A Culture of Death

Not the best topic for the first entry in a blog, but I've been thinking about this topic for a while. It was Easter this past Sunday and I was thinking about what Pope John Paul II described as the culture of death: abortion, euthanasia, and violence. I found a CNN article about his 2000 Christmas message which focused on this very exact topic. 'The pope said the world was confronted by "alarming signs of the culture of death which pose a serious threat for the future."'

I'm not as religious as I used to be. In fact I don't have a religion anymore. I was brought up as a Roman Catholic, but I've realized that there are literally hundreds of religions out there and in the history of mankind there have been thousands. But I do think that there are positives to almost every religion, particularly those that have survived the test of time. And I personally believe that the ideals of Christianity are very good for human society. I also like Buddhism because of its respect for nature and other living organisms besides humans. Now, I don't know enough to comment on other religions at this point, but if they've existed for a long time, it's probably because they were well adapted to the environment (geography, availability of natural resources, allies, enemies, cultural influences, etc.) people lived in. In any case, to each his own.

The reason why I brought up Christianity is that I take heed to what the Pope said. And thinking about the culture in America, there is definitely a culture of death here. I'm not going to discuss abortion and euthanasia—I don't have a set opinion on these, but I can state that I don't see a problem with abortion in the first few weeks of a pregnancy—but rather focus on violence. Violence pervades every corner of mass media. It is omnipresent regardless of the medium—newspapers, magazines, Internet, and television. Of these, I want to talk about an article I saw in a newspaper and television—the former because it was this article that made me think about the culture of death, and the latter because the most popular television shows are about violence.

On Saturday, March 25th of this year, a gunman in Seattle murdered six people and injured two more at a party. He then shot himself. The following Thursday, March 30th, the Stranger, a weekly newspaper in Seattle, had the murder as its main story. The article itself is a standard investigative piece: it was mostly a rehash of what happened and included interviews with those who attended the party and survived, other witnesses, and the police.

What really perturbed me was not the article itself but the description of the article in the table of contents (click on the picture to get a full-sized view):

The first paragraph is a self-congratulatory piece about how great their coverage of the slaying was:

"... With their [the Stranger journalists] coverage of the slaying on Seattle's Capitol Hill, the writers and editors of the The Stranger have managed to elevate this publication from a scandal sheet devoted to the baser instincts of its readership into a publication worthy of not just your attention, but your respect."

The egocentric attitude continues in the second paragraph (the journalists' names that covered the tragedy are even BOLD-FACED):

"... From the paper's moment-by-moment Internet coverage of this tragedy (via The Stranger's normally abysmal and childish web log, "Slog") to the pieces now in print, The Stranger's work this past week has been uncharacteristically meritorious. It can be argued —indeed, it has been argued in a series of e-mails I received from unnamed editors of a competing weekly publication in Seattle—that The Stranger was only able to cover this tragedy as effectively as it has due to the feverish attention it has long lavished on Seattle's wastrels, "at-risk youth", disc jockeys, binge drinkers, drug users, and other residents of the city's demimonde. ..."

Not a single mention of the people who were killed! Unbelievable... Apparently for the editor of The Stranger, this was just a story. People died, but that's the way it goes, right? Now I understand their job is to report the news, but at the very least they could have BOLD-FACED the victims' names instead.

I'll probably be sued for having a portion of the newspaper on this site without The Stranger's permission, but the indifference shown towards the victims of the murder is simply atrocious and must be disclosed.

With respect to television, it is discouraging to see that out of the top twenty shows, so many deal with murder: CSI, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY, The Unit, Cold Case, Criminal Minds, among many others that are not listed. A reasonable question to ask is—does it have an effect on real violence? I remember writing an article about violence and television back in the seventh grade. I think the conclusion was that the evidence for a link was inconclusive. I suspect that there isn't much of a link (these shows are also popular in Canada and their violence is miniscule compared to ours). Even so, I don't understand why so many people watch these shows. Maybe it's just a matter of my own changing taste? I used to watch Miami Vice back in the 1980s when I was a teenager. Actually, I recently acquired the DVDs of the first two seasons. Still, I feel that show had a much better script, wasn't as gruesome, and was more about the story rather than the acts of violence. You almost never saw blood in Miami Vice, but the shows today are full of gory scenes. There is a difference.

Which brings me to another point: it's fine to show murder on primetime television, but not female breasts. That makes completely no sense, and it is true that the FCC makes arbitrary decisions and is at the mercy of religious and decency activists. Here in Seattle, I remember a year or so ago a guy hosted a late-night show on a local public channel (Seattle Channel?) that showed some nudity and sex. Immediately, many parents protested. In an interview, the guy said that nudity and sex are natural and that there wasn't enough sex on television but there was too much violence. I have to agree with him. And teenagers who want to watch nudity will do it anyway now that's it's so easy to do it via the Internet.

On a final note, I am providing a link to my book review of "The Empire of the Sun". I read the book a couple of weeks ago and it definitely made me think of death, because that's pretty much what this book is about. Death is the only connection to the topic at hand, and so in the future it'll probably also be linked to another topic I discuss.