"Robert J. Bradbury" wrote:
> > As was the US in the 1950's. Crime was amazingly low then. Isn't it
> > wonderful when the media is dedicated to keeping the populatin
> > programmed with the governments line?
>
> This raises an interesting point. Certainly there was relatively
> little gun control at that time and people were not (to my knowledge)
> shooting up high schools or streets. So, we have several possibilities
> (a) media, esp. movies or books that "glorify" violence in some
> way as a solution to problems; (b) changes in technology that
> make the use of guns "sexier", there is much more appeal to
> shooting up a cafeteria or a house if you can do it at 10
> rounds a second; or (c) changes in culture (drugs as an escape
> for people who view themselves as trapped in a "have-not" situation)
> leading to the perception of risks (to our children) resulting
> in an escalating war mentality between the people who want
> to supply the drugs vs. the people who want to suppress that
> supply.
d) Less frequent, less sever punishment; e) More children from broken homes; f) Increases in the size of groups that are prone to violence problems; g) Gun control laws that have the effect of making criminal activity less hazardous.
> > Many asian cultures are counterpoints only because I beleive we are
> > viewing these societies AFTER they have had a chance to utilize a slow
> > rate of genocide over hundreds or thousands of years to weed out the
> > non-conformists, the non-sheep.
>
> I'm not sure we can make this point. If you look at Japanese culture
> there is a history of violence between the Shoguns. They ruled Japan
> from 1192 to 1867, a *very* long period. If during this period,
> warriors were valued, then there would be little "weeding-out".
This valued group formed their own breeding caste, and the type of violence they practiced is a new type of violence. It is organized, disciplined violence. Where warriors are expected to be so obedient that they would commit suicide on command.
So the working caste would be composed of harmless sheep, while the warrior caste would be composed of sheep with fangs. But they would still be sheep, none the less.