Desensitized? Us?
By Marissa Landrigan
Here at Ithaca College, we as college students get pretty tired of hearing the news media bobbleheads calling us the generation of apathy. Frankly, I’m even more fed up with our denying it. We may not own all the responsibility—mainstream media complacency, governmental connections to big business, and the tendency of political opinion to take the middle ground are all contributing factors—but it’s time to recognize there’s an awful lot we just don’t care about anymore, mostly because we don’t even notice it.
It’s the harsh truth—we’re desensitized in ways that go far beyond the tired old gratuitous sex and media violence fixation. Outrageous things are going on right now that somehow seem normal. Here are just a few of them.
Government-sponsored Torture:
For a few scorching weeks, the American public gasped collectively in the privacy of their homes at the nausea-inducing photos from Abu Ghraib. But it was a burst of flame, a very temporary outrage—a news story that has all but disappeared. It certainly provoked no further discussion or concern over the happenings at Guantanamo Bay or the treatment of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq.
A picture of torture may have outraged us, but the torture itself did not. Although torture may now be the de facto U.S. policy, the debate at home seems to put more emphasis on whether the media breached national security rather than show concern about the fact that our government is TORTURING PEOPLE.
Presidential Lying:
Yes, It has been a mainstream joke for as long as I can remember. We impeached Clinton over his perjury about his illicit Lewinsky happenings, but the really frightening part is that while there was moral outrage over the denial of a blowjob, Bush’s lies about weapons of mass destruction and an Iraqi connection to 9/11 have basically gotten a free pass. Lies about sexual matters led to impeachment while lies that start wars have been ignored.
More importantly, the Bush administration continues to lie. Often. The price of prescription drug benefits, the solvency of social security and the effectiveness of abstinence-only education are all examples of issues where the White House has shaded the truth and mislead the public.
“Fair and Balanced” Journalism Trumping the Pursuit of Truth:
In an age where the country’s most blatantly and publicly biased news media source claims this as their slogan, it is obvious that something important has been tuned out. With an overemphasis on political balance in news stories, it seems the entire idea of journalism is lost. News becomes a simple regurgitation of talking points from opposing sides instead of an honest search for the truth.
Unfortunately this has become the norm in the media and we the public don’t seem to notice how this can affect our perception of the complexities of the issues.
Environmental Destruction:
In a country where you will often hear people remark that they just aren’t sure who to believe about global warming, it doesn’t seem ridiculous to suggest that we are desensitized to the reality of environmental destruction. Even though the vast majority of scientists believe in the reality of climate change, the public mood is often indifferent or confused. Perhaps this is one case where desensitization is not necessarily preceded by acceptance or understanding.
The real possibility is that the gradual and extreme deterioration of the natural world is just too enormous a problem for the average American to grapple with.
This is not to suggest that we’re too stupid, but every day we are bombarded with destructive images, talk of climate change, rainforest clear-cutting, acid rain, unclean water, oil spill and pollution everywhere. We aren’t, however, given nearly enough suggestions for what individuals can do to reverse these trends and it’s all too easy for us to say “it’s not my problem” or “how can one person make any difference whatsoever?”
It’s much easier to shrug it off, so long as we know it’s not going to affect our way of life.
Intolerance/Derogatory Language:
The IC Republicans are laughing at me now. And maybe I will sound naïve, but I honestly think I remember a time when, at least on a liberal college campus, it was really not okay to say the “n-word,” a time when people besides your grandparents would gasp if you called someone a “cunt” or a “fag.”
Maybe the overemphasis on eliminating this kind of language has spurred an upsurge of rebellious use; or maybe, the conservative co-opting of words like “diversity” for their own purposes has stretched the limits of the idea so far that no one can take it seriously anymore. The fight for intellectual diversity is very different than the struggle to end violence against gays, women and racial minorities, and its time we owned up to that. Intolerance, and the misinterpretation of it, is intolerable.
Body Modification:
While there is still some sort of ranking system for the outrageousness of piercings and tattoos, they have worked their way so far up the mainstream that we’re almost never shocked anymore. Sure, a lip piercing is more risqué than an eyebrow or nose piercing, but really, none of them are the rebellious acts they once were. Yet somehow both tattoos and piercings are still obtained as rebellious acts and signs of an alternative lifestyle even though they are often just an 18th birthday present. Interestingly and sadly, these intentional body alterations are more accepted than actual alternative body types.
The Reality of Terrorism:
For a few months, within a certain radius around New York City, America really knew what it felt like to be afraid on our own turf. We learned to fear planes, our neighbors, the liberals, Muslims, and all kinds of threats, both real and perceived; we learned to look out for warning signs and attacks from the sky. But somewhere in the last few years, the distance between us and the actual attacks of September 11th has grown. The Bush administration grabbed the idea and ran with it, bringing it up in every speech, every justification for the Iraq war, even to pass tax cuts-—so much so that terrorism is no longer a real fear, just a distant idea. Despite all the bumper stickers promising the contrary, we have forgotten, and all we have left to show for it is a rebirth of racial profiling and a color-coded alert system.
Our Role in Democracy:
This is perhaps the most tired of all accusations—and maybe that’s why we’ve become desensitized to it. We’ve been bombarded with voting campaigns from MTV to the point where many of us have started to just block them out.
But on this issue, like all the others, it’s time to step up; our generation still votes at a rate of less than half of all eligible voters. We make jokes about all of these things, but they’re serious issues and ones we have the right and responsibility to change. It is sad that we may be desensitized to the basic fact that our millions of voices and votes can make a difference if we actually choose to use them.
Marissa Landrigan is a senior writing major who is a paradox sensitive to her own desensitization. E-mail her at mlandri1@ithaca.edu.