confirm Marshall’s conclusion that the vast majority of combatants throughout history, at the moment of truth when they could and should kill the enemy, have found themselves to be “conscientious objectors.”
Taking Off the Safety Catch
Slightly more controversial than claims of
High firing rates resulting from modern training/conditioning techniques can also be seen in Holmes’s observation of British firing rates in the Falklands and in FBI data on law-enforcement firing rates since the introduction of modern training techniques in the late 1960s. And initial reports from researchers using formal and informal surveys to replicate Marshall’s and Glenn’s findings all indicate universal concurrence.
A Worldwide Virus of Violence
The observation that violence in the media is causing violence in our streets is nothing new. The American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association have both made unequivocable statements about the link between media violence and violence in our society. The APA, in its 1992 report
There are people who claim that cigarettes don’t cause cancer, and we know where their money is coming from. There are also people who claim that media violence does not cause violence in society, and we know which side of
An understanding of this “virus of violence” must begin with an assessment of the magnitude of the problem: ever-increasing incidence of violent crime, in spite of the way that medical technology is holding down the murder rate, and in spite of the role played by an ever-growing number of incarcerated violent criminals and an aging population in holding down the violence.
It is not just an American problem, it is an international phenomenon. In Canada, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand, and all across Europe, assault rates are skyrocketing. In countries like India, where there is no significant infrastructure of medical technology to hold it down, the escalating murder rate best reflects the problem. Around the world the result is the same: an epidemic of violence.
Note that what a nation elects to report under the headings of “murder” and “assault” can vary from nation to nation. For example, Scotland’s totals include acts that the United States might classify as “manslaughter,” thereby inflating its numbers. Therefore, comparisons between nations are of limited value. What is important is the
How It Works: Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency
When people become angry, or frightened, they stop thinking with their forebrain (the mind of a human being) and start thinking with their midbrain (which is indistinguishable from the mind of an animal).
That is what is used when training firemen and airline pilots to react to emergency situations: precise replication of the stimulus that they will face (in a flame house or a flight simulator) and then extensive shaping of the desired response to that stimulus. Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, stimulus-response. In the crisis, when these individuals are scared out of their wits, they react properly and they save lives.
This is done with anyone who will face an emergency situation, from children doing a fire drill in school to pilots in a simulator. We do it because, when people are frightened, it works. We do not
It is as though there were two filters that we have to go through to kill. The first filter is the forebrain. A hundred things can convince your forebrain to put a gun in your hand and go to a certain point: poverty, drugs, gangs, leaders, politics, and the social learning of violence in the media — which is magnified when you are from a broken home and are searching for a role model. But traditionally all these things have slammed into the resistance that a frightened, angry human being confronts in the midbrain. And except with sociopaths (who, by definition, do not have this resistance), the vast, vast majority of circumstances are not sufficient to overcome this midbrain safety net. But if you are conditioned to overcome these midbrain inhibitions, then you are a walking time bomb, a pseudosociopath, just waiting for the random factors of social interaction and forebrain rationalization to put you at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Another way to look at this is to make an analogy with AIDS. AIDS does not kill people; it simply destroys the immune system and makes the victim vulnerable to death by other factors. The “violence immune system” exists in the midbrain, and conditioning in the media creates an “acquired deficiency” in this immune system. With this weakened immune system, the victim becomes more vulnerable to violence-enabling factors, such as poverty, discrimination, drug addiction (which can provide powerful motives for crime in order to fulfill real or perceived needs), or guns and gangs (which can provide the means and “support structure” to commit violent acts).
Canada is an example of a nation that we have always considered to be relatively crime-free and stable. Stringent gun laws, comparatively intact family structure, beloved and paternalistic government. But (surprise!) Canada has the exact same problem that we do. According to the Canadian Center for Justice, since 1964 the number of murders has doubled per capita, and “attempted murders” increased from 6 per million in 1964 to 40 per million in 1992. And assaults went up from 209 per 100,000 in 1964 to 940 per 100,000 in 1992. This is almost exactly the same ratio as the increase in violent crime in the United States. Vast numbers of Canadians have caught the virus of violence, the “acquired violence immune deficiency,” and as they ingest America’s media violence, they are paying the inevitable price.
This process is occurring around the world in nations that are exposed to media violence. The one exception is Japan.