I just saw a news report on careworkers caught beating mentally handicapped men on a cell phone video. Apparently the video was taken by one of the offenders, and was discovered when he sold the the phone to a co-worker. That co-worker wisely reported the incident to authorities.
While the report was full of sickening details, the part that resonated most for me was a quote from the video. The “videographer” said to his co-conspiritor, “hit him for me”; they apparently felt these men needed discipline for some perceived offense or trespass (no doubt related to their condition). As someone who’s worked with children, I hate the idea of people in positions of authority taking out their frustrations on the innocents they’re charged with keeping.
If I’m honest with myself, I find I’m quite insensitive to violence. Where does this come from? I haven’t been exposed to all that much actual violence. I find it hard to believe that media violence would cause my insensitivity, because media sexuality hasn’t had a parallel effect. I suspect it could come from the “culture of death” I find myself in. Human life is constantly devalued everywhere I look, and I feel this is something I must guard myself against. While I intellectually place a high value on human life, I know that many of my actionable beliefs are such that I’m only half-conscious of them. I hope to grow self-aware enough to encourage sensitivity about the things I truly want to value.
It’s a dangerous culture we live in, physically and intellectually.
