“Evolution is blind and drink. It stumbles along through trial and error and emerges with a barely adequate excuse of a being.”
– Dinal, from The Orville episode, “Mortality Paradox”
I realize violence has always existed in fictional tales. This is nothing new. However, I would argue that physical violence of our current era in movies, specifically, is rather extreme compared to what would be considered violence in old epic poems. Please keep in mind that I this as someone wrote my master’s thesis dealing with social justice in the Hebrew Bible from a feminist perspective, so yes, I know just how dark older writings were.
(Let’s just stop for a moment to allow 99% of you reading this who think you know how bad the Bible is to realize that you really don’t know just how bad.)
Against my better judgment I watched The Hateful Eight (2015). I grew out those types of films ages ago. First, I drifted away from them by digging further into instructive-introspective-creative indie movies (when those films where still made), and then fell hard for French New Wave cinema, before falling into a years-now long love affair with science fiction. Back to the point, the extreme violence of The Hateful Eight is highly disturbing for me. I am more than certain that previous generations (let’s not think 50 years ago, but 500 years ago) would not be able to accept this as a real form of entertainment, not even during the extreme violence of Catholic rule.
I realize to most people it isn’t disturbing. At any other time in my life, I would negate it, proffer up to a failed civilization, or the inherent violence that institutionalized in our society. However, it is possible (and I do mean just possible, which is why this is just a memo) that being desensitized to violence in fiction is an aid to the individual and society. On the surface watching a movie like The Hateful Eight while there is a genocide in Palestine is beyond subhuman. Genocide, while much of the West covering for Israel, with very few powerful people attempting to hold Israel accountable and even their attempts are unlikely to have real results.
However, sometimes we have to stop and be the adult in the room. Humans are simple, sensitive, slow to act, slow to gain understanding, and if most people consciously absorbed all the violence in the world as the reality that it is, the drive to survive would likely be diminished. Thinking about how strong the will in humanity is to survive, it makes sense fictional violence would be compartmentalized. It might be a healthy way of accept the violence in our society, maybe (I really don’t think so but I am going to follow this thought to its conclusion). I am reminded of the Star Trek: Voyager episode, “Muse,” (2000) where Kelis the poet (playwright) tells B’Ellana that before there was theatre, at the same stage where they now tell stories, there was human sacrifice. Kelis elaborates that no one knew exactly when, but one year a play substituted the human sacrifice. I realize, this is classic Star Trek ideology of how social evolution takes place and is not really representative of the nuances of human societal evolution, if it even exists in first place.
That’s right. I challenge the idea that social evolution is real. Yes, of course, life is much better for many people now. For some peoples life is significantly better, of course. One of the schools I attended during my undergraduate years was an HBCU (this was before the programs at this school were watered down, which is a more widespread problem in education, but that is beyond the scope of this post). Change is real. That much can’t be argued. What evidence do we have that social evolution is real? However, returning to what we all learn in Psychology 101, the human brain just needs to process things. I am not intending to suggest that we need violence in fiction to accept violence in real life. Please don’t misunderstand me. However, it is possible – possible – that the way we accept violence in fictional tales has developed over this need to compartmentalize the reality of the world we live in.
Most people think they are made of stronger stuff than they really are. People have always said that young people think they are indestructible, but the sense of being absolved from being a vulnerable human is not limited by age. People never really stop doing that. Again, it is possible, this is an evolutionary survival tactic. I am not saying it is fair. It is not fair. Some people prosper while others die or suffer extremely. It is not just. It is not moral. But I am old enough to understand that humanity is not moral. Morality is an idea. While it may be truth, it is not reality.
If anything I’ve suggested here as possible is true, that does not fair well for us. I have written about how I believe society can overcome violence, how we can move past it, but with one thing after another I continue to find holes in my own argument. If humans will continue to accept gratuitous violence while ignoring real violence, and if this really is an evolutionary tactic, then we are doomed as a species. As Dinal states in The Orville episode, “Mortality Paradox,” – “Evolution is blind and drink. It stumbles along through trial and error and emerges with a barely adequate excuse of a being.”