> From jthorn16 at home.com Mon Nov 13 15:28:19 2000
>
> Do these liberals who "don't like watching people get shot"
> stay away from T.V. and movies that portray this kind of
> violence?
>
> Why should they?
>
> Shouldn't they know the difference between real violence and filed
> entertainment?
>
> /jordan
>
I would expect them to know the difference, but the statement was "don't
like watching people get shot" with no qualifier. I don't like watching
people get shot and don't watch it portrayed in a gratuitous manner in the
movies. I don't like watching people get raped and don't watch it in movies
either. Watching violence desensitizes people to violence. This is not a
controversial idea. How it affects their behavior is a source of controversy
though. I have seen enough of the effects of being shot to know that is
quite immoral to trivialize it in the movies, just as it is immoral to
trivialize any human suffering for the sake of cheap entertainment. It's
easier to get people to ignore the images of human suffering they see on the
news if they see it trivialized everywhere else.
John Thornton