Sunday, November 25, 2007

Why So Angry

There is a sense that our country has become more violent. I don’t trust statistics because we do not have a good baseline. Unreported crimes, a time before computers and the pervasive nature of media today mask a true comparison with our past so we are left with a feeling, a darkness.

Now I am not sure that we should feel that way but should has very little to do with feelings. The fact is that if you feel that way, it is real regardless of any factual basis that might disabuse you of the notion. Much of it may be tracked to the exposure that violence receives in our press and television news, violence sells, fear motivates you to follow-up, to tune in.

I do believe that regardless of whether or not violence has increased it has definitely changed. In the past there was a bit of stupid honor to a bar fight, fist-fist, knife-knife, gun-gun, one on one, now there seems to be a code in altercations that is predicated on the idea that violence on others should be without risk. How often do you read about a number of people attacking an individual, a gunshot for the slightest slight, some referred disrespect. In the past this behavior would have labeled you as a punk but this moniker is generational and there no longer seems to be a stigma attached, we have become results oriented, process unimportant. Maybe there was never true honor in settling conflict with violence, even so there is definitely none in making the decision to be violent against another with little personal risk.

There are alot of theories on the root cause in the change of violence that we perceive but I think all for the most part are lacking. Mankind has a history of violence but I believe in the last 50 years it has become impersonal and distant without direct cause and effect. Media is blamed today as it was blamed during the time of Plato who wanted poets banned from his ideal republic because he believed they promoted and introduced others to immoral behavior. In Plato’s time violence was close, the city-states were in constant turmoil and siege, life expectancy was short and you were front-seat for the cause and effect of conflict. There was a moral certainty, there was no such a thing as victory without honor, the hero was one that stood against many. Even as late as our Revolutionary War the British announced their approach with fife and drum and stood in front of their enemy rank and file. It was a large British complaint that the Colonists were savages and fought and fired from cover removing honor from the battlefield. Media very seldom makes distinctions any longer about the character of violence; they refrain from the editorialization of the cause of conflict and in doing so allow rationalization where none is deserved.


Media and current society play another role in the type of violence that seems to be growing, if only tangentially. Bias in the news is truly not about what is reported as much as it is about what is not reported. It is how the resources are allocated and that is the result of the personal prejudice, it would be counter-intuitive to believe that one does not root and make oneself more knowledgeable about the home-team of ones personal beliefs. Based on a 6/25/07 MSNBC report it was found that news reporters and editors gave in 2004 until the present to liberal causes and candidates at a rate of 9 to 1. Now I do not delineate this for the purpose of politics but rather life outlook. Liberals are more likely to denounce moral certainties as right reducers, are more likely to hold in disdain the idea of personal responsibility and look to societal ills and believe that the government is best suited to create the most just and fair society. Again, I am not going to comment on the veracity of those beliefs but just say that whether consciously or sub-consciously that bias appears in how they report and what they report on.

According to Jenkins Group Publishing, 80% of US Families neither bought nor read a book in the last year and that 70% of adults had not been in a bookstore in the last 5 years. Additionally, 33% of high school graduates had not read another book since their graduation nor had 42% of college graduates. This is meaningful in several ways, people now develop their opinions through transitional sources, predigested, through TV, magazines, the internet and newspapers. Much of this can be attributed to information overload, bias, unvetted facts and a daily life much more complex. How does this effect violence? In several ways, a loss of control of ones own opinions, the ease of finding a rationalization for ones personal shortcomings as fault of others and a general sense of entitlement that, when denied, creates resentment.

In the not to recent past people developed their opinions reflectively as they read books or engaged in conversations. Taking each morsel of information, applying it to personal experience and either absorbing it into their opinion or rejecting it. Regardless of the outcome of the process, opinions were built more from the bottom up that they are today, and you had an understanding of how you had arrived at a particular point of view. Many today have gotten their opinions or the tendency to accept a point of view either somewhere in the middle or nearer the top. It may be based on the access they take to information, the coolness factor of someone who they admire and that person’s point of view or what they would like to be true. Media’s sole purpose today is to sustain itself and to do so it must find an audience that advertisers are willing to pay for. When they sit in their boardrooms in a self-congratulatory circle they might like to pretend differently but even they don’t really believe it. There is no other way to explain the coverage of celebrities giving opinions on world events when their experiential and educational background belies there validity in doing so. Or the confrontational blow-hards that act like deaf gladiators spewing their talking points without any true discourse with the opposing view holder. To this end when people find themselves in a conversation on a subject for which they feel strongly, against someone who has created their position through the toil of research, anger is generated. Not because the latter is correct but because the top-down opinion holder cannot peel the onion in point/counterpoint and soon subconsciously realizes that they do not know why they believe what they believe in its essence. It is this frustration and the desire for what they believe to be true as true that voices become raised, personal attacks are made and faces become red.

The other issue that has changed the look of violence has been created by the “wish it were truer’s”, sociologists and psychologists. In their efforts to shield the young of our country from every possible disappointment, they are creating new generations that have no ability to deal with disappointment or conflict once they leave the controlled “everyone gets a trophy” environment. They miss the fundamental premise that life is Dodgeball and wishing it were not so is not either responsible or helpful. A school district in Great Britain recently banned red correction pens because they felt it was too brutal on the psyche of the young. We are denying children the tools needed for conflict resolution and the emotional growth needed to deal with rejection. When they are faced with the reality of life, the first no when looking to date, the first job interview that ends in vain or any of life’s other disappointments they lack coping skills. So without the necessary experience the young in many cases turn to the resolution that they know from video games, television and the news, things they might not even consider if they had dealt with failure beforehand.

We have politicians and the media telling us the world is going to end in a week to 10 days because of terrorism, global warming or the avian flu and wonder why people are stressed. Many of us harbor opinions not based on reality or facts but on the selective feeding we have received in the media and wonder why people are frustrated. Young people have been ill-prepared and mislead about the world they will find and the tool they will need to succeed and we wonder why they walk into schools with guns ablaze.

If only we could remember that sometimes it is your fault, success almost always has failure as its seed and that screaming something does not increase its level of accuracy or truth. However, we must also remember that this is the world where a man sued a dry cleaner for 54 million for a pair of pants and he was a judge and that being served hot coffee which you then proceed to spill on yourself, while driving, is the fault of the restaurant.

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