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I presented a workshop today at the National Christian Youth Convention (NCYC). During my presentation I showed a video produced by Stop the Traffik which, among other things showed a protest featuring a girl holding a sign which had written on it "13 year old virgin for sale". The protest was to highlight the plight of the victims of human trafficking. During the question time I was asked if the pack I was talking about had any information on how to handle sensitive topics like that with young people. It wasn't something that we had thought about when putting the packs together.
Whilst acknowledging the relevance of the question and the need for information along those lines I also responded with a thought in the back of my head. I said that this generation of young people is perhaps the most desensitised to violence and other visual stimuli generation ever.
I was reminded of the group of young people in Britain who stood at the bottom of a building while a young person stood at the top and threatened to jump to end his life. The young people on the ground were yelling out to the boy at the top to jump. The police were horrified but were unable to stop the mob. When the boy eventually jumped, the crowd rushed forward with their mobile phones out to record and photograph the dead body.
I wonder how much this desensitisation has effected young people's interest in issues of justice? The news reports coming out of Gaza are just another movie on the TV showing war and destruction. Why should we care? These are not the images of the Vietnam war beamed back to a disbelieving public who had never witnessed anything like that.
Do we care? Are we too desensitised?
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I'd say that we are _less_ desensitized to real violence than past generations would have been; the media just does a good job at highlighting what's left (that's not to say that we shouldn't still try to improve further and create less violent societies still). See for example Steve Pinkers talk on the Myth of Violence.
ReplyDeleteI have never liked violence because it is so realistic in so many places. I often watch movies that have violence...action movies, fighting scenes, shooting scenes, bombing scenes....Rendition, The Kingdom, Vantage Point...these are all 'movies' to most people, but they are somewhat realistic. It's just that people - probably mainly young - don't realise that they happen because they aren't involved in news...or if they see it, who cares - it doesn't happen in Australia. We take out safety for granted here SO, SO much. I watch these movies and say, 'It's okay, it's just a movie'...but somewhere it stores images at the back of my head and they often come back to haunt me. It's a movie yes, but it's based on something...if they can make it happen in a movie and come up with this disturbed plots, it's only giving people more ideas on how to corrupt and destroy the world.
ReplyDeleteI am shocked by that story of the young people in Britain - that saddens me a lot. Do they not care of the lives that are affected by such a tradegy?
I think you're right - people are numb to the reality of what really happens to people around this world...and it's probably got a lot to do with selfishness.