Are humans becoming desensitized or more sensitive?

I don't know whether to be offended on a personal level or as a human being.

I wanted to call this thread 'How to make humans less violent'

But then i ask myself, are we as people becoming more desen­si­tized to violence?

Or is that just an emotion i feel due to the recent school shooting.

If we look back in history to WW2 are people are less violent now then they were in those day's?

Just to be clear, is what just an emotion you feel due to the recent school shooting?

Gilly, just that people in general are more desen­si­tized to vio­lence now day's...

Yet,when tragedy's like the school shooting happen people's emotion's seem to get touched...

I don't know if we are more or less sensitive as I have nothing to base my measurements on.

I think people have always been horrified at senseless killing and I think that there have probably always been insensitive wankers out there - we just hear more about it as more and more people are given a voice via the internet.

i also think that we must take into account shifts in societal perspectives and shifts in how 'big' our world has become compared to previous generations.

.......... wrote:
What makes you think we are more desensitized?

I would argue that we are now more 'detached' from extreme violence rather than 'desensitised'.

Genuine violence is filtered out of our lives atm through broadcast media.
Even warfare has becoming more and more remote in it's execution.
Generally speaking, we don't even kill our own food anymore and most would be repulsed by that act alone.

thoreau wrote:
But what about the day's of Rome when people killed each other for sport to the cheers of giant crowds...

www.essortment.com/roman-colosseum-gladiators-39732.html

"The Romans loved to go to these bloody warfares. In the city of Rome, these events were held in the Colosseum. This structure is as large as a modern football stadium. Later on cages and dens for wild animals were built under the arena for added attractions. The Romans loved to watch fights between animals, as well as fights between animals and people.

But the most popular fights of all were combats between the powerful gladiators. When the Christians refused to sacrifice to the emperor and worship his false gods, they were accused of treason and thrown into the arena to combat wild beasts. When one member of a family was accused the whole family would be thrown into the lions den, small children included"

Guevarista wrote:
That's along the lines of what I was thinking when i made this thread...

And it's not even coming from a depressed perspective...

Same could be said for society in general...

With that Roman quotation in mind, do you think people today would flock to the Colosseum?

I guess there are still Bull fights in Spain etc

.......... wrote:
That answers your own question

no

.......... wrote:
The quote you've selected displays flawed reasoning on several counts.

For a kick off, "it's not even like we look for the good anymore," is just a broad statement with no basis in truth that I can see.

Secondly, if we were 'desensitised' to tragedy & disaster, why on earth would we make anything out of it? We'd consider it the norm, and not worth comment, as opposed to being upset by these things.

Thirdly, why wouldn't we look for more insidious things, if there's reason to think they're going on behind the scenes? Would the more 'sensitive' (or even sensible) reaction to be to turn a blind eye, and cock a deaf ear? Not in my book it wouldn't.