A good number of people met untimely deaths yesterday. First, there was the typical daily carnage in Iraq. Second, a "gunman shot and killed three men at a business Monday night before turning the gun on himself and taking his own life", and we ended the news day with the shooting rampage at a Salt Lake City mall.
The most disturbing thing about all this violence is that it's not that disturbing! It's become so commonplace that most of us simply shrug our shoulders and go about our business.
It's an apt example of how our society has changed...for the worse. As late as the 1960s and 1970s, this kind of news would have been shocking. People all over the country would have been cast into the throes of mass anxiety. Today, however, it's par for the course.
The nightly news has become a shock absorber of sorts. We learn each day of so much death and destruction that we have become numb. Subsequent reports fail to arouse or scare us.
In the end, by taking death so lightly, it concurrently dampens the beauty and excitement of life.
The most disturbing thing about all this violence is that it's not that disturbing! It's become so commonplace that most of us simply shrug our shoulders and go about our business.
It's an apt example of how our society has changed...for the worse. As late as the 1960s and 1970s, this kind of news would have been shocking. People all over the country would have been cast into the throes of mass anxiety. Today, however, it's par for the course.
The nightly news has become a shock absorber of sorts. We learn each day of so much death and destruction that we have become numb. Subsequent reports fail to arouse or scare us.
In the end, by taking death so lightly, it concurrently dampens the beauty and excitement of life.
Agreed, and really, desensitization is inevitable. In the United States we have by far the highest rate of murders from firearms, yet gun control is a "minor" issue. Thousands die from starvation in underdeveloped nations, many thousands more are homeless and suffering in our own. You've spoken on these topics before, but it's all the same problem: when one sees enough, one ceases to care.
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