I know and have seen things about violence, the result of a long career as a Highway Patrolman. Historically, domestic violence has been with us since Biblical times with a number of references to it in the Bible. I was raised in a military family and spent a year in Vietnam where violence was the order of the day. I am, admittedly, jaded when it comes to the violence we see today. I am also appalled. America has become a very violent part of the industrial world
Kids, back in the day, played cops and robbers, unless you were from Oklahoma, where you played Cowboys and Indians. We had toy guns and relied upon yard tactics to out maneuver one another. It was fun, not graphic, and terribly unsophisticated. Not today. Today, through the incredible tech that is available to us, we can involve ourselves in graphic killing for the sake of killing a multi-faceted sensory experience on a scale not unlike the sophisticated flight training simulators that will leave you shaking as a result of the experience. (Yes, I have sat in a major airline flight simulator and “flown” an airplane through a series of events that are horrifying.)
Next up, we have paintball, a pastime that is all about shooting and “killing” your opponent. We had a similar exercise in the Army, with BB guns and eye protection to simulate reactionary fighting. It was called Tiger Land, and brought the feeling of live fire a little closer. We engage in bloody cage fighting, bare knuckle contests in a confined place, with blood and teeth flying. This is entertainment to some, like the gladiators in Rome, but a ridiculous exercise to me.
Social media is a seething bed of unbridled reference to violence cloaked in the laughable protection of “community standards”. We ignore bullying in young folks to the point of suicide in less emotionally stable children (and adults). Television and our movies make violence a status symbol among the impressionable minds of kids. Vietnam coverage began an era of unprecedented violence brought into our living rooms replete with all the horrors of combat sans the smell of death. The proliferation of road rage today has reached unprecedented levels, teaching our children to curse and threaten other drivers as a normal response to an aggravating circumstance. Today’s attitudes, coupled with the incredible availability of guns, creates a circumstance that makes our streets inherently unsafe. (I am pro gun, but recognize that folks will move quickly to a lethal level as easily today as anytime in our history, conditioned to that response by the facts above.) Our political leadership, in vivid terms is also a cog in the cycle of violence through their assinine display of horrid coping skills.
In summary, America is a seething hotbed of violence, with each new generation growing up with an ever increasing acceptance of violence as a preferred alternative to the peaceful resolution of differences. It is reflected in the news of the day, in living color, with violent crime being beamed into our homes in real time. One of the answers is parenting, where violence is mitigated by the constant reinforcement of a civil response to vexing issues as superior to any form of violence. Breaking this cycle of violence will not be easy, but does involve modeling an appropriate response when confronted by a challenging circumstance. I, in the course of my profession, have employed the use of deadly force on precious few occasions that I might have resolved by shooting the bad actor……the alternative is always better when possible. Violence is always ugly, always.
SR
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