Re: Pornographic Violence

A reply to TAA's video about news media publishing stories of violence in gruesome detail. ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiXd0uTWfGY ) They do it because it's what we (a majority of us at least) want to see. And it's not going to change until the public has more than just half a dozen choices for news.

( I had originally intended to upload this to my vlog channel, but oh well. Now that it's up I'm not going to bother moving it. )

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• news
• media
• violence
• sensationalism
• internet

[tubedeejay]

you have to be more careful distinguishing human nature from monoculture.

there are plenty of cultures that would be horrified by cat burning and things like cat-burning. we've stamped most of them out, but culture with more respect for life (human and otherwise) exist. calling it "human nature" slanders humanity, even if our culture is that horrible right now. daniel quinn has much more to say about this.

[TheMathGuy]

Culture may have an influence, but I believe violence is also programmed into our genes. It would be necessary in order to gain an evolutionary advantage in hunter-gatherer times. I have never heard of any culture that was 100% free of violence.

[DrZarkloff]

That must be why I like to play first person shooter games.

[TheMathGuy]

Probably something to do with our primitive hunting instinct. As long as no one is _actually_ being harmed, I couldn't care less. Personally I think the assertion that video game violence causes real violence is a load of bullshit pumped by the religious right. But I could be wrong--what matters is the scientific evidence.

[MeanBlackDude]

The overall process of local news is :

"If it BLEEDS, it LEADS."

Meaning, show the blood and gore first to capture the audience. Then present the boring crap. THat shock factor is what keeps them there from changing channels. News is the only thing worthwhile on television and even they are wearing thin the same format. I bet if they could use breast thumbnails they would.

[TheMathGuy]

Somehow I would be less bothered by news media using breast thumbnails than pornographic violence. I'd rather have the "Naked News" than some of the sensationalist crap we have now.

[therealcrashxp]

lol you look like that guy from myth busters

[matthew12222]

If the press wasn't profit oriented then it would be a bit better, but only in certain aspects. The best you could get would be to stick the same story covered by multiple different people on the same page of the newspaper. Currently the way things work is views = money.

[InvalidMemberAccount]

Great Idea for a fund raiser!

[xxsxaadxxx]

u mena jamie hyneman

[queenastilon]

It's true that we seem to get a kick out of seeing suffering. Civilisation is supposed to keep the tendencies in check but commercial enternatinment works against that.

Techonology also: 'happy slapping' and honour killings (wonderful oxymoron) are videoed on phones.

But it was already in language: the U.S. gave us 'kicking ass' to now mean doing well at anything but decades ago winning (competition or sport) was referred to as slaughtering, pummeling or wiping out the opponents.

[hiswayornoway]

America was only a country to attempt (not the first, see French Revolution) to construct in a rationalist and constitutionalist manner, by enshrining those freedoms that in Britain were 'traditions' or 'practices' in law, a state that was free in the classically liberal sense. Please don't make the assumption that America was the first country to be free in that sense, or the freest, or anything of the like.

America was the first country ever to be constructed 'from the ground up' though.

[hiswayornoway]

because there are rules (from above) that govern our behaviour, we are kind because there is a tradition of kindness. There isn't really room for morality in rationality. As Aristotle suggests, human beings behave morally because it makes them happy.

The French Revolution was an entirely rationalist revolution that was more barbaric by far than any medieval government. Also, just on your history, Britain was the first country to be 'free' by your description of it cont.

[hiswayornoway]

I also find it interesting that you equate the Enlightenment and rationalism with moral behaviour, specifically that most famous state to be founded on abstract rational principles, the USA. I would tend to disagree.

You might want to read M. Oakeshott's 'On Human Conduct (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975). Following his theory of human reason, morality is firmly in the realm of practice (or the 'mode of experience), in a civil rather than enterprise association. We are not kind cont.

[hiswayornoway]

I think your optimism is misplaced. What has the internet proved to be? What things are most watched on the internet? Which things are most /viral/?

Well, except insipid pictures of pets wearing costumes, violence (the execution of Saddam Hussein, the beheading of a prisoner in the Middle East) and other disgusting things (2 girls one cup). By 'democratising' or increasing 'choice', you will only see an increase in the kind of things you deplore.