Many people these days are convinced that our society has desensitized itself to violence through modern movies, magazines, video games, and books. I think that's nonsense. Violence has been the focus of entertainment and literature since the beginning of literature itself. In fact, I would argue that generations long long before ours thought even less of violence than we do today. For example, look at this passage from The Three Musketeers written by Alexandre Dumas in 1844 and set in 1625:
"Grimaud had tried to waken the stable-boys, and the stable-boys had set upon him and beaten him. When they opened the window they saw the poor lad lying senseless, with his head split by a blow with a fork-handle."
Horrific, right? They split a guy's head open with a fork handle! Jeez! Talk about anger management! That's awful! But look now at the very next sentence:
"Planchet went down into the yard, and proceeded to saddle the horses."
Grimaud's grim fate is already old news, and that's the last we hear of his incident. Dumas had already moved on, matter-of-factly, treating the loss of a servant as nothing but a minor logistical setback, forcing Planchet to saddle the horses instead. I went back and reread that paragraph twice to make sure I didn't miss something, then just laughed out loud at how ridiculous that was. There are many examples throughout the book of a very casual attitude toward violence, but that one just struck me as absurd.
If anything, modern culture is far MORE sensitive to violence than the culture of France in 1635 depicted by Dumas!
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