On the importance of Violence

The winter finale (somehow now a thing in television) of How to Get Away with Murder aired and we now have an answer to the question of "who pulled the trigger".

Now some of you reading might not watch this show (but you should, you really should) so I won't post any spoilers here. What I want to talk about is the larger issue of violence in the media.

For years I have heard that television and movies is becoming more violent and that this will destroy our youth and make our society more barbaric.

Well as an author of a pretty violent book series, Beneath the Mask of Sanity, I know that the writers of such fiction can often be the subject of vitriol. There are few days that go by where I don't open my email to hear from someone who thinks that I stepped over the line.

All of which is to say that I might be biased in my opinion, but hell, it's my blog and I'll be biased if I want to be.

How to Get Away with Murder, and other shows like it, are popular not because they are violent, but because they do an excellent job of weaving that violence into the very fabric of the story. It comes from the characters, it comes from the situations, it is organic.

And that's the point. Violence is not only an organic part of some of our favorite stories, but it's an organic part of our human nature. How many episodes of How to Get Away with Murder do you think the terrorists who attacked Paris watched? My guess is zero. My guess is that they don't have the time or inclination to watch American television and yet they are violent.

Violent television and books do not make people more violent. Violent television and books are popular because people are already violent. It's part of who we are, and that is mostly an okay thing. It's not okay when someone decides to carry that violence into a real-world scenario and actually hurt others, but while that happens much too often for any of our tastes, it's only a very small percentage of the total population who engage in those acts.

Instead, I posit that violent television and books are a net good for humanity. They offer us a catharsis that is vital to the overall mental health of a society. Deranged minds might pervert things but with or without television and books they will still be deranged and they will still act out.

So do yourself a favor and check out How to Get Away with Murder if you haven't already done so. It's a brilliantly written and acted thriller that I'm sure you and your subconscious will greatly enjoy.