Sunday, July 29, 2012

Anti-Violence

This was posted on Fbook by a "conservative patriot" (their term.) Fascinatingly a group of "liberal patriots" (my term) used this same logic when we promoted the internet back in the 90s.

Our logic: a phone doesn't create sex crimes, a car isn't the reason a child gets kidnapped, and the internet shouldn't be blamed for the rampant sex and child pornography problems that were proliferated by it.

While it may be true that inanimate objects don't cause crime, they do in fact contribute to it. Violence breeds more violence. Seeing so much violence in movies, on TV, and reading about it is affecting us. It's why I stopped watching slasher flicks and stopped reading serial killer and other violent novels. I couldn't sleep and when I did I had nightmares. For several years I have turned off the TV at a certain point and read books with positive messages as I go to sleep. I get lots of deep REM sleep now and have insightful dreams.  I'm even working on lucid dreaming (a topic for another post.) 

People who don't see a correlation between violent media and a violent society are fooling themselves. Those of us of a certain age grew up with television shows where families shared values of kindness and consideration. The programs usually had a message-- crime doesn't pay or what goes around, comes around.  Even Twilight Zone and the Hitchcock shows had life messages that we still remember. Some will argue that the "Dark Knight" and other bloody movies have positive messages, too, but it's the intense, graphic violence that is a mind cancer. Eventually it will become obvious that dis-ease begins in the mind. ALL dis-ease has roots in negative thoughts and fear.

So while inanimate objects may not cause crime, violent negative messages do create a sick society. So, it's not that I am for more gun control as much as I am anti-violence. We should have dialed back on all this years ago. I applaud Harvey Weinstein for proposing a summit of movie makers to review on-screen violence. Yes, Amen and Namaste to that!

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