Violence

A professional football player here in Massachusetts is a person of interest in three murders. It appears he participated in gang activity despite multimillion-dollar contracts which supported an extravagant lifestyle at the expense of the ticket-paying and gambling public. Is this surprising? Not really.

 

Football and hockey are particularly violent team sports. It is arguable that the whole attraction for many spectators is the violence, just as the attraction for race-car spectators is the potential for a burning wreck. This attraction to violence as entertainment runs deep in U.S. culture. It has extended its roots deeper with the successful marketing of murderous computer games to children.

 

Our society has gone from war-loathing in the Vietnam era to war-cheering in the last 10 years. The military, whose job is killing, has once again been elevated to the level of an honored segment of society. The veterans of World War II, like my own father, raised a generation of war-loathing sons who learned the effects of war from their traumatized parents. These sons and daughters took to the streets in the thousands to protest war and advocate peace.

 

Orwellian terrorism has been exploited to restore the military and the domestic police to arrogance. The fear of domestic violence at the hands of the much-touted terrorists is used to excuse slaughter abroad and spying at home. The most peaceful demonstrations in cities are intimidated by disproportionate police presence. The Occupy Movement was an admirable confrontation of this trend. But most Americans cowered in their living rooms and were ambivalent about that cause for socioeconomic justice.

 

Those who are violent in nature and training know the power of violence against the decent and peaceful. Gangster punks have shut down neighborhoods in cities across the U.S. with drive-by shootings of the innocent as well as their own. They have erected a media empire of violence in music, television and films with the aid of unscrupulous agents and promoters. And this empire differs little from the empire of professional sports.

 

Humanism, if based in justice and peace, opposes all forms of violence other than self-defense under direct aggression. Direct aggression, not perceived threat. Therefore, a humanist who practices his beliefs cannot support violent endeavors for money or power. Yes, it is that clear and simple.