When I arrived this morning at work, a co-worker whose late night air shifts are clearly taking a toll on his perception of the world, was going on and on about evils of slavery and its indelible mark upon the world we have wrought because of it. While I don’t dispute his view (hell, I share a large part of it), I commented on how if you look at the history of human cultures you will find that we have a seemingly endless capacity for cruelty. He causally acknowledged what I had to say and then launched into a dissertation on how flying saucers avoid asteroids in space because of their anti-gravity technology (I told you the late night shifts were taking a toll on his perception of the world).
I bring this up because of a couple of things. First off, our military adventures abroad have produced acts of cruelty that far exceed what most of us can imagine. Yet, despite the daily news of deaths in Iraq or Afghanistan, the collective outrage is more like a steady simmer in a pressure cooker. The majority of people are sick of war and want it to end, but the Bush administration clings to their Utopian dreams for Iraq and Afghanistan, and can only realize said dream through violent force. Coffins containing dead soldiers come home, disabled vets (both physically and emotionally) try to adjust to the surreality of coming back from hell to the free market heaven of the shopping mall, and every day there’s news of another act of cruelty in the form of a fire-fight, a roadside bomb, or whatever. It’s a narrative that is presented day in and day out on the homepages of Yahoo, Comcast, newspapers, TV, and radio, but we seem to be numb to it (out of preserving one’s sanity, or ignorance).
Then, when the narrative of violence is broken by a variation of its theme (i.e., the shootings in Virginia), the collective hue and cry of “What is our world coming to†rises up. To counter the insanity of the incident, we are shown images of young college kids gathering in prayer circles for comfort and answers. However, if you look beyond the images of peace and to the account of the initial student and university reaction to a gunman allegedly killing two people, it’s quite startling:
The university had… sent out a bulletin warning students about an apparent shooter. But few students seemed to have any sense of urgency.
Ms. Bernhards said she walked toward her class, preoccupied with an upcoming exam and listening to music on her iPod. On the way, she said, she heard loud cracks, and only later concluded they had been gunshots from the second round of shootings. But even at that point, many students were walking around the campus with little sense of alarm.
It was only when Ms. Bernhards got close to Norris Hall, the second of two buildings where the shootings took place, that she realized something had gone wrong.
I wonder if the early reaction to the violence in Virginia (as depicted above) has something to do with a kind of collective numbness we seem to be living in. Violence and cruelty are amazing spectacles; they are events that punctuate the mundane and the ordinary in such a way that their presence signifies extreme acts brought about by desperation or an abuse of power. However, when much of our culture (from “liberal Hollywood†to conservative gun nuts) profit off the violent commodities it sells to a willing public, it is surprising that the number of violent acts in our so-called safe havens aren’t more frequent and more extreme.
–PK
J
April 17, 2007 at 6:38 amI know that I, for one, do feel that numbness. I hate to admit it at all, but the shootings didn’t freak me out like the Columbine shootings did. Perhaps because earlier in the day, I had read of another bomb in Iraq, which killed over 40 people. I read things like that every single day, and there’s only so much time I can spend being freaked out by the horrible things that people do to each other. So yes, I think the term you used is correct…desensitized. I hate that this has happened to me. (That makes it sound like I think this is about me…what I mean is, I hate that we, even some of us, are becoming USED to this shit.)
Very thought provoking, sad post, Py.
Ml
April 17, 2007 at 6:51 amYes, your co-worker is working too many late night shifts.
Secondly, I do agree that humans are and always have been very cruel. I don’t think there has been one time or era where this fact hasn’t held true. Being bombarded with this type of horrible goings on all day, every day does make you numb after a while, otherwise, like you said we would lose our sanity.
Py Korry
April 17, 2007 at 7:07 amPeople are pretty bummed here at work, and one co-worker was wondering what is going on in the world when things like this happen. When I reminded him about the daily deaths in Iraq and other parts of the world, he realized that he was so caught up in the media frenzy over this story that he quickly said “You know, you’re right, the violence just needs to stop.” Sadly, it’s easier said than done.
Gina
April 17, 2007 at 7:34 amI was talking with Hubba-hubba about the seemingly slow reaction from the law enforcement agencies involved, and frankly I was not too pleased.
He then pointed out something that I hadn’t thought about. He said that when dealing with a madman, there is not much you can do to stop things once they have it in their mind to do something. You can try, but if X precaution is taken, then they will find a way to get around it.
Which is sad and true, and I keep hearing about how violence is skewed in this day and age because of the way we can instantly get news and it just SEEMS like things are more violent. But it sure is depressing.
Beenzzz
April 17, 2007 at 10:57 amYes, as a nation we are becoming more and more numbed by violence. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to hear about it anymore. If I sit and think about Zoe going away to college and how this could potentially happen to her….well, it’s very disconcerting.
Gina’s comment reminds me of a book called “Imagined Communities” by, Benedict Anderson. Have you read it?
Lalunas
April 17, 2007 at 6:42 pmWhen you told me of this story, the Song lyrics “4 dead in Ohio”(another campus killing way back) kept going thru my mind. How different the world has become. You are right. It is just like a video game, somehow you convince yourself that the reality of it is so remote. I believe this type of thinking is a like a safety net, so you don’t step over to the side of insanity. Reality is though, how can something like this happen, with all the technology and superior police protection that this country boast about? Why is it possible for one man to have so much power as to kill so many innocent people so randomly over a period of hours and no one could stop him?
Heidi
April 17, 2007 at 7:52 pmWe say we’re numb, but most of us have no idea of REAL violence other than the saturated movies and media we watch. If it’s not happening directly to us, it’s just not disconcerting enough for us to get off of our lazy asses and do something about it. Great post.
sneaker
April 18, 2007 at 12:49 amThey had a memorial at Berkely today it was all the front pages of the world newpapers and what was most intersting was the graphic pictures that each paper had. I think it was Ecuador that actually showed three of the students who had been shot and they were blind folded and with hands bound behind thier backs. I have yet to read anything that suggested that had been done to any of the students in our press and because the article was in Spanish I couldn’t read it but it goes to show u how many other parts of the story we rarely ever get and what the news in other countries looks like as compared to the US.
Thinking About… » A Sea of Troubles
April 18, 2007 at 5:28 am[…] symptomatic of the detachment that we feel toward violence, as expressed so well by Py Korry in his post about the murders in Virginia on Monday. Or perhaps this is symptomatic of the misogyny of our […]