I have to say I don”t understand violence.
I”m human, so of course I am prone to losing control of my emotions and lashing out on occasion. But I don”t really have it in me to resort to violence.
Violence isn”t necessarily a part of our every day lives but it is something we are exposed to in various forms of media quite often.
For the most part, I don”t mind violence as it is portrayed in movies, video games and other forms of media. It is usually presented in a way that is justified in some form (a hero defeating the bad guys, a war of some kind, etc.) to make it acceptable and easily digestible so that we don”t really question it.
What I don”t understand is the kind of real-world violence that we read about in our newspapers or hear on the evening news.
War is seemingly never-ending. Stabbings, shooting, robberies, beatings and many other violent crimes occur all the time with no regard to population trends.
We often associate violent crimes with densely populated areas but, as I”ve witnessed in my short time in this county thus far, violence occurs everywhere.
I often wonder what makes people resort to violence to accomplish things. It is a very base way of accomplishing a goal.
If you strike someone to get something out of them, such as information or belongings, you are causing the other to react out of fear.
Fear can cause people to do strange things, such as respond back with violence or perhaps a lie to appease the one who struck them. I would always be skeptical of what I received if I resorted to violence to accomplish anything.
I couldn”t imagine hurting someone I love to accomplish some sort of goal, let alone inflicting violence onto a stranger for the same reason. I can”t imagine the thought process of a criminal, attacking others to get what they want.
Obviously, a large part of law enforcement, and by proxy the entertainment we consume, is devoted to understand the criminal mind and criminal behavior. This allows for a better understanding of how and where the behavior begins in people and how to prevent it from manifesting into violent crime. But a lot of it is either missed or manifests before it is ever caught.
Perhaps we will never be rid of violence. Our world is so full of unique people and ideologies that a Utopian society is basically a pipe dream at this point. And maybe that”s for the best. A world where everyone gets along might not be as good as it sounds. But violence does need to be curtailed at any cost.
I wish the United States could lessen its obsession with violence a bit and back away from its double-standard of how anything sex is censored and demonized. Violent imagery has scarred us far more than sexual imagery. Why make dirty something so passionate?
I guess I”ll just chalk that up to something else I don”t understand.
Kevin N. Hume can be reached at kevin.n.hume@gmail.com or call directly 263-5636 ext. 14.
