Thursday, 30 October 2008
VIOLENCE AND HATRED
Violence and hatred in our society is increasing. According to Freud "In reality there is no such thing as 'eradicating' evil'. I agree with him as we cannot eradicate evil but i think we can reduce it. Evilness is spreading like a disease which has no cure but can be controled up to a certain extent depending on the severity of the problem. There are some people within our society that create hatred and violence in order to please themselves. Sometimes people may not realise that they are violent as they might think that it is the norm form example if someone had a violent upbringing they are psychologically affected. The violence will become part of their lives and slowly infect society. Therfore it will be a continous process that cannot be eradicated.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
15 comments:
As society evolves and develops, it becomes increasingly difficult to reduce evil in society for a number of reasons. As world population increases, global travel becomes easier and people strive for improvement in their status (improved economic position, and social climbing, so societies have changed. National boundaries are guarded as closely as ever, global economies and politics have global impacts, such as: the current global financial crisis; and the election of Barack Obama as President of the USA.
These result in greater hatred and violence rather than increased global harmony. Technology brings increasingly powerful and deadly weaponry, egos want to show their prowess and war ensues before all other options are exhausted, and life becomes cheap. Economic crises lead to increased jealousy, particularly towards the Other, the 'outsider' - colour/class/social status all become targets of hatred when a society's financial or national position is threatened.
In these situations, there is no room for ambivalence, only Baudrillard's binary Code: cultures/races/societies/nationalities become regarded as the Other, and therefore a threat to stability. This Other is targeted with hatred and violence (such as racism)in an attempt to gain control and to protect its interests (whatever they may be); the 'outsider' responds, in extreme cases, with terrorism.
I also agree with Freud. There seems to be no room in these so-called 'modern' societies for even reducing evil, never mind eradicating it. To eradicate evil would mean that the world first needs to eradicate jealousy through perceived inequality. In reality, could the eradication of jealousy/evil/inequality ever happen? I don't believe so.
Bibliography
Wilson, C., The Outsider (Phoenix: London, 1967)
Baudrillard, J., The Transparency of Evil (Verso: London, 1993)
William Pawlett, Hate/Code
http://feministtechnoscience.se/wp/wp-content/uploads/hatecode.pdf
Hi Raj
I do agree with some of your comments about how difficult it is to reduce evil in society. What do you think of what Meena was saying on Thursday about French citizens? Have they achieved 'harmony'? Also, you mentioned national boundaries. The media would have us believe that our national boundaries have all but been disolved whereas other countries, Australia and New Zealand for example are closing their borders. What's your thoughts on this? Is it just media hype or is it true?
Also, you mentioned Barak Obama & his election causing greater hatred and violence. I think he used different mediums for communication, for example web sites, u tube etc. This had the effect of bringing together sections of the USA who had previously not voted and young people who where voting for the first time. I think that because of this, there will be an increase in harmony. Time will tell if i'm right!
I was also interested in your point about jealousy through perceived inequality. I also think that this will always be an issue because people will always see 'others' being treated differently and feel hostility and resentment towards them, don't you agree?
Violence on the other hand has to be taken as a seperate issue i think. Not all violence is bad. Obviously i'm not talking about voilence towards vulnerable children or adults. I think an example of 'good' violence is when it's in a controlled manner. This is seen in Boxing, Wrestling and in the Balianese cock fighting that William talked about.
Julie, you asked a lot of questions in your last post, so I'll try to answer them as best as I can.
The French schools and the ban on wearing head scarves and other religious symbols cannot, in my opinion, create harmony. It would be a forced and false harmony in the sense that it equalises because everyone is seen as being the same. It might be an overt show of unity, but what lies underneath the surface? I would think resentment, because if you feel strongly enough about your religion, then being told that you cannot show your religion through things like symbols/head scarves because of a ban would surely cause resentment at the very least. It is like telling a Sikh man/woman to remove his/her turban. I would think it would cause an outrage, or a very strong consideration of how important those symbols are to you as a person.
It's like when people tell that they don't see me as being 'different' in an attempt to tell me they don't see my race. Why? I'm not different, I'm just me. I am the person that I am, and my culture/language/dress etc (I don't practice a religion, so I can't add that into the mix)are what make me the person I am. Denying my 'difference' is like denying my right to be me as an individual. That's how I see it.
I'll answer the other questions later - I have a dinner date with a friend now!
Raj
Hi Julie, back to your questions...
I think a lot of Barak Obama getting in is to do with the world being sick of Bush, and by default, his 'party'. I dread to think what the men in white cloaks and pointy hats are plotting, and wonder whether his days are numbered. The updated version (men in white top hats and tails) have already attempted to assassinate him. White extremists must be livid (to say the least) that their country is being run by a black man. Unfortunately, those people are so covert in everyday life, to the naked eye, they could be everywhere, and if they've tried to kill him once, do you really think they're going to stop trying? I just hope the quality of the security around Obama is better than those sent to locate weapons of mass destruction in Iraq...
My point about jealousy through perceived inequality relates to how petty people can be about things they decide to hate you about. I had lots of problems in level 1 semester 1, in one of my modules where two weeks before the end, one 'mature' student came up to me when I was waiting to go into my poetry lecture. In a crowded corridor with about 60 people waiting to go into the lecture, she told me in a loud voice that she had something to tell me. She proceeded to tell me that I was getting on peoples' nerves, I was getting their backs up. I couldn't believe it, and naturally, was mortified!
When I asked her what it was all about, as I didn't feel I'd done anything to annoy people, she told me 'they' (people in my seminar group in Intro to Lit 1) thought I was acting above my station. I was behaving like a lecturer, and going around correcting peoples' work, and they didn't like it. 'Calm down, Raj, you've got to tone it down.'
I was gutted. I only ever spoke in seminar when I had to, so I couldn't understand where all this was coming from, and wondered who these 'people' were whose nerves I was getting on. I was so upset, I was in floods of tears and broke down by that evening, in front of my husband and children. They all said not to worry, it was probably only people being jealous. I contacted the module leaders, and the seminar leader, asking them if they could check my Wolf entries for our seminar work to see if I'd done something wrong, or if I was rude to people without realising it, etc etc. I had made some corrections, but that week we were sentence and paragraph building and putting in references etc. Lots of people had made corrections. I'd even put in an apology to the people who had contributed in the paragraph I had added to!
The lectureres were very reassuring, and told me I had NOT done anything wrong, and was polite in my entries. They said that it was probably jealousy, because my entries were longer and more detailed than anyone else had made. In an open forum, they said, my work had been exposed to others. They even told me I could swap seminar groups if I felt too uncomfortable.
At time I did wonder if the problem lay with the woman who had told me all these things. In semester 2, a random conversation with someone who also knew this woman led to me being told it was her who had been kicking up a fuss; no-one else had said anything, and said 'she's a very jealous person, and pounces on anything that you have and she doesn't. I try to keep away from her now. She's really petty and I can't stand it.'
This woman had found out one of my essay grades (not from me), she had dug around to find out where my kids went to school, and where I lived. Her response was 'Oh, so we're poash, are we?' I didn't even tell her these things, she weedled them out of me. I've been very careful ever since then. It was a horrible, scary experience, close to the end of the semester, when I was really busy with essays etc, and was about to go into hospital for an operation. Jealousy is so destructive: she obviously hated me enough to be that nasty, and it was a horrible experience for me. The green-eyed monster is a nasty one - beware!
Finally, I'm not sure I agree with your wording 'not all violence is bad' - from the rest of what you said, am I right in thinking that you're saying that violence is okay when it's channelled, like in the Balinese cock-fighting culture? I think it is that the outlet that is acceptable to that society, rather than the violence itself that is acceptable. What do you think?
Hi Raj
I hope you enjoyed your evening out.
I've been Googling 'French riots' on the internet & found some interesting stuff out. The French authorities are really zero tollerance on any kind of 'otherness' (if you know what i mean). Yet, visiting this country many times i have always felt that they are very laid back & liberal. In fact if asked i would have said that they are as tolerant as England. Drinking alcohol, smoking, driving etc. I was really surprised with the reports of how heavy-handed the police are in the poorest areas of the country. It's almost like a two-tiered system of policing. Whereby people who are middle-class French citizens get one form of justice & the 'others' get another system. An interesting example of 'difference' i think.
I did hear about the assasination plot on Barack Obama. I remember at the time some people asking if he was 'black enough'. What does that mean? Also, the people who talk about racial purity and supremacy would do well to remember that they are not indigenous to America. I think that there will always be extremists.
Moving on, but in some ways similar. I was shocked to read of your treatment by a fellow student last year. It would seem to me that this person had a problem with you and instead of just having a chat with you about it she felt the need to humiliate you in public. This is a type of violence really but a psychological one. Yes, she saw you as 'different' and then felt she had to attack 'the difference'- shocking!!
About the violence: Yes, that's why i put good in inverted commas, I think its about peoples'/societies perception of what's acceptable & what's not. I personally don't agree with animals being forced to fight but, as i don't fully understand the Balianese culture i would never condemn it.
Hi Julie (and the other girls?!),
It's amazing what we find underneath the surface when we start digging a little deeper, don't you think? Seemingly 'tolerant' people/societies turn out to be not so tolerant after all. Your French example is a good example of this. This dual nature is, no doubt, what gave rise to the hideous riots of not so long ago. When people feel that they're not being fairly, and equally, I suppose they think it is natural to lash out in the only way they feel they can get attention to their plight. Let's face it, no-one likes to feel like they're being treated like second-class citizens. It not only highlights them as outsiders, or not worthy of equality, and when rights are threatened, people demand equality. I don't condone violence as the way to achieve equality. I think I'd be more the assertive, not aggressive type myself, and more likely to go down the Gandhi route and fight oppression through peaceful protest.
The weblink is:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/race-and-identity-in-21st-century-britain-1023019.html
Read the article, it's very interesting. If you don't find it through the above, you can find it through my facebook page. Find me as Raj K Lal - there's a picture of me on there (same one as on my profile here), so you can't miss me!
This also links to the talk of Obama not being black enough, it's a shame that we can't be treated and accepted as individuals. Why do we have to be pigeon-holed as a 'collective' - unless it's as part of one group: the human race? I got information from a Facebook friend, who is mixed race,about an article which talks about mixed race people in society, and how they are treated, how people react to them, whether or not they've faced hatred through racism, how it affected/affects them (or their parents/grandparents etc). There are short 'blog' type entries by mixed race people, about their personal experiences (Shegun Lee French is the one I know). If I remember the article correctly, it talks about how, at one point, it was thought that the only way to eradicate hatred/racism was through was through having one universal race, which would be brown (I think mixed race).
I personally feel that this notion of universality is another way of denying our right to be individuals who can only be accepted as part of a group, which is also defined by our colour. This denial of our individuality, and through this, our right to the freedom to be ourselves, can lead to resentment. This 'otherness' and denial of freedom and rights, and the resentment it can lead to, creates a perfect environment for the breeding of hatred, which in turn can manifest itself as violence.
Aren't these the kinds of things Nietzsche and Baudrillard talked about? I think our need for freedom and individuality, and our need for equality are exactly what ensures that there will always be the potential for violence and hatred in society: we cannot be 'the same', and at the same time, we fiercely protect our right to be 'different'.
I've been thinking a lot about the symbolic gifts and symbolic gift exchange that we talked about in class. It's made me really think about the significance of Baudrillard's theory in real life, and whether this is actually relevant in my life. Also, I've been thinking about his views on death, and trying to understand about the fascination of death. Having sat at my dying sister's bedside for hours, agonising over the certain loss that would follow certainly did not feel like a fascination about death, although William's talk of death being controlled, often in a medical environment and by doctors was definitely true. My sister died in hospital almost a week after a car accident.
Talking to William about how to make sense of this experience with relation to Baudrillard's symbolic gift exchange, and realising that the time spent with her at her bedside could be considered a symbolic gift exchange by devoting my time to her in those last hours has had a double impact on me. Firstly, it has helped to make baudrillard's symoblic gift exchange much more understandable through direct experience. Secondly, it has helped to give me another way of understanding a horrible experience - an epiphany, in a way.
Has Baudrillard's work had an impact on anyone else in the group?
Following our presentation today, I have been thinking about several things. Group work is always difficult, with people working to different time scales within the frameworks of their own lives, and the difficulty of getting together for meetings and rehearsals, particularly at this time of the year when a lot of end-of-semester assignments are due. The rehearsal before the presentation was really useful, as it helped to make some corrections to our texts, and to help us to work out how to hand over to other group members, and so on. It also gave us a chance to check our timings, which we had not done for a full presentation until then. I think I felt a little more confident going in to do the presentation itself.
A big concern for me was my cough - I've had problems with fits of coughing, and was afraid that it would happen during the presentation, and made me worry about how this would be handled ie would someone take over from me, etc..
I checked the time on our presentation, and I'm sure we were within our time frame, but we got several questions, which were not always straightforward to answer. This took us over our time. Reflecting on this, I wondered how we could have dealt with this/avoided this. I think that the time could have been controlled better in two ways: firstly, we could have limited the number of questions, perhaps just allowing a couple of questions; secondly, perhaps we could have structured the the presentation differently. Instead of each of doing a section, and a couple of us doing the introduction and conclusion too, perhaps we could have divided it into just one slot each ie including the introduction and conclusion as topics in their own right. The down side of this would have been that, given people sent the work in at different times, whoever was working on the intro and conclusion might not have had much time to do these sections. This is often a problem, as life happens and deadlines sometimes cannot be met -for example, I was too ill to get out of bed for a week, and Nicola had a bereavement. Sometimes, factors conspire against us, for whatever reason. Considering everything, I don't think we did too badly in our presentation.
One question from the audience in particular has made me think. It related to choice: we can choose whether or not to look at media representations of violence and hatred. My initial reaction was that yes, there was an element of choice. However, with the media everywhere in modern life, inside and outside the home, it is not so easy to avoid being assaulted by media-presented images of violence and hatred.
With time to reflect about the question of choice, I think that this element of choice makes it so much worse that people actually choose to let this violence and hatred (V&H) into their minds and homes, via whatever medium we choose to use to let it into our lives, eg tv, internet, newspaper etc.. It gives V&H a level of normalisation and acceptability. The extent of this normalisation of V&H in society gives me much cause for ooncern.
I agree with Raj that it’s hard to avoid being bombarded with representations of violence and hatred in modern life. As the presentation group after us mentioned (I think it was Tom, Ben and Mark with violence as portrayed in popular culture), it’s not just through the medium of news reporting that violence is exposed but by means of television programmes, films, music and games consuls designed for children. Violence creeps into our lives on a daily basis. As Raj has already expressed her concern, I also wonder how this affects our children. I’ve been looking into this as it’s fascinating but, I also feel I have a personal interest in it too because I have three children of 6,10 and 18 (eg. the ten year old wants to play with the eighteen year old’s Grand Theft Auto!)
We’ve all heard of the famous study by Albert Banduro with the Bobo doll and most experimental research suggests that the more violence is viewed, the greater the likelihood of aggressive behaviour. However, some research suggests that children do make allowances when evaluating and differentiating the different forms of violence. For instance, children's self-esteem may be an important factor in their defining of what is violent. Though research findings differ, children's experience with the various genres - cartoons, drama, news and so on - obviously affects their perceptions of degrees of'realism. Programmes perceived by children as realistic are watched with more involvement, more emotion and less detachment than those seen as fantastic (such as cartoons). Cartoons are seldom seen by children as being violent at all. Many theories about children's behaviour and the influence of television are in the behaviouristic tradition: where the emphasis is on the passive learning of habitual behaviour through conditioning. They tend to ignore the active meaning-making that children engage in, and the variety of meanings which they construct with television. A great web link is http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Modules/TF33120/tv-violence_and_kids.html
Still, the effects of violent video games are yet to be seen. I know so many youngsters under the age of ten who regularly play with nasty games, they think nothing of shooting the ‘bad guys’ to smithereens, blood and guts everywhere and they justify it by saying they’re only killing the baddies. The baddies can take the form of anything from zombies to pimps (???!). I wonder what all the theorists will be coming up with in ten years time. Happy days!
Anyway, I thought our presentation went quite well in the end. It did help having a practice beforehand and it certainly gave us a laugh! I must admit, I don’t like doing presentations and I was so wrapped up in getting my contribution right and relaying it confidently and articulately (????) that it detracted from looking more critically into our topic. Maybe we were all a little quick to condemn the media and didn’t give enough thought into the pros and cons. You should have seen the following presentation….they arranged three tables facing the ‘audience’. Another group are going to present a dvd next week! And there was us worrying where we were going to stand! Can you guys remember Meena asking us why we didn’t consider violence and hatred toward women? This could be a good debate. Let’s get started…..!
Okay, here are some statistics to get us thinking. Violence against women and girls is a mounting worldwide problem. At least one out of every three women around the world has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime — with the abuser usually someone known to her. For women aged 15 to 44 years, violence is a major cause of death and disability. In a 1994 study based on World Bank data about ten selected risk factors facing women in this age group, rape and domestic violence rated higher than cancer, motor vehicle accidents, war and malaria. (http://www.unifem.org/campaigns/vaw/facts_figures.php)
Violence exists for both sexes and whilst I’m certainly not belittling the problem for men, it is the sheer scale of the violence towards women that I want to consider, not just domestic violence but honour killings, female genital mutilation, sex trafficking and rape. So who are the perpetrators of violent crime against women…...men? Although violence against women is disproportionately committed by men, most men do not commit violence against women. (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/obv609.doc.htm)
Has anybody heard of the Boyd Rice Experience? Boyd Rice is a highly controversial experimental sound artist, namely post-punk and is also a writer, photographer, you name it, he does it. He is an absolute misanthrope and a vile, dangerous man. He’s a member of a cult that has some overlap with the Church of Satan, which speaks volumes! I’ve just been downloading some of his music and one track – Let’s hear it for violence towards women – is horrific. I’ve checked out a few websites and there is a forum on last.fm where some of the comments make your skin crawl. I’ll give you the link so you can see for yourselves but the last comment on there was “ But they fail to realise that their whining is what provokes most of the violence”. (http://www.last.fm/music/Boyd+Rice/_/Let's+hear+it+for+violence+towards+women. This brings me back to Julie's comments on the hatred shown on discussion forums and Baudrillard's symbolic exchange. The track itself is promoting rape and he has also written an article "R.A.P.E (Revolt Against Penis Envy)" in which he seemingly encourages men to rape women in order to show that men have a superior status. He has, however, stated that the article was written lightly, but still says it is based on facts.
It’s frightening to think that there are men like him out there who are even allowed to get away with that sort of thing, let alone that stuff like this gets published. Something more needs to be done to raise awareness of women’s human rights.
Yes, i think our presentation went well on the whole & by doing a practice before it ironed out any problems (like me laughing...) LOL.
As i mentioned last week, i was concerned about the length of the presentation because the questions should have been included in the time & they wern't. I guess we'll find out when we get the grades & feedback. Having said that, i enjoyed the questions & answers at the end. It's always good to get other peoples views on your 'specialist' topic.
I've been looking at an online article from The Mail. The headline is, 'I'd like to slap Sheryl Gascoine...at least it would save Paul the bother' Carol Slater (01.08.2008)
It was basically critisizing her for re-starting her relationship with Paul Gasgoine. The reporter suggested that she was a bad mother for going back to the man who used to beat her up etc. She is also accused of, 'Putting her own needs before her children.' It was interesting to see that this article was written by a woman. It made me ask, 'What about the sisterhood?' No sign of it here!
The responses were thought provoking too, people commented that she, 'Had [received] a verbal battering' and that the article itself was, 'Well written and produced'. To be fair, the responses were 50/50. what does everyone else think about a woman attacking another woman in this very verbal & public way? Doesn't the reporter have the power over the subject/story, is this a masculine/macho thing? Enlighten me please...
Also, what are your thoughts about 'happy slapping'. There are lots of girls involved in this and the victims are often girls too. Is this just a modern day problem or does this kind of behaviour have much deeper roots?
Happy slapping eh…..who on earth coined that phrase?? It’s a ploy by the attacker to make it seem like some sort of joke on the victim, a surprise thump to startle them and laugh at their expense. Not very funny but now this craze has swept the UK like wildfire. The fact that a crime is being filmed is not a new thing. Mobile phones containing video cameras are a part of our culture now and these ‘attacks’ are sent to other phones and posted over the internet. Happy slapping even prompted a documentary with Trevor MacDonald and a young person comments, “You see someone just sitting there, they look like they're dumb. You just run up to them and slap them. And run off. It's funny."
Another: "Even though it might be quite painful for them and you obviously feel quite sorry for them because they're injured... it's still funny because it's like seeing the sketch on TV."
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4539913.stm)
Shows like Jackass and Dirty Sanchez are being blamed but surely there is much more to it than that. For a start, the phrase ‘happy slapping’ should be stopped immediately and referred to what it actually is - bullying, ABH, GBH and, sadly, in some cases, murder. Maybe this would be the first step in resolving this new form of violence – by taking away the light-hearted and flippant connotations of the phrase ‘happy slapping’ Also, there should be some sort of control by these video-sharing sites like You Tube, where clips of happy slapping violence can be viewed.
The documentary was aired in 2005 and the question everyone asked even then was ‘Is this a genuine trend or media hype?” Well, take a look at what’s going on up and down the country and see for yourselves that this ‘trend’ is showing no signs of stopping.
I couldn’t find any statistics for ‘happy-slapping’ specifically but I did find this out:
· That the majority of happy-slappers are young people. (http://www.teenissues.co.uk/FAQAboutHappySlapping.html)
· Four in every ten muggings in Britain are committed by children under 16 years old.
· The most likely person to be carrying a knife is a boy aged between 14 and 19.
· Manchester police stated that young people who get involved with gun crime should not expect to live beyond 24. In 2002 nearly half of all gang murders committed with firearms involved victims under the age of 18.
· Every year an estimated 70,000 school-aged offenders enter the youth justice system. The total number of young offenders in custody has been above 2500 every month since April 2000. Latest figures show that 1504 of the young people held in custody are 16 years old or younger. An estimated 11% of all prisoners involved in serious assaults are children, this is despite accounting for just 3% of the general prison population.
(http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/default.asp?pageRef=214)
I work part-time as a youth worker and I have the utmost respect for young people, the majority of whom are responsible community members but for some, that’s just not the case.
How is violence against women defined?
'Acts that result, or likely to result, in physical, sexual and psychological harm or suffering to a woman, including threats of such an act, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty whether occurring in public or private life'.
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hl-vs/pubs/women-femmes/violence-eng-php
As Nicola was saying that some violence towards by women is committed by other women. This is a true fact as 'many women who are victims of violence are victims of other women. There is a spousal abuse as well as child abuse in particular violence against daughter by mothers. There is also violence against women by women who are unknown to the victim. There is environmental violence as well as violence against refugees which is seldom recognized. Much of this violence is a part of the cycle of alcohol related violence'. http.//www.apha.confex.com
It is disgusting to See how much violence is committed against women. According to the united nations officials 'violence against women is the least punished crime in the world. It is also a grave threat to health and well-being'. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story
The violence against women goes back in history when women were seen as the property of men. The tradition is still present today as women have to change their surnames after marriage. I was once told by a friend that back in history women had to change their surnames because they were seen as the property of men.
I was shocked to see on this website: http://www.amnestyusc.org/violence-againstwomen/stop-violence, that 'in the united states,a woman is raped every 6 minutes; a woman is battered every 15 seconds'. According to the World Health Organization:
Health consequences can result directly from violent acts or from the long-term effects of violence.
Injuries: Physical and sexual abuse by a partner is closely associated with injuries. Violence by an intimate partner is the leading cause of non-fatal injuries to women in the USA.
Death: Deaths from violence against women includes honour killings (by families for cultural reasons); suicide; female infanticide (murder of infant girls); and maternal death from unsafe abortion.
Sexual and reproductive health: Violence against women is associated with sexually transmitted infections such as HIV/AIDS, unintended pregnancies, gynaecological problems, induced abortions, and adverse pregnancy outcomes, including miscarriage, low birth weight and fetal death.
Risky behaviours: Sexual abuse as a child is associated with higher rates of sexual risk-taking (such as first sex at an early age, multiple partners and unprotected sex), substance use, and additional victimization. Each of these behaviours increases risks of health problems.
Mental health: Violence and abuse increase risk of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, sleep difficulties, eating disorders and emotional distress.
Physical health: Abuse can result in many health problems, including headaches, back pain, abdominal pain, fibromyalgia, gastrointestinal disorders, limited mobility, and poor overall health status. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en/
Happy slapping has become popular among youngsters. The cause of this is camera phones as people are able to capture the slapping and broadcast on websites such as u tube. According to Freud violence will increase as technology develops further and increases. This is true, how many times we see new technology coming out and violence is increasing. The technology is good for consumers as things are made easier for us but at the same time could be bad and harmful for us. Some people might commit crime such as robbery, abuse or murder because of technology. For example someone might try to rob a camera as it is worth a lot and is new therefore they will use a form of violence in order to obtain the phone.
Modern technology, science and rationality is used for destruction. For example it allows you to kill thousands without going to war. According to Baudrillard's philosophy the real is becoming replaced by the images and signs that replace the real. Through technology images and signs replace the real.
There is website below that is full of stories about 'happy slapping':
www.textually.org/picturephoning/archives/cat_happy
I have taken some of the headlines of the stories which are shocking and listed them below:
*Gavin Waterhouse was punched and kicked to death, while another teenager filmed the incident on a cameraphone. The film was sent around to friend's mobile phones and posted on the Internet.
*A 15-year-old girl has admitted filming the death of a man on her mobile phone in a so-called "happy slapping" attack,
*Sydney police say they have now charged all five teenagers arrested over a gang rape, filmed using a mobile phone camera.
*File under heinous and stupid. The man accused of bludgeoning a Madera teenager to death may have taken photographs with his cell phone afterward to prove to his girlfriend that he had done it,
*Three men arrested after an assault on a 14-year-old girl, which was filmed on mobile phones, have been given a total of almost 500 hours community service.
*Two police officers were convicted Monday of torturing a bus driver in an abuse case that came to light when a cell phone video of the man being beaten and sodomized appeared on Egyptian blogs and YouTube.
According to the website below 'happy slapping', 'started off as a teenage game in south London has reportedly turned into serious online business'. Videos showing violent attacks are now on sale on the world wide web.
www.eukn.org/eukn/themes/Urban_Policy/Security_and_crim...
Well, we’ve talked a lot about violence and how it leads to hatred, but what about going one step beyond all this worldwide resentment and vengeance and talk about forgiveness? Not just at the level of individuals and families but that of national and international politics. The need to resolve entrenched cycles of violence and hatred is one of the most pressing problems of the 21st century - newspaper headlines give daily reports on conflicts based on the law of revenge. Something needs to be done to combat the violence and hatred consuming our world; something to rebuild hope and courage to replace despair and fear.
Take a look at one of the world peace websites - http://www.worldpeace.org.uk/. It is actually a very interesting and informative site and attempts to explain how the world can have a hand in reconciling it's differences and all the various dilemmas now facing us by putting all its efforts into resolving war and conflict. Sounds too good to be true doesn't it? Maybe a little idealistic. But something has got to be done and this is just the start.
Post a Comment