quote:Originally posted by Nim: As for people not caring about human suffering in the news, that's media desensitization, one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century.
Read some early 19th century papers sometime- lovely photographs of bullet riddeled bodies propped up like prize-winning fish trophies.
We may actually be more sensitive than we were back then- if only because most of the murders we wintess are not real.
Registered: Aug 2002
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I do remember seeing a few news photos of executed mexican freedom fighters (and the excited people posing with them), but what I meant specifically was media desensitizing viewers/readers, not themselves. News shows and magazines have covered misery and tragedy in developing nations for empathy value ever since the 1970's tv revolution (mostly thanks to Vietnam), but instead part of the population loses the ability to differentiate between countries and tragedies, simply writing off all of asia and africa as "hopeless" and ignoring it from then on, subconsciously or not.
This phenomenon stems partly from the fact that there are relatively few solutions being showcased in daily foreign news, you'd have to look into very specific monthly news literature to see constructive articles (detailing projects and programs) regarding the developing nations.
On the destructive side, I remember a particularily reckless broadcast from Fox news a few years ago, where Bill O'Reilly embraces and even promotes indifference regarding third world problems, saying to his guests (paraphrased) "If I have to watch one more clip of brown people crying to the camera about something, I'm going to puke".
quote:We may actually be more sensitive than we were back then- if only because most of the murders we wintess are not real.
I'm not sure that's the main cause, but yes, I'm sure there are more humanitarians alive today than any other century, between better education, higher living standards and freedom of thought (coinciding with the slipping grasp of the church as a domineering institution).
But assuming simulated murder (in books, theater, movies and TV) makes us conscious of it in a positive way, would you then say that video games improve people's humanity?
(for the record, I don't believe games create murderers, what few deaths there have been through games like Counterstrike and World of Warcraft have come from frustration, jealousy and "sore loser" rage, and those people would've done the same thing if they got cheated out of a trophy in a dart contest too, the computer game is not the culprit)
Registered: Aug 1999
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While I certainly dont thnk games or movies cause people to commit murder or violent crimes, I do think that when people see images of real bloodshed they have no empathy or careing over it- not when they've seen graphic sadism through the lens of things like the Saw movies.
On a possibly related note, there were two incidents of gun violence wherein teens used machine guns to indimidate others- leading to a stray shot shooting a mother in her own home. The shooting incident was several teens waving guns at each other's faces and threatening to shoot each other- leading one to go get an AK-47 and up the ante.
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Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
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I had a feeling someone would link that. Part of me was holding off on linking it until news of identification and manhunt of the responsible had come up, but like the soldier who threw a puppy over the side of a cliff and that asian girl who stepped on a kitten's head with her stiletto heel, they probably won't be found.
Registered: Aug 1999
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Teh PW
Self Impossed Exile (This Space for rent)
Member # 1203
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Evil is always easier to be than Good. Why do you think Evil thrives in 3rd world countries?
posted
I have a amail-person: and she's succulent and beefy. All that walking makes those calves a prime cut, methinks.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
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