it doesn\u2019t have to be this way, all you have to to compare most European television shows about cops and law enforcement to American ones. The foreign shows can go a whole season without even one scene of blood and gore, while the shows made in the USA will contain several scenes of violence and a whole armory of weapons in a single episode.<\/p>\n
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Surely the \u00abcelebrities\u00bb who make our entertainment are aware of this, but they choose to make entertainment that is violent. Why? I can only guess it\u2019s because it\u2019s an easy way to get rich. They will probably say something like \u00abwe are only giving the people what they want,\u00bb but that is not adequate as an answer or a justification. After all, the guy selling speed, the CEO pushing opioids, or the company selling cancerous pesticides is \u00abonly giving people what they want.\u00bb In truth, all of them use advertising and other manipulative techniques to form our tastes and desires. Years and years of cross cultural research tells us that human beings are not \u00abnaturally\u00bb violent. It is not our genes that are the problem, it is our entertainment industry.<\/p>\n
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What do I propose? Well, let\u2019s start with the idea proposed by Hannah Arendt at the beginning of her book \u00abThe Human Condition\u00bb in which she wrote: \u00abWhat I propose therefore is very simple: it is nothing more than to think about what we are doing.\u00bb<\/p>\n
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Thomas Meisenhelder is a retired Professor of Sociology from California State University, San Bernardino. He lives in Huntington Beach, CA. This oped is republished from\u00a0Common Dreams under a Creative Commons license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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