Beyond exposing students to other frames of reference/perspective and insight the less formal objective here is to encourage rational communication (read as openly non-emotional/subjective) and exchanges perhaps even disagreement while keeping emotions in check. How peculiar and why someone might ask? When involved in discussion proponents of a contrary view will often use your emotionality as grounds for dismissing/discrediting your point of view and statements; since emotions are subjective “irrational” uncompromising-based positions that cannot be compromised with towards a mutually effective end. Heck, some people might even become emotionally angry and become….violent?
Contemplating the discussion after reviewing the following videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol-w4udx3fE “Why is America so Violent?” John Whitehead calls on Americans to change the way we think about and relate to one another. As Whitehead says, it’s time to stop hiding behind technology and be human again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiER4rUrGN8 a closer look at the roles that popular media representation of anti-immigrant rhetoric, violent video games, internet hate groups and mental illness play in the U.S.’s gun violence epidemic – and, of course, the guns themselves.
“Why do people commit suicide” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNgLrHGymYc .
The videos also serve to highlight the prevalence of violence in our society and culture and its roots in social marginalization and/or isolation.
Question: Do you think that violence is socialized into Americans through a culture that glamorizes violence through popular media/ and the availability of guns as humorized on the Dailey Show? Or can violence, including self-inflicted violence, be reduced to social isolation and anomie? More importantly what elements in the social environment, in your opinion, do you think keeps most persons from becoming violent? Is this reflected in any of the theories discussed in the textbook? Try to include your own perspective and one example of something that could hypothetically make a person such as yourself violently angry; also include in your discussion what would sociologically prevent that same person to not resort to violence?
