Desensitization and Me

Until today I felt I had a good grasp on reality and morales. I made decisions in my life that seemed like the right things to do. And they were. But today I came to a startling realization about myself. I don't care about people I don't know. Their suffering has no affect on me, even when they are my countrymen.

On GCHH this week, Andy, Fondre, and Pinnick discussed an article by Tom Bissell that brought up a good conversation on Desensitization. And I agreed with the hosts in how they deal with it in their lives.

That was until today when I heard about the shooting in Colorado. My first thought was "Sucks to be them." That was soon followed by, "It would be hilarious if the guy in riot gear wore a Cowl and Cape".

And it wasn't until I saw a tweet by @VeryRudeTweets and the comments from @djpimpdaddy and @earlyfilms that I realized I was wrong in my reaction.
"#theatershooting 17 people died at the premiere of "The Dark Knight Rises" in Colorado. 3D really is getting more realistic."

Dj and Linux unfollowed and denounced the tweet. At first I thought it was hilarious. It was right in line with my joke about a Russian hockey team named Lokomotiv that all died in a plane crash "They would be fine if they had taken a Locomotiv." A joke I made just hours after they had crashed.

Today though I had a similiar reaction, it occurred to me that this massacre happened in my country. The one I chose to defend, and the one I love. And so I thought back on 9/11 and how at the tender age of 19 I had a very different reaction. It was anger and bloodlust for those responsible. To me that seems like a more acceptable response to the situation than I had to the Colorado shooting.

So now I am left with questions.
Am I a good person? Undoubtedly I am not as bad as last night's shooter is. But I am not nearly as good as I considered myself before this morning.

Was the media I chose to ingest a factor in the change of reaction I had? It must have had some influence, but how much? I have watched and played many violent things over the 11 years since 9/11. But also over that time period I have become a softy for warm moments such as a Dad coming back from the war front to surprise his children in school with his return. (I am even tearing up now thinking about it)

Do I blame my father who the same reactions that I do? I don't think that would be fair. While him and I are very similar, he had very little influence over my 6 years in the Navy and the four years its been very limited in the 4 years since I moved out of the house.

Lets say it was Media. Everything from GTA3 and the Sopranos to Walking Dead and Game of Thrones. I have killed countless human subjects in video gmaes. Hell I have almost 1200 hours played in Team Fortress 2 alone. Has watching all this murder and gore and dealing with the trolls of such games made me so hateful of the human race that I don't once think about the victim's families involved in this morning's shooting? Has the 24 hour news cycle with live shots of war coming from half a world away done this to me?

While I wrote that last line I remembered something from third grade. It was 1991 and my teacher asked us to type a letter to Saddam Hussien. I remember the line "I like war" being in it. Could I be messed up from that long ago?

There have been many times I took great enjoyment in killing in GTA 3. Typing in the code "givemeatank" did just that. I would then get on a long road and kill as many federal agents as I could. Crushed civilians and cops alike laughing merrily along the way.

I've had particularly violent thoughts when things don't go my way as well. From hitting someone in the knee as hard as I can in hockey, to throwing an elbow into a guy's face in Gaelic football.

Perhaps this is all a result of media influence and a culture that sees not just video game and cartoony violence but one that see real violence on a daily basis.

Perhaps the best thing I can do is to avoid my new purchase of Saints Row the Third and instead place a nice game of Tetris.

I want to thank a few people for this

Andy, Fondre, Pinnick, DJ and Linux. Because of you and this topic, I think I will become a better person

Somewhat joking: I am an IT guy, so I can't process positive criticism. Thank you and glad to help. Do we hug?

I guess on the subject, I too tamed myself sometime last year. I used to make terrible and inappropriate jokes. I regret most of them now. Blame Canada. Blame Beavis and Butthead. Blame heavy metal. Or, in the end: yeah it was me. I find life easier and happier now.

I am numb to 99% of violence in a game. When I find a game that doesn't involve shooting people in the face I tend to like them better. A great example recently is Dear Esther.

Wow, I'm really not sure how to feel about this, and I'm probably going to edit this post a zillion times.

In terms of (this) Colorado shooting, I think there's might be a curse of immediacy going on with some of our reactions.

Consider things like that Norwegian Breivik asshole, Roderik Dantzler (in my backyard) Fort Hood, Columbine, the VA Tech Massacre, the beltway shooter, Unabomber, Tim McVeigh, ...I didn't even come close to running out of examples, but my point is that my examples stretch backward throughout history both recent and distant, regardless of the status of violence in the media.

As Chris Rock put it, "What ever happened to crazy?"

I think you make a good point when you get to the really thorny issue of 'complicity' (which we didn't discuss on our show).

For example, I enjoy pro wrestling. 5 years ago, a pro wrestler named Chris Benoit who had severe brain damage from in-job trauma (chair shots, and relentless bumps from working 350 days/year and potential steroid abuse) decided to murder his wife, his adolescent son and then wait a day with the dead bodies in his home and then hang himself from a weight stack on a Bowflex. Was I somehow complicit by being a fan of those programs, and by default encouraging Benoit to roid up and take ridiculous headshots? I came to the conclusion that I did, and stopped watching the programming for 2 years.

Then I stopped caring so much and went back to watching.

I guess the conclusion I came to (and I think it is important to point out again that I AM NOT A PARENT, which might change my opinion) is that you can't fix crazy and crazy is just an outlier variable in a nation of half a billion people.