The Stars and Stripes are flying at half mast, again.
As if more were necessary, Monday's gun massacre at the Navy Yard in
Washington, DC provides additional evidence of the socially destabilizing
nature of the deluge of increasingly violent and bloody mass media product that
passes for entertainment in the USA.
Several of his friends and acquaintances have told news organizations that the
Navy Yard shooter, the late Aaron Alexis, had long been obsessed with violent
video games. Once again, the combination of mentally instability, habituation to violent
video games, and access to firearms has resulted in tragedy. Thirteen people died, including the gunman. It could have been worse -- the death toll
could have been higher, as it has been far too often in the past.
Gun violence; the notion that guns, their ready availability, and their
aggressive use saves lives and makes Americans safe; and the enormously popular
mythology of redemptive violence are taking an ever increasing toll on
Americans, our core values, the stability of our society, and the viability of
our government. Violence -- gun violence
in particular -- is at the center of American popular culture because violence --
gun violence in particular -- and the myth of redemptive violence are at the
center of the entertainment industry's most lucrative product lines and revenue
streams.
The evidence, scholarly and anecdotal, is overwhelming, persuasive beyond any shadow of reasonable doubt: Violent media product desensitizes naive, vulnerable, and impressionable audiences to violence in society; promotes aggressive behavior; and vastly increases the possibility that angry, unstable individuals will use violence against others. Worse, first-person-shooter video games teach kids that killing people with guns is a game -- exciting, harmless fun! -- while training those who become habituated to the games to acquire targets quickly, aim accurately, and fire effectively, skills every potential mass murderer with a gun needs.
It has happened so many times that the well-armed lunatic, deranged by the ethos of violence that is so characteristic of American popular culture, who goes on a shooting rampage is no longer surprising. The needless slaughter still shocks every time it happens, but who can say he or she is surprised?
Who is primarily responsible for promoting violence -- gun
violence in particular -- and the deadly mythology of redemptive violence in
America? Of that, there is no doubt
whatsoever. The entertainment industry spews violent media product freighted
with political and social messaging into American popular culture relentlessly,
24 hours a day, 7 days a week, on
screens large and small, for profit and for political gain. The Swiss have more assault weapons per
capita than Americans and competition shooting is the national sport of
Switzerland, yet the Swiss have a tiny fraction of the gun violence so common
in the USA and gun massacres are extremely rare in Switzerland. Even so, Swiss lawmakers have effectively
banned violent video games and have placed restrictions on other forms of
violent media product, too. One need not
have the gift of prophetic voice to predict correctly that America and
Washington, DC will see more and more gun massacres, that our national epidemic
of gun massacres will continue unabated until our elected representatives find
the courage to rein in the Hollywood media moguls -- hardly distinguishable from
a criminal conspiracy -- who manufacture, distribute, and profit directly from
lucrative violent media product at the expense of Americans' all too real pain
and suffering.
Most big US media outlets are mentioning only in passing, if at all, that the Navy
Yard shooter was habituated to violent video games. Most US media outlets are purposefully
omitting from their reports any mention of Alexis's obsession with first-person-shooter
video games. By withholding that information from Americans, and by shutting
down any serious, substantive discussion of the effects of violent media
product, the Big Media mafia, aka the Hollywood Mob, a continuing criminal
enterprise that profits directly from violent media products that incite
violence in society, is protecting its most lucrative product lines and revenue
streams as well as its ability to embed influential social and political messaging in those products.
I am reminded of Carl Jung's chilling warning about the
danger associated with scant emphasis upon the humanities in America. In 1957,
writing in The Undiscovered Self, Jung declared that the rise of fascism as
seen Germany in the 1930s is a phenomenon likely to occur again, but in the
USA. "America seems to be immune because
of the outspoken counterposition she has adopted, but in point of fact she is
even more vulnerable than Europe since her educational system is the most
influenced by the scientific Weltanschauung with its statistical truths, and
her mixed population finds it difficult to strike roots in a soil that is
practically without history. The historical
and humanistic type of education so sorely needed in such circumstances leads,
on the contrary, a Cinderella existence."
Hollywood's addiction to the myth of redemptive violence, Hollywood's determined and systematic effort to educate Americans in the supposed efficacy of gun violence, is no fairy tale. It has no happy ending. It will bring only another war and another, more and more violence, yet another gun massacre, and another, and another.
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