The Revolution will not be Desensitized.

On Christmas evening I was scanning the news headlines on the internet, I quickly glanced over the bombings in Africa & the Middle East without a second thought but my attention was caught by another headline. “7 dead in Grapevine Murder/Suicide”, I don’t normally click on a story like that because I really don’t want to know all the gory details but this time I did. There wasn’t a lot of detail at that time other than 6 members of a family were shot while opening their presents and then the shooter killed himself. I went to bed with that image in my mind and needless to say couldn’t go right to sleep. I was thinking about what makes it possible for one human being to kill another with such callousness and lack of sensitivity.

This brings me to my topic of Desensitization. As a species, humans have developed a survival instinct that allows us to not think or feel about something that is physically or emotionally painful to ourselves or others. On the most basic level most of us have been desensitized to the fact that we are mortal and at some point will cease to exist so we just go about our lives ignoring that little detail. Some people’s jobs require a level of desensitization such as emergency room staff, fire fighters, and the police. I can only assume that to be a combat solder you have to be desensitized to the feelings of the enemy that you are trying to kill (and is trying to kill you). I guess war and killing is the ultimate level of desensitization.

But what about the more subtle forms of desensitizing that are going on around us all the time, like when you watch one of those CSI cop shows on TV or a horror movie and they show you the dead bodies over and over. Then you see the real news about some little kid that’s been missing for a month and their body was just found. Do you feel horrified or is it just another of life’s episodes where you think “glad it wasn’t anyone I knew” and don’t give it another thought. What about all the violent video games that a lot of people are playing. Don’t you think that seeing as well as causing all that blood and gore for hours on end will make you less sensitive to the real thing? I think the last realistically violent movie I saw was Saving Private Ryan and that was over 10 years ago. I decided then that I didn’t want to be desensitized. If I see a real dead body or act of violence I want to feel sick, disgusted, and horrified. I never want to feel those things for entertainment as so many people do these days.

How about desensitization as a form of brain washing. If all you hear from the media, the talking heads, and partisan politicians is their one side of the story as well as the vilification of the opposition doesn’t that desensitize you to any opposing view? Doesn’t that totally undermine the ability for civil discussion? No wonder government can’t get anything done or help the average Joe.

Speaking of the average Joe, the mass media has been desensitizing us to our own plight for years and it’s finally culminating in the crash of our economy and standard of living. What I mean is that for the last 30 plus years we have been told laboring is bad, financing is good. Working with your hands and making something wasn’t as valuable to our society as manipulating financial instruments. We were desensitized to the needs of the average American, a living wage, health care, and a quality education. We glorified the rich who were making obscene amounts of money with their stock options, bonuses, and executive compensation packages. They were getting wealthy by dismantling and selling off the assets and equity that had been built by manufacturing, by laborers. We all wanted to get rich so we desensitized ourselves to reality and bought into the housing bubble and easy credit that kept it inflated.

When I was gathering my thoughts for this column and thinking about a title, the song and poem by Gil Scott Heron “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” came to mind. (gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html) It made me think about the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and how I do think it’s time for another American Revolution. I’ve often said “we need a revolution, I just don’t want to be here when it happens”. That was before I looked up the definition of a Revolution, (from the Latin word revolutio, “a turn around”) is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that can take place in a relatively short period of time. That’s not so scary, doesn’t have to be violent, and it doesn’t have to be painful. I think most of us agree that we need change so maybe this revolution will not be desensitized.

To view the column in it's original form go to page 12 of the following link. Winters Express 1/12/12