Andy Anderson is a junior majoring in secondary education. He can be contacted at [email protected]. What is the world coming to? It is a very popular and probably overused cliché and yet we only use it in situations that warrant dire sorrow and unrest.
Another school shooting, a suicide bomber in Central Park, a serial rapist strikes again … what is the world coming to? Are we even asking the proper question? Is it “What is the world coming to?” or “Why have we let it remain the way that it is?”
Experts continue to play the blame game, highlighting television and video games for the amazing acts of violence exerted by our youth. I suppose it is easier to blame “Grand Theft Auto” and “Scarface” for every srolen car and drug-dealing, gun-wheeling criminal rather than providing people with a more adequate explanation. If people are fooled that easily, at least the millions spent on research is worth tax payers dollars. I have a theory of my own.
Violence is not some new innovation of an up-and-coming modern-day renaissance. The world is a violent place and always has been. It is not plausible for cynics to throw the blame on violent video games and movies, because before there was any of that, there was violence.
From the campaigns of Caesar to Bush’s conquest of Iraq, violence has endured through the ages. It has survived the test of time due to war, the implementation of law, religious intolerance and political ideology. The world has evolved into a society of difference and most interpret it as a deficit. However, this evolution does not mean the world is more violent today than it was 30 years ago. It simply means that we have continued to allow and accept it as part of our culture.
Vietnam ended the life of more than 58,000 American soldiers, and about 3,900 soldiers have sacrificed their lives in Iraq. These numbers speak for themselves.
Do you think movies and video games could have been blamed as easily then as they are now? Believe it or not, fewer people are killed in war today than 50 years ago. This is understandable, since we are more advanced today and wars are waged with different tactics. There is one thing known for sure: The violence during the Vietnam and Iraq wars has nothing at all to do with violent media.
If not the media, then who do we blame? The evaluation should start by moving a few steps backward and taking a long look in the mirror. The entire world thrives from some shape, form or fashion of violence. I guess you can say it’s in our blood. If economic theory proves that every man is selfish, then it is easily comprehendible that every man possesses an inner lust for a better life and despises those who have it made. Have you ever wished to win the lottery or pictured yourself as the son or daughter of an elite? Why? Is it that hard to hide the inevitable?
Furthermore, what about sports? Sports serve as the supreme example of a person’s inner lust for violence. We pack arenas nationwide to watch dramatized wrestling, professional boxing and season after season of smash-mouthed football.
People don’t buy tickets to see wrestlers shake hands after a good fight or boxers pull punches. Crowds are excited when wrestlers are gushing blood. People love watching two men slug it out until one of them can barely stand, and spectators cheer when a bone-crushing hit dislodges an opponent’s helmet on the gridiron. It’s the nature of the beast and somewhere deep inside mankind is a rabid race yet to be domesticated.
All in all, we are not nearly as violent as our ancestors, such as those who watched games in the Roman arenas. We are much more civilized, and modern technology has far surpassed that of the ancient aqueducts. Times have changed, but our mentality has not. We still find blood and gore entertaining, not because of what the world is coming to but simply because of what it has been all along.