We wonder.
We look at the world at times and just sadly shake our heads and wonder.
We wonder what is wrong with a world where morality seems at times to have slipped its anchor.
A world where our televisions make our children witnesses to thousands of murders by the time they enter kindergarten.
A world where we are entertained by death without consequence in first-person shooter video games.
Violence is offered to us as a distraction and seldom are we given the opportunity to build the skills and knowledge around peace and cooperation that would build our communities rather than destroy them.
The most recent “upgrade” of the video game Grand Theft Auto allows players to have sex with and then kill prostitutes. This in a province where so many families were made to suffer beyond understanding by the actions of Robert Pickton; and it goes on—the missing women along the Highway of Tears comes to mind.
But we can’t really blame the games and the media alone because they only respond to the marketplace, which after all, is all of us.
It is somehow tragic that the public accepts such crap as the recent movie The Interview as being something that would entertain us. A movie where, unfortunately, assassination is ladled out as comedy. Sadly few stood to question that, while many stood to cry out for the rights of free speech.
But with rights also come responsibilities.
A cartoon character from many years ago named Pogo probably had it right when he said, “We have met the enemy and he is us.