Culture of Violence or Violence against Culture?
We live in a violent world. Every day we watch, hear, or read about horrible cataclysms, acts of terrorism, wars, and crimes. All this pours down on us in a never-ending dirty flood from movie and television screens, newspaper and magazine pages. We have grown accustomed to such horrors and often fail to notice things that would be regarded with disbelief back in the days of enlightened morals.
This article contains my reflections on the proceedings of a seminar entitled “The Responsibility of the Mass Media in the Modern Culture of Violence,” which was held on Oct. 15 at Ukrainian Catholic University.
The media’s coverage of horrible events is a particularly acute issue, and it is high time to do something about it — and in an active way. However, the stumbling block is its mass nature. There is an old axiom to the effect that the masses create the media and the media influence the masses. The result is a vicious circle. People want the circus, which the media willingly provides. People watch it and are degraded, because the circus is becoming increasingly primitive, humor is getting cheaper, and reality is becoming increasingly cruel. Any privately owned media adapts to the tastes and preferences of its audience, with all but specialized ones adhering to a certain format (generally a stereotype). In the race to audiences, the media publish sensational photos that impress the viewer not with their beauty but cruelty and horrors.
According to my personal observations, most Ukrainian media information has been focused on the presidential campaign, the war in Iraq, and acts of terrorism. And the more horrifying the story, the larger audience it attracts. A process of visualizing evil is underway, and the building of its positive image. In this sense I would object to the notion culture of violence, because violence and culture have nothing in common in their classical meaning. Violence cannot be cultured; it is possible to introduce culture forcefully, but the forceful factor remains just that — use of force-and it bodes no good.
In fact, one should look to the distant historical past for the roots of violence against people. If one considers this problem globally, a trend emerges; during the twentieth century large numbers of people had first- hand experience of various kinds of dictatorships, and they developed an awareness of force as being an advantage. This has its origins in the Nietzschean theory of “overman” or “superman,” subsequently adopted by Nazi propaganda. There is nothing wrong with the cult of force, unless this cult becomes dictatorial. Dictatorship is when certain people commit acts of violence against others, when an individual commits such acts against several other individuals — or one or several individuals against all the others. Therefore, dictatorship means violence exercised in the presence of a certain number of indicators, among them membership in a certain religion, nation, race, language group, and when the dictator seeks total power.
The mass media have established a dictatorship on a mind-boggling scale. Being monopolists in the public information market, they occasionally act like dictators when they convey information to their audiences as consumers, precisely because of their monopoly status. Indeed, a consumer can switch to a different channel or open another newspaper, but this does not change the situation, because every channel and newspaper adheres to its own editorial policy, meaning that events are portrayed the way that best suits the editors/owners, in order to increase audience numbers by feeding it hair-raising stories. The only way out of this situation is to reform our mentality. This is a long and complex process and no one can control it at present; in fact, no one is sure that this process even exists.
Let’s get back to our realities. A powerful albeit concealed propaganda campaign of violence has been underway in Ukraine for the past several months. Mykola Kniazhytsky, who gave a paper during the seminar, says that the entire election campaign is built on violence. Another abnormal phenomenon is the Nobel Prize nomination for unleashing a war, even a war aimed against a dictatorship. War for the sake of peace is yet another distorted notion.
In the end, however, it all boils down to man. People who act like wild beasts commit acts of violence. Here the church and morals may be of help, but everything ultimately depends on us, because we decide what is good and what is evil. Distinguishing between them takes brains and heart. If man behaves as a human, then these two attributes are germane to him. Therefore, the road to culture and spirituality lies through our hearts; good must be in demand: only then will the media start portraying what is good. But no one will relieve the media of the responsibility of acting contrarily, just as everyone will be grateful to them for positive information.
