#667

anyone can write a blog.

from wikipedia:
Systematic desensitization is a type of behavioral therapy used in the field of psychology to help effectively overcome phobias and other anxiety disorders.

This process has effectively taken place in America. Think about it. I am almost to the point that I can say I am almost 40 years old. The extreme violence I watched as a child was contained within Looney Toons and Tom and Jerry. The kids now have video games that have been created with the help of Special Forces. Yeah, that's Kobe Bryant. Look at BMX tricks. Doing a back flip now is almost a beginner move, what a tail whip was for us. You learn from your elders when you are younger than they were when they learned.

The News.
Think about how cameras are everywhere, literally. Next time you go into a public restroom, see if some one is texting. If they are, the camera on their phone is working. Seriously, cuz they all have cameras. They are everywhere. Now, you tell me if some amazing news thing happened, it wouldn't have a hundred uploads on youtube and viewed a million times in 24 hours. I'll bet you that somebody has a picture of that shooting and might not even know it.

What am I getting at? We have seen it all. Everything that has ever been recorded has been seen by us as a collective. Watching the Space Shuttle blow up the first time you saw it was almost overwhelming, but seeing it now, the impact is gone. I can prove it. Watch the Trade Center get hit by the first plane. Yeah, still a little rough, but doesn't have the same feeling. Now, I am in now way saying it has no meaning, and that was some really fucked up shit, but it isn't the same because you have seen it before. You were emotionally overwhelmed the first time you saw the film, but it has dimmed because it is nine years later.

The movies of our childhood:
The violence of the original Psycho looks like the Three Stooges compared to SAW, and that's what they had to do in order to keep you coming back and spending money at the movies. TV can almost show Psycho uncut after the evening News, but 30 years ago? No way.

I think society at large has gone through the process of self-inflicted, subconscious, systematic desensitization over the last few centuries, and I do not think this is the first time. That's what's wrong, and always will be, until we wake up to it.

...and we will, eventually. Whether we like it or not, it's inevitable.