HomeWritingA - Z ChallengeV is for Violence

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V is for Violence — 4 Comments

  1. Hard to say. Even compared to when I was a kid, there’s more notice, more coverage, cameras and digital connection and cell phones. Something that might have been overlooked before is now documented better than the entire first five years of my life. 😛 I don’t think that athletes used to be as deliberately violent — but I wonder how much might have been swept under with a “boys will be boys” mentality.

    • I think the 24 hour news cycle certainly opens the door for more coverage. And all the “I-reporters” with cell phones makes a huge difference. So the question becomes, is there more violence, or is it just more visible? Or, does the exposure “encourage” more?

  2. I don’t know. I do know that if you look at statistics, there are actually fewer violent crimes (including murder) than there were in the 70s.* Fewer total, larger population. This could mean that people are becoming inured to it and not reporting it, or it could mean that people are letting off more steam in other ways and we’re only seeing the exceptions. (The vast majority of people who play Grand Theft Auto will never steal a car, fire a gun, or kill a hooker, for example.)

    * The exception would be domestic violence, where more cases are reported because people are learning it’s something they don’t have to put up with.

    I think it’s just more visible — at least partly because we have the technology for it, and partly because people realized that censoring (of violence, language, and to some extent sex) didn’t actually make it go away.

    • That’s an interesting point about people reporting things like domestic violence more. For so many years, people thought it was just the way things were. They didn’t realize there was anything wrong with it. Well, I think they realized there was something wrong with it, but, as you say, they thought they had to put up with it.