Violence And Its Effects On Society

Society has been subjected to many violent acts over the course of its history. Although violence is immoral and wrong, somehow people everyday condone and commit violence for countless reasons. Many Hollywood films glorify mindless violence to their advantage and captivate audiences through its entertaining shock value and rake large box office profits. Car chases, crashes and glorified gladiator sword fights are all familiar scenes in which violence is portrayed in an unrealistic glamorised manner.

Acts of violence are detrimental when regarding its effects on human emotion. When exposed to too much violence, a person’s perception on society and even themselves begins to be altered. Nevertheless, just as violence can be disadvantageous to people, it can also be seen as an advantage as it causes citizens to realize that change needs to occur. In “Great to Watch,” the author, Maggie Nelson, discusses how society, especially Americans, have become desensitized to violence. Nelson also goes into depth to explain how society has become accustomed to violence due to the fact that people are exposed to it on a daily basis. In addition, Beth Loffreda discusses and explains the effects that a violent hate crime had on the town of Laramie, Wyoming

amount of the violence. My children at times were abused for defending me. I knew

Violence is a necessary proponent to history. Without violence we as human species would struggle to evolve and the United States would currently not exist. In the decade preceding the civil war, sectional and political tensions regarding the expansion of slavery into new territories grew larger. With the emergence of the Republican Party in the mid ninetieth century, the United States experienced a sectional pull between those who were pro-slavery Democrats, and those who were anti-slavery expansion Republicans. Emotions regarding the expansion of slavery yielded barbaric acts across the country including the canning of Charles Sumner, the hanging of John Brown, and the violence that construed in the Kansas territory. Each of the victims were white, were antislavery, and fell victim to the violence of a pro-slavery Democrat outraged by their actions. These acts of violence swayed many Democrats voters to the Republican Party setting the platform for success for Republican Presidential Candidate Abraham Lincoln who won the election of 1860 with 180 electoral votes to Southern Democratic candidate Breckenridge 's 72.

In a world that is continuously changing in every aspect of its existences, there has arrived a controversy involving prehistoric societies and modern societies. Some scholars believe that prehistoric societies were more violent than the present modern societies; whereas other scholars on the opposite side of the argument believe that today human beings are living in a far more violent society than those who preceded. The two sides of the ongoing debate have published several books and articles defending their standpoints. They both present very compelling evidence based on historical and recent data and use interdisciplinary fields in order to support their claims.

Structural violence has become a frequently used instrument in the word of systemic oppression. This type of oppression and unfair limitations of civil, criminal and basic human rights can cause suffering and death to many innocent lives. Sociologist Johan Galtung was the one who developed this theory of structural violence. Indicated in one of his articles “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research”, structural violence is the “systematic constraint on human potential due to economic and political structures” (Galtung, 1969, p.177). Galtung is telling the readers that certain groups of people are systematically being limited to resources in society either directly or indirectly. Structural violence has been described as the “most basic of fundamental form of violence, as it is expressive of the conditions of society that reproduce mass violations of personhood twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week” (Barak, 2003, p.113). This demonstrates that structural violence is an on-going way to steal ones opportunities in society. Racism, sexism, classism and ageism are all examples of structural violence. It can be visible and invisible and can cause disadvantages for people who are considered poor or a minority within society. Structural violence is extremely important as it could lead to poverty, starvation, sicknesses and deaths. Although structural violence is a powerful and common method of ferocity, there are agents of change who locally and globally contribute to the

I. Introduction: The world today is violent and is riddled with violence. Through media, society becomes continuous observers of violence. With this exposure, one may enable to grow accepting the act of brutality. This will be observed as something normal, thus, emotional numbness begins to set in.

Violence? What is a world without violence? Peaceful, yet a reality that will never come to sight of acceptance. We as citizens of this American civilization are protected by the police, who are protected by the government, which in turn is a broken cycle of trust and protection in an us against them society. Is it safe to say the purpose of the American police and Sherriff department is to have a unique partnership with the community in accordance with the constitutional rights to not only provide a safe environment, preserve the peace but to also reduce the fear and enforce the laws in which the government has set forth for us all to abide by? The protection of the American nation has converted from the officer behind the uniform and badge to the bullet behind the trigger, corruption of distress at its finest. The war against the police (them) and the people (us) has raised the terms “extensive force” and “innocent killings” in the media spotlight in everyday problems.

At first, one would not realize the pervasiveness of violence. However, after having discussed this topic over the semester, violence has come to be referred to as an epidemic. After just a few lectures, we began analyzing different texts and learned how society has normalized the use of violence by transforming violent acts into forms of entertainment through various media outlets; in turn, causing desensitization to violence. Through media exposure and awareness of existing societal roles, I have come to realize that violence is a bigger issue than initially thought. Moreover, the opinions that I originally held at the beginning of this course have come to change after viewing topics through an enlightened outlook.

However, not only our international friends all around the world are giving us a violent culture title, but also we are socializing ourselves with violence. With several reported nonsense murders, celebrities committing domestic violence, teenagers hitting each other streets, widespread bullying in school, America is really struggling to explain why violence is so much a part of our daily experience. Ironically, the word violence is no longer narrowed to physical abuses that we used to expand our nation to the West. As the growth of motion picture technology and the Internet, violence turns into digital forms causing many negative influences on our young generation. Violence now becomes an indispensable element of American social media daily basis: from shooting news to cyber bully causing suicides. We are so used to with it that we may not even realize that violence is all around. We

In the 20th century, violence was a pervasive form of social and political change. From the two world wars to the numerous conflicts of the Cold War, it played a significant role in the creation, reformation, and protection of many nations. However, there were many interpretations of violence, as historic situations influenced the interpretation of the subject in leaders and common people alike. In places where it was an everyday norm, like war-torn Europe, one was led to believe that using it was the only path to victory. On the contrary, in places where the horrors of war were not a constant and pressing threat, like India, violence was seen as unnecessary and barbaric. Though these historic views can be organized on a vast spectrum, they

Many can say that humans are naturally violent, especially when when they are put in stressful situations. On several occasions we have proven when worst comes to worst we usually end up making the wrong decisions because in some way that seems easier to us . For example we’ve started wars, riots and genocides. Not to say that there aren’t any people who haven’t resorted to violence but generally speaking most humans will participate or at least agree to these violent actions if it can benefit them. Even though they know it’s wrong.

Structural violence is systematic ways in which social structures harm people by excluding the disadvantage individuals. In our society people are valued differently based on race, gender, class, income level, and power. Privileged have better access to education, healthcare, jobs, and quality housing. Our society disallows the unprivileged people to access these services, which cause illness. Racism is one of the most important scale of social forces that determine who falls ill and who has access to the healthcare. People can be at the top of the social gradient by having a good education, good income, living in a good neighborhood, but if you are a person of color, no matter your social economic status you are more likely to have worse heath conditions than whites. It is easier to see the violence when there is a physical attack, however, structural violence and the suffer it causes is mostly invisible because structural violence is normalized by institutions.

Structural violence is defined as a systematic way in which social structures harm people or put them at certain disadvantages over others. It is ‘structural’ because arrangements are made within the political and economic levels of the social world that favors one person while acting as a disadvantage to another. It is ‘violent’ because it can cause injury to people. One major example of this is the major crisis we’re seeing in Flint, Michigan.

In the book Critique of Violence ,author Walter describes Violence as "The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, male development, or deprivation .The violence that is portrayed in the media has been debated for decades ,and it has rose a question about how does it influence the youth?. From movies to video games society has been accustom to seeing violence in their everyday entertainment. Since children are easy to be influence by their environment, it is safe to say that violence in the media can and will contribute to violent behavior.