Several days ago I went home for a quick lunch and to accompany my hotdog and apple juice meal I turned on the TV and "boom" one of my favourite programs was on. Deadliest Warrior, a program that's aired on Spike TV and brings to life the most feared and ferocious warriors in world history. The hosts of the show invite two teams to pit their knowledge of weaponry and savagery against each other with real demonstrations. Of course human beings are substituted with slabs of beef or an entire pig and destruction is measured using various scientific techniques and equipment. A lot of times the teams get into a verbal battle of who was better and more vicious while the hosts drool at the destruction some of the weapons centuries ago could do
About into my third bite, I got a thinking, what is behind our obsession with violence. We see it every day, from the 350 pound athletes of the grid iron bashing helmets, to the fist full of punishment dished out by UFC fighters. We reveille in it and always tend to come back for more. A hockey game in most people's eye isn't a hockey game if a fight doesn't break out. And one of my best friends has taken solace in the video game series Battlefield, switching from his sports video game preference which I still have today. Each time we talk via Xbox he preaches the thrill of Battlefield and the pleasure he gets from unloading limitless rounds of virtual magazines. Plus he always chips in with, "You better get with it, you know how many I've converted to shooters." So we soak up this love of killing and beating in almost every direction we look.
As "Deadliest Warrior" proves, it's nothing new and with each episode it goes into history and brings out Gladiators, Samurais, Vikings, Zulu and Apache warriors. In addition they take modern day fighters and meticulously pick apart their weakness and differences. Granted theses warriors didn't ask for this and each culture at the time had its struggles which may have warranted violence. Face it, the human race only gets less crazy when it comes on to world domination and other mind boggling instances of oppression. But one thing remains we have to feed this hunger for blood just as how the Caesars of Rome had to nourish the states lust for blades piercing skin and decapitation. The movie theatre, sporting events, video games and a myriad of other forms of entertainment has become the modern day Coliseum.
Clinical psychiatristand author Dale Archer says the suspicion of disbelief is entertaining.He wrotethe New York Timesbestseller, "Better Than Normal: How What Makes You Different Can Make You Exceptional" and is a regular contributor to Psychology Today one of my favourite publications. He mentioned astudydone by the Indiana University School of Medicine in a recent article in Psychology Today. The study examined young men and violent media exposure.
"There werevisible alterations in MRI brain scansafter only one week of playing a violent video game. In particular, there was a significant decrease in the activation of prefrontal portions of thebrainand a greater activation of the amygdale," Archer pointed out in his article. And for those who didn't go to neuroscience class last Wednesday, theamygdala is the part of the brain that deals with basic emotion and instinctive actions. So this is where depression, anger and aggression are all triggered. See the connection?
For all my female readers, I know its men that feed into most of this but I'm not exempting women from the equation. I am puzzled as to why though, I think Dr. Archer hit on the head by saying "the suspicion of disbelief is entertaining." But still there lies a question of our nature as human beings; do we really need this savagery in our lives? Are we programmed to be this way? Even in a Utopian society are we still going to want to see skulls cracked open? It's weird, I must admit, I'm not one to pick a fight or watch one for that matter but it none the less interests me. Maybe it's just being a man I guess. I read somewhere that the human brain has remained pretty much the same over the centuries. So really the hardware is the same, it's just the software that's been updated. So will we ever rid ourselves of this need and can you admittedly refrain from such entertainment? Can we ever really go beyond what is coded into our DNA? I sure hope so.
