I keep hearing people rap that we’ve become desensitized to violence. Too many violent video games, obsessive violence in the media, movies and the senseless, brutal cancellation of Deadwood. But have we really become desensitized to violence? Let’s hop into the WABAC machine with Mr. Peabody and his pet boy Sherman and take a trip to the days of yore with no video game gore. We would see Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus Maximus, animals on the farm slaughtered and people executed in public (and private) places for all to see. “What’s that, Sherman?” “Did you say that people used to be desensitized to violence?”
Shirley Partridge gave birth to a beautiful blue marble and then she let her flame-haired son run rampant because it’s always been this way and it always will. In the past some thick-skinned brute smashed a rabbit’s head in with a rock and laughed. And his friend watched horrified. In the future, the same thing happens. Over and over. The ape insect called Human is now divorced to some degree with Mother Nature. So maybe as the Cement Freaks and Suburban-niks forget about the cold hard facts of life and become desensitized to violence, Mother Nature compensates with violent movies, violent music, violent video games and the completely senseless and grotesque spectacle of HBO’s cancellation of Deadwood.
A little Partridge told me that maybe we’re supposed to be desensitized to violence. Or maybe the whole idea of being desensitized to violence is simply not balanced on the Scale of Reality TV.
