Enjoyment of violence -- surreptitious and otherwise?

Time for a Remedial Global Nuclear War? (Part #3)

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Attraction of violence? With respect to the erosion of the coping capacity of governance, a curious indicator is offered by the widespread enjoyment of violence, especially when experienced vicariously. As noted above, this is most evident in media representations of violence, in competitive sports, and in esports. At the youngest age children are drawn into the symbolic killing of opponents as a feature of games -- however these may translate into bullying and gang-enabled violence. Violence of the bloodiest kind is a primary feature of esports -- potentially extending to torture.

Successful development of attractive games focused on peaceful outcomes is relatively problematic -- if not boring by comparison. The difficulty extends to strategically-focused management games, where triumphantly crushing opponents is a primary objective and indicator of success. For Andrew J. Weaver

Media violence is widely produced and treated as a valuable economic commodity, but the research on the appeal of violence suggests that audiences' appetite for violent content is not quite so straightforward. Although the presence of violence tends to increase selective exposure, it also has a tendency to decrease enjoyment. There are a few potential explanations for this disconnect, including the possibility that violence represents other narrative features that do increase enjoyment (e.g., action, suspense, humor), or the possibility that we seek out violence for nonhedonic purposes (e.g., meaning-making, justice restoration, information). (Liking of Violence, The International Encyclopedia of Media Psychology, 2020)

Relative dislike of peace? References such as the following frame the question of how "peace" and "sustainability" might be liked by comparison, as promoted by International Peace Games, or the Games for Sustainability of the Global Goals Centre -- of which relatively little are heard. The contrast with wargaming is striking, as noted by A. Walter Dorn, et al, in stressing the need for digital simulations of peacekeeper roles:

Militaries around the world have benefited from computerized games. Many recruits have been attracted to the military through military-style video games. After recruitment, games and simulations provide an important means of soldier training, including before actual deployments. However, electronic games are lacking for UN peace operations. The multidimensionality of peacekeeping has yet to be simulated in serious games to complement the many games that too often depict a binary battlefield of blue-team versus red-team (or, often in public games, good versus evil). Not only could soldiers benefit from nuanced and ambitious peace-related games, so too could civilian peacekeepers, and the public at large. (From Wargaming to Peacegaming, International Peacekeeping, 27, 2, 2020).

For Simon McCarthy-Jones: From Tarantino to Squid Game: why do so many people enjoy violence? Â (The Conversation, 28 October 2021):

Last month, more than 100 million people watched the gory Netflix show, Squid Game. Whether or not screen violence is bad for us has been extensively studied. The consensus is that it can have negative effects. But the question of why we are drawn to watch violence has received much less attention.

The incomprehension of violence more generally can be explored as matching the incapacity to question the reason why (Global Incomprehension of Increasing Violence, 2016):

Writing from the recently acclaimed epicentre of terrorism in Europe, it is remarkable to note the astonishment widely expressed as to the reason behind the attacks in Brussels on 22 March 2016 -- as was the case with regard to the attacks in Paris in 2015, or indeed in the earlier case of 9/11.

The question in the minds of many is "why" such irrational attacks are so unreasonably made against innocents. The title of this note is usefully ambiguous, however, for it also holds the more crucial question as to why so little effort is made to address the question of "why". This is to be compared with efforts to detect and constrain perpetrators by any feasible means -- "closing the stable door after the horse has bolted". The resources allocated to the detection of threat, and the associated investment in security resources, are many orders greater than those devoted to understanding violence and the many forms it may take.

To the extent that there is a sense of being trapped by the degree of violence in society, and the fear it engenders, a valuable insight is offered by policy scientist Geoffrey Vickers: A trap is a function of the nature of the trapped (Freedom in a Rocking Boat: changing values in an unstable society, 1972).

The question here is whether it is in the nature of people not to want to know "why"? Is this because of the fear of change potentially implied? Unknowingly, have we seen the enemy and "them is us" -- as might be concluded from the argument of John Ralston Saul (The Unconscious Civilization, 1995)? Are there unknowns so terrifying that humanity has no desire to know of them -- because of the transformation for which it calls?

War as "best time of their lives"? There is a strange degree of acknowledgement -- for many of those who survive -- that the experience of warfare was the "best time of their lives". This experience has been celebrated in a much-reviewed movie (The Best Years of Our Lives, 1946; Glen Melanson, Seventy-five Years of The Best Years of Our Lives: a retrospective on war and peace, Film and History: an interdisciplinary journal of film and television studies, 42, 2012, 2).

Emphasis has been given to the bonding and feelings of companionship which emerged under conditions of crisis (Land girls -- 'It was best time of our lives', News Shopper, 6 March 1999). Given such implications, the surprising willingness to renew the experience has been noted by Duane France:

If you had a choice, after all these years, would you go back? Absolutely. In a heartbeat. This is something I hear from veterans I work with all the time: if they called, I would go back in an instant. This may come as a surprise to those who have never served, and I certainly don't mean to say that all veterans feel this way. But for many combat veterans, there is an often conflicting desire: to remain home with their loved ones or to go back to war. This has elements of the fact that it was often the best time and the worst time in our lives. And it also has to do with the back there paradox that some veterans need to resolve. (Why Would Veterans Want to Go Back to Combat? Veteran Mental Health from a Combat Veteran Perspective, 2 August 2018)

Widespread indulgence in bullying? A less physically fatal form of violence offers scope for identifying other reasons for its attraction -- namely through the pervasive phenomenon of bullying. This is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate -- often repeatedly. It may well take place in the presence of a large group of relatively uninvolved bystanders.

Distinguished forms include: cyberbullying, disability bullying, gay bashing, legal abuse, bullying in the military, child abuse, prisoner abuse, school bullying, sexual bullying, workplace bullying, bullying in academia, bullying in information technology, bullying in the legal profession, bullying in medicine, and bullying in teaching. Missing from such a set of categories are the widely overlooked forms of bullying of prisoners of war during warfare, and the violence among refugees in refugee camps.

Less evident is the source of enjoyment experienced by the bully in engaging in the process. Explanations for bullying include::

• wanting to dominate others and improve their social status
• having low self-esteem and wanting to feel better about themselves
• having a lack of remorse or failing to recognise their behaviour as a problem
• feeling angry, frustrated or jealous
• struggling socially
• being the victim of bullying themselves (Bullying - why people bully and how to stop it, Health Direct)

Unfortunately the reasonable "explanations" tend not to explore the attraction of a process deemed unreasonable (Wendy Rose Gould, 7 Common Reasons Why People Bully, VeryWellMind, 30 June  2022). Especially elusive is the enjoyment of humiliation (Neel Burton, The Psychology of Humiliation, Psychology Today, 27 August 2014; Matthew Rozsa, Humilitainment: Why the internet thrives on other people's humiliation, Salon, 20 February 2022).

Periods of crisis can be seen as enabling other forms of bullying, most obviously bullying of citizenry by newly empowered bureaucrats, as has been evident during the recent pandemic. Under more extreme conditions of social disorder, bullying by gangs becomes especially relevant.

Gruesome but necessary? The inexplicable nature of violence was evoked in the case of the  massacre of less than a hundred Norwegians in 2011 by Anders Behring Breivik. Curiously however the Norwegian was an enthusiast of online war games -- World of Warcraft and Modern Warfare 2 -- in which millions engage daily, often for many hours at a time (Norway Terrorist Used World Of Warcraft As A Training Simulator, 27 July 2011; Terrorist Anders Behring Breivik Used Modern Warfare 2 as "Training-Simulation" 23 July 2011).

More curiously, the justification offered for the slaughter by Breivik, through his lawyer, was that it was "gruesome but necessary". That phrase figures prominently (some 75,000 hits, at that time) in any web search relating to World of Warcraft -- prior to any reference to Breivik. It would appear to be recognized as a slogan -- framing the necessity of violence. As discussed separately, the extreme normality (exemplified by peaceful Norwegian society) can be explored as an indicator of systemic negligence (Gruesome but Necessary: Global Governance in the 21st Century? 2011).

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