Sunday, July 22, 2012

GODS GUNS AND BATMAN



The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Goya



The night before I had been watching Bowling for Columbine (2002) by Michael Moore.

The next day arrived.

 Then came the awful hour of midnight in a movie theater in Colorado, and the collective heart of our nation had been broken once again.

I kept remembering how Charleton Heston looked when he ambled away from Michael Moore at the end of Bowling for Columbine.

 It wasnt Moses or Ben Hur turning his back on Mr. Moore, but it was a smug and surly man.

America talks the good talk about peace and love, and its people are a giving people, but the colors of its flag reflect tragic periods of its footsteps on the tracks of history.

I recalled a quote that says in effect that when a group of men kill it is more acceptable than when killing is done by just one man. 

There are rationalizations for everything.

Each of us has had those moments of violent anger when unthinkable thoughts are thought but never acted upon.

Our conscience and reason halt and cool our hateful and fiery footsteps.

The awareness of violence---whether read in books, heard in songs, or seen in movies and video games---is not the cause of violent acts.

 In fact, it might be argued that these vicarious experiences deter us from doing the horrible things that we read, see, or hear.

 Unless we are predisposed to do so. 

And that word  predisposed  possesses  quite a few nuances that would need to be researched.

No, it something else that makes an individual pull triggers to kill others.

I remember reading that killers who kill are killing others instead of killing their own hated (and hateful) selves.

If homicide is engraved on the DNA of a mind, then the blueprint is already made for violent acts.

Predisposition?

Nevertheless, what was done at the Century Aurora 16 in Colorado is horrifying and overwhelming, whatever the explanation.





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