Title: What's up with that?
By Linda M Chadburn
01/14/2011
There is something going terribly wrong in the world lately. First the shooting of a mother by her son here in the Treasure Valley. Then the senseless violence in Tuscon, AZ. It seems like there is an increase in violence all over our country and the world with terrorist bombings and other threats and actions of violence.
Is the problem a lack of civility and civil discourse as President Obama so eloquently stated at the memorial in Tuscon? Is it the uprising of sociopaths in our society? Is it due to the lack of parental guidance, or is it the work of dark forces that have been unleashed, as the End of Time watchers perceptions put forth? Can we blame the violence on a generation raised with violent video games, violent television programs, violent speech from adults who should know better, violent movies, etc?
We all see and may have first hand experience with violence in the home, violence in the workplace, violence in our own neighborhoods. And, of course, the violent and uncivil behavior that our GLBTQ community faces every day while just trying to live our lives peacefully, trying to be good citizens in our neighborhoods and community at large.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
I've been asking myself, has the violence increased over my lifetime of 50-something years? I remember in the '60s and '70s, the generation that was supposedly all about "peace and free love for all," we experienced racial violence in high school bathrooms, gay bashing was taken as a sport in some circles; these were the years when Charles Manson, a self-proclaimed reincarnated Jesus Christ, lead a group of followers to senseless violence against innocent people, to try and incite the "racial war" he prophesied would come.
Moving up through the '80s and '90s, children began having access to weapons, shooting their teachers, principals, and classmates, making the excuse of being bullied. I was bullied as a child because I was odd; my children were bullied because their mother was lesbian and for oddities of their own; and only now is society looking at the issue as a possible cause of continuing and seemingly increasing senseless violence.
I have to ask the question -- is violence really increasing? Or could it be that we are just becoming more aware of incidents of violence due to the instantaneous reporting from all corners of the earth? And just because we are getting bombarded with the reports of violence, are we creating our own self-fulfilling prophecies, exposing more children to "real" violence as opposed to the "fake" violence some of us grew up with?
Now, I want each of my readers to stop for a minute, calm down; I have been playing the Devil's Advocate. I am now and have been my whole life, a pacifist -- one who prefers peaceful discourse and peaceful assembly for protest. I abhor violence and avoid it even in the media I choose to watch/read/play in my spare time. The word "pacifist" has become synonymous with cowardice in our culture, but the pacifists I know are anything but.
I believe, as does President Obama, that we can come to better understanding of each other and our differences of opinion through discussion -- civil discourse. We can disagree about various topics, i.e., gun control, the mental health of our nation, or how to allocate our tax dollars within our respective communities, WITHOUT VIOLENCE. Talking over a nice piece of pie. Acknowledging our differences of opinion as a way for our society to grow, both together and as individuals.
It's really NOT TOO LATE! As long as we can agree at times, and agree to disagree at others, but still remember that our diversity created this country, we will come out of this time of mourning with the one thing ALL of us ultimately strive for in life -- WISDOM.
There is something going terribly wrong in the world lately. First the shooting of a mother by her son here in the Treasure Valley. Then the senseless violence in Tuscon, AZ. It seems like there is an increase in violence all over our country and the world with terrorist bombings and other threats and actions of violence.
Is the problem a lack of civility and civil discourse as President Obama so eloquently stated at the memorial in Tuscon? Is it the uprising of sociopaths in our society? Is it due to the lack of parental guidance, or is it the work of dark forces that have been unleashed, as the End of Time watchers perceptions put forth? Can we blame the violence on a generation raised with violent video games, violent television programs, violent speech from adults who should know better, violent movies, etc?
We all see and may have first hand experience with violence in the home, violence in the workplace, violence in our own neighborhoods. And, of course, the violent and uncivil behavior that our GLBTQ community faces every day while just trying to live our lives peacefully, trying to be good citizens in our neighborhoods and community at large.
Sounds familiar, doesn't it?
I've been asking myself, has the violence increased over my lifetime of 50-something years? I remember in the '60s and '70s, the generation that was supposedly all about "peace and free love for all," we experienced racial violence in high school bathrooms, gay bashing was taken as a sport in some circles; these were the years when Charles Manson, a self-proclaimed reincarnated Jesus Christ, lead a group of followers to senseless violence against innocent people, to try and incite the "racial war" he prophesied would come.
Moving up through the '80s and '90s, children began having access to weapons, shooting their teachers, principals, and classmates, making the excuse of being bullied. I was bullied as a child because I was odd; my children were bullied because their mother was lesbian and for oddities of their own; and only now is society looking at the issue as a possible cause of continuing and seemingly increasing senseless violence.
I have to ask the question -- is violence really increasing? Or could it be that we are just becoming more aware of incidents of violence due to the instantaneous reporting from all corners of the earth? And just because we are getting bombarded with the reports of violence, are we creating our own self-fulfilling prophecies, exposing more children to "real" violence as opposed to the "fake" violence some of us grew up with?
Now, I want each of my readers to stop for a minute, calm down; I have been playing the Devil's Advocate. I am now and have been my whole life, a pacifist -- one who prefers peaceful discourse and peaceful assembly for protest. I abhor violence and avoid it even in the media I choose to watch/read/play in my spare time. The word "pacifist" has become synonymous with cowardice in our culture, but the pacifists I know are anything but.
I believe, as does President Obama, that we can come to better understanding of each other and our differences of opinion through discussion -- civil discourse. We can disagree about various topics, i.e., gun control, the mental health of our nation, or how to allocate our tax dollars within our respective communities, WITHOUT VIOLENCE. Talking over a nice piece of pie. Acknowledging our differences of opinion as a way for our society to grow, both together and as individuals.
It's really NOT TOO LATE! As long as we can agree at times, and agree to disagree at others, but still remember that our diversity created this country, we will come out of this time of mourning with the one thing ALL of us ultimately strive for in life -- WISDOM.
No comments:
Post a Comment