It isn’t Rush and Sarah caused the violence – they’re just bumps on the log. The awful fact is that art is real. It shapes our perceptual net, tells us what the world’s about, and it forms the reality we share. Can anyone face the idea that it’s our entertainment that makes it seem natural to carry instant mayhem in the coat pocket, in the purse, under the front seat? Our gun laws are bald-faced irrational, and it’s because crime shows have been substituting intimidation and violence for our own natural memories, which have become seriously diminished while we’re watching crime shows. Avid TV watchers, action movie addicts, video gamers are all here to testify they don’t feel safe outside without a gun.
Why would art do that to us? It’s because this art is in bondage, sold into slavery and prostitution, destined to give us distorted visions of life because it’s being used to sell us something – spotless kitchens, the suburban pickup truck, medicine for the dreary lives we lead, unable to relate to each other while dodging phantom spies and dope dealers in every parking facility. Well, we can say we didn’t know we were poisoning ourselves, our culture, the future of the planet and everything on it, with just a little vicarious ultra violence, but the proof is in the way we pass out real guns and ammunition.
The fault is not in our stars, but in our taste for art – most popularly a pastiche of gun violence and pornography, or maybe just gun violence pornography. We don’t think art is real – we say all this gore is cathartic, an entertainment, an honest depiction of anyone's life, and we’re fooling ourselves. If you want to think better thoughts, look at better art.
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