My gain is your loss. This my first uninterrupted weekend at home in over a month. I have spent it sleeping past 6:00am and web surfing. That means I have alot to post. Let's get this started with a post about the horrible murders at Rocori High School in Minnesota. Today's STrib reports that it appears the defendant is drawing from pop culture to create false stories of hallucinations in an attempt to get himself declared insane. A quick disclaimer: It is entirely possible the kid really did have these hallucinations and the fact that the imagery is also found in movies or TV shows is coincidence. But, for now, it seems unlikely. What seems likely is that this is yet another kid adversely effected by the culture in which he lives. Another quick disclaimer: I would never argue that a piece of pop culture caused something heinous such as this school shooting, nor do I absolve parents, teachers, and, most of all, the perpetrator of the moral responsibility for their actions or inactions. But, is it so surprising that in a culture abounding in coarseness, vulgarity, and violence that we take on the characteristics of what we see and hear?. Surely it will be at the margins, but the margins may be enough. Political Scientist Ken Meier argues that there are perverts and nerds, people at two ends of a spectrum who are immune,for good or for ill, to all social or legal stimuli. But most of us respond to one extent or another to our surroundings as we make moral choices. In other words, we ask ourselves, "What will society let me get away with?" Every parent knows that stories are one way in which we teach our children what we want them to be, and thus, in some sense, we are the sum of the stories we tell. Entertainment folks often try to get off the hook by saying, "If you don't like it, turn it off," and no doubt there is some truth to that. But more so it is a lame attempt to absolve themselves of any moral responsibility for what they produce. "If people didn't like it, they wouldn't watch it." Very true. But if the people wanted to see babies thrown in the air and caught on spears, would the entertainment industry give us that, too, if it proved profitable? I don't think so, which betrays the falseness of the "if you don't like it" defense. Everyone agrees that there are things which we shouldn't portray in entertainment even if people would watch it. Now let's start arguing about what those limits are. And let's hear less about the entertainment industry's rights, and a little more about what it means to be a good corporate citizen.
And yes, I love Deadwood in all it's vulgarity. I guess that makes me a hypocrite. But I will also say that the affection I have for the Spiderman films (number one and number two) comes from the fact that they are a rip roaring good time, but also they exist in a moral universe, especially Spiderman 2. And heck, even Plato suggests that a good judge needs to know something of the seamier side of life.
Update: Does anyone know what is going on in the Red Lake, MN case?
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