Violence in 'Entertainment'

I was talking with my brother-in-law the other day about our respective experiences in college physical education class boxing. We both enjoyed it as participants but I, at least, soon began to take no interest in it when in my twenties I watched televised matches and became aware of the reaction of the television crowds. They were thirsting for blood. I also enjoyed closely supervised school-boy wrestling and taught it and coached it for a number of years but when I happened upon the televised spectacle of ‘big time’ or ‘pro’ wrestling I was repulsed ‘big time.’ This was not a sport, such as NCAA college or Olympic Games wrestling, but was staged and glorified mayhem, and again I looked at the crowds who found this staged violence entertaining. Seeing and hearing them I lost all interest in professional mutations of these activities. There are other much more wholesome sports.

At the university I studied educational psychology and took classes in sport psychology and the sociology of sport. I came to learn that the viewing of and glorifying of violence desensitizes people and contributes to violence in their own lives. I found this especially to be true with children and youth who are very impressionable. As a public school teacher I came to learn that a number of my boys were involved in gangs; sadly, a couple of them died in gang-related shootings. One of the gangs, the Nortenos had as a slogan, ‘UNLV’—Us Nortenos Love Violence. I did what I could to counter the developing trend in the lives of the boys I taught.

In recent decades we have witnessed terrible tragedies where deranged youth and young adults have gone on shooting rampages. To a lesser scale this happens weekly in the city in which I taught with drive-by and gang turf battles.

I place much of the blame on the viewing and participation of our young people with television, movie, and video game violence. And, of course, the drug culture is a big contributor.

The cinching argument, for me, came with maturity and internalizing and resonating to a scripture found in the Book of Moses: [In the times of Noah] “the earth was corrupt before God, and it was filled with violence…for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth. And God said unto Noah: The end of all flesh is come before me, for the earth is filled with violence….” (Moses 8:28,30)God had enough and had to clean house.

Man reveals himself through what he entertains himself with. I am pleased to say that violence in any form no longer holds any entertainment value for me and ashamed to say that it once did to a small degree. Repentance is a wonderful thing.

Maybe our culture would be healthier and retain the favor of God that our wisest presidents, Washington and Lincoln, prayed for if it didn’t glorify or capitalize on violence for entertainment value or for an increased slice of our economic gross domestic product. We can become acculturated to the positive as well as the negative.