Christy Chung

Section 3

15 October 2015

Week 5 blog

In “Empire of Death and the Plague of Civic Violence,” Darrell Y. Hamayoto writes about the prevalence of murder in civilian society. Hamayoto characterizes murder as “a startlingly mundane social fact” (278). He likens the brutal act to other aspects of life such as love and friendship. Like these other of elements of life, murder is shockingly commonplace. I agree with Hamayoto’s stance on the pervasiveness of violence and murder in daily life. Reading about the grotesque stories of murderers like Jeffrey Dahmer and Jack Wayne Reeves did not elicit a response from me that I would expect. While angry and disgusted, I did not feel shocked at their heinous crimes. The public is ceaselessly exposed to violence in movies, video games, and even on the news, it is not surprising how increasingly desensitized society has become to acts as atrocious as murder.

Reading this essay brought to mind the effect of the exposure of the Vietnam War to the American public. The Vietnam War was the first televised war in America. For the first time, Americans were exposed to images and videos of wounded shoulders and life on the battle field. Images, like the one attached below, evoked rage and shock in Americans. 

Source: http://voxpopulisphere.com/2015/04/05/andy-piascik-looking-back-at-the-vietnam-war/

My questions are: 

- With exposure to violence and murder so customary in our daily lives, would similar images published in this age have the same effect as they did during the Vietnam War?

- Is it possible to live in a peaceful, nonviolent society?