Luz de Luma is asking for people to write some thoughts about social violence and what to do about it.
One of the major problems with anarchy, ineffective government, and insufficient social resources is that violent people (usually of the male variety) feel free to roam around with evil intent, commiting atrocious acts right out of A Clockwork Orange (1971) as they go. The problem is global, with certain especially virulent pockets -- turf wars, gang, ethnic, political, religious, tribal and economic rivalries in densely populated urban areas and in small towns and villages alike. Some places are safer than others -- take a look at neutral Switzerland and neutral Sweden, for instance. New York City is safer overall than São Paulo or New Orleans. Why? Stronger civil societies -- courts that work, codes that function, a tilt toward justice and fairness, and a mass refusal to accept violence as a norm -- these point the way out for places like Baghdad that have become hellholes of internecine murder and public assassination.
On the international level, collective bargaining groups like the United Nations may be the best hope for the future; as the global population continues to grow, we must promote rational compromise and forethought, basic planning. Otherwise, we're lost, everyone against everyone and God against all. Evil obviously exists everywhere, and is the ultimate existential challenge for all of us -- how does one deal with evil acts? How does one deal with people who use violence as a way of life without descending into a dystopian society like the one depicted in Brazil (1985)? I know not, but we've got to keep the faith -- and keep trying. Even the end of something as bleak and uncompromising as Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man is Hard to Find" offers spiritual hope for all of us, even for someone like the Misfit, a man committed to evil acts. As a Catholic convert, I believe dear Flannery is right.
9 comments:
Love the Flannery stuff -- great points!
All right Frenchie, you pushed my button. How is there any spiritual hope in "A Good Man is Hard to Find"? P.S. I've forgotten more about this story than you will ever pretend to know. Watch me demolish him, Michelle.
Don't worry, baby,there won't be a lot of blood. I'll put him on ice fast and easy.
Well, times up. I win by default.
Erik, all we have our good and bad side. The human being tries to suffocate or to kill the demonic, negative side and that destruction makes to think it me. The way most easy always will be of the badness. It is difficult to find somebody that extends the hand to help another human being. We cannot lose the hope in the humanity. We evidence that the places most violent lack of social organization, work and education. We go to fight so that the economic development helps in this, if not to happen the the opposite. Beijus
Erik,
Sometimes, by containing the most violent people, we make a safe haven for ourselves. I remember driving by Detroit's Pershing High School where a student was gunned down in the parking lot, seeing the police and crowds, and thinking to myself, "hurry up and get to the prison."
Also, when it came time for me to choose teaching for Detroit Public Schools or the Michigan Dept. of Corrections, I chose the latter because I felt I'd be safer. --Jim
I think it is becoming more socially acceptable. The movies we watch, the video games we play, with each passing year they push the limits of what we see and do for "entertainment value" so it's no wonder all the violence that happens nowadays. I'm not saying that TV/Movies/Video games are causing this violent outburst... just that it makes us less sensitive to it.
Thanks all for the comments! It's a tricky life here on Earth, that's for certain. And with all the technology in the pipeline, our time here will become all the more interesting.
I loved "Clockwork" and I was slightly disappointed by Kubrick's movie, I thought that it could have been more violent.
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