I don't watch the news anymore. I used be absorbed in the news, watching CNN and occasionally FOX and reading five different newspapers from the American New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to the Israeli papers Yedioth Yisroel and the Jerusalem Post, and even some Arab-world newspapers sporadically. I felt that being informed was vital. As it turns out, the news has gotten progressively more and more sensational and now I can't watch it. In fact, the only reason I found out about the recent school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, was because I walked into a Dunkin' Donuts with a TV. But that fact I found out about it didn't upset me nearly as much as when the media was clearly exploiting it for viewers.
Nevertheless, the commentary on exploitation has also been pretty killed by secondary media, such as facebook, twitter, and blogs have been concerned. We get it- people die, news exploits it, people react to the unjust exploitation, people try to make stricter gun laws and anti-violent video games, and still, NOTHING GETS DONE! The hipsters and indie underground love talking about the "machine", but they are in an exploitative wave of their own. Why is it the gun industries' fault? The mental illness sector's fault? The violent video-game industries fault? Hasn't any one realized it's all our fault?
Letting our society become desensitized to violence is our problem. Not video games, not movies, not the access to guns, and not the very few and understaffed mental institutions' fault. It's the people who walk into Game Stop and are not throwing up when their ten year old is asking for the new war game.
I just heard a story today of one of my Rabbi's friend's bringing his veteran father to see the movie Saving Private Ryan. In the first scene is the depiction of body parts flying on D-Day. His father walked out of the movie, sat down, and was silent for a full ten minutes. When his son finally got a response, it went something like this: "That's how it looked. That was D-Day." I just want you to imagine what it must be like to see your friends, comrades, brothers being blown up. Body parts flying, heads being blown off. No man can go into war with out ending up insane, if even only temporarily.
Let's talk about war in the Torah. There is a concept of "Yafeh Toar." While I will not get into the gritty details of this law, the reason rape on the battle field will not be prosecuted by Torah Law is not because it's abhorrent (which it makes clear). It's because you cannot try a man who was temporarily insane. War makes people insane. Who wants to bring insanity into their home?
I'm not worried about my friend's playing Nazi Zombies or Call of Duty and then going out to shoot someone. That is ludicrous. But the fact that people can play it and think their sense of morality is intact IS INSANE. War brings insanity, if it doesn't, you are desensitized. People can tell me that it isn't real war, so insanity can't possibly apply. I bet you the veteran father didn't think what he was seeing was real either. Reality is up to the idividual's perception.
The Jews got Torah on Mt. Sinai 3,300 years ago. During this time there was a very small group of people who commit a grave sin: idolatry. Gd literally just took them out of Egypt, with his own hand, and a group of Jews had the nerve to make a golden calf, chat ha'egel. The sin of the golden calf was momentous. The Levites slaughtered everyone involved (about 3,000 people). However, it is noted that the Jews suffer today for the sin. Every time we have great joy, not everything goes according to plan. Why would we, the non-involved (remember there was some 3 million people, 3,000 is 0.1% of the entire nation), be punished for something that happened 3,300 years ago and didn't even involve a fraction of us?! It's because WE WERE ALL HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR LETTING IT HAPPEN.
This idea of social tolerance does not need to be as wide-spread as the school shootings. What happened to Kitty Genovese, or, more recently, to Ki-Suck Han (who got pushed on the subway)? Were people on the platform so removed and comfortable seeing someone in distress that they would do nothing? It makes me scream: WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO OUR SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY?!
Tolerance of this behavior is what happened to our social responsibility. Columbine shouldn't have happened. But now that it has, Virginia Tech should of never been a thought in our mind, forget Sandy Hook Elementary. Every one wonders how we could stop it. And I can tell you: stop telling people violence, in any form, is okay. And that is hard.
Tell people when they are playing a violent video game it's disgusting. What is so wrong with telling someone that killing someone (real or virtual) is nauseating? I think people are afraid to use that word. Forget about the word "wrong." I don't even think "wrong" exists in American Society once you leave math class. If every one is right, tell me why killing children is wrong? The pathway to hell is paved with good intentions. And "inherently good-intentioned people," who think killing some groups of people is "good," are acceptable in American society!... As long as they don't take action. Shouldn't this be the definition of wrong? Or is that just me?
In America, being a consenting adult gives you licence to do what ever you want. And I am not talking about gay marriage here, I'm talking about R rated movies, gun and car licenses, and even the age of consent. Age in America tells people now that they have lived a certain number of years, they can do what they please. In the fine print, America is telling you now that you are older, nothing will effect you.
People need to step up and tell the world if their going to smoke three packs a day, they are going to die. If they drink a handle to themselves, they are going to die. If they desensitize themselves to violence, they will die. They will die if they go to the movies. They will die if they go to high school, and now, they can die if they go to elementary school. They will die if they walk outside too late at night. They'll die. Just like not every smoker dies from smoke, not ever desensitized member of society dies from violence. But their chances of survival continues to wane.
Violent video games isn't the only socially acceptable type of violence. Guns are most often used and protected legally by hunters. I don't care that hunting is socially acceptable, the idea of killing a living being for game is abhorrent. If you kill for food, have fun! But don't think that it doesn't affect your sense of morality. If you own a gun to show off to your buddies, have fun. But never forget that this is a tool to kill. That is what it was made for and that is what it is meant for. And when it goes off accidentally and kills someone, why are we surprised? There was an incident recently where a tiger or lion attacked a small boy and killed him. People thought killing the tiger would bring justice. If a tiger is born to kill, why is it punished when it kills? It was the zoos fault for not making the cage taller, not the tiger's. With guns, the same things goes, it's not the gun's fault for killing someone but it IS societies fault for letting people keep this figurative tiger in their homes.
The reason violence happens in our society is because it is allowed. I feel that if people would stop numbing themselves to violence through entertainment (movies, video games, hunting, ect) school shootings will stop. But to tell someone what they are doing is wrong has become taboo in American society. I think Sandy Hook is just another shooting in a sea of many to come. Hopefully people will start to wake up and say that violence needs to stop. All violence need to stop NOW.
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