Binary compulsion accounts for the prevalence of violence in media and history

When we rail about violence in media we fail to see what the basis of violence is. We could end the domination of violence by a simple action of the mind. We could do it by a choice of values. Below you will find a list of values that range from the highest to the lowest and most scurrilous

Conspiracy thinking

The world today is at sea because we have no universally accepted basis for determining what good is and what evil is. People like President Trump gravitate to conspiracy thinking to explain what they cannot comprehend. Others profess they have no conscience.

Others just wing it. But there is a simple measure. Evil is harm and hurt and all people are deserving of the same treatment. Beginning at that point the following chart indicates what most would agree as at least an approximate description of the spectrum of choices that lie within all of us.

Now look at dominant culture

All we have to do is see the offerings to understand the vantage point. If we see things in binary, us-against-them, protagonist-antagonist terms we will have no problem saying that we need to arm up, to man up.

to hold our own in a world of predators and aliens. We can look at anything that even hints of goodness and skewer it as utopian political correctness, to collapse into one pejorative two beautiful put-downs.

Our mayhem-rich blockbusters

The inventiveness of our violent, special-effects blockbusters, the attractions of their stars, all these accustom us to the world where violence is taken for granted.

Over to the side, we have some faint whispers that football breeds concussions and that people die sometimes. Money follows the crowd and the crowd accepts the violence and so everything sits as it sits. But gradually the voices of reason grow in volume and the conflict moves into a triangular or triadic mode. It is no longer yes or no.

It is let us find a way to move beyond this. We will have our sports but we will not have concussions as a general rule.

Make violence prehistoric

So ponder the chart and enjoy the Marvel and other offerings of the binary entertainment industry. Be aware that this is a century of a sea change. Tech is moving at a gallop to show us new ways forward. It will soon move to what Facebook is calling the external world When that happens the thinking that has been and is being expended on cybercommunities will become more and more tangible. And this century may, and perhaps will become the one in which violence joins cannibalism as a human taboo. We will still have our Marvel Special Effects but they will be about prehistory.