Violence: Shifting the Blame
[O]ne way we in the United States avoid accepting responsibility for the violence in our society is to pretend “the media” inflict it on our children.
—Me, quoted by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, 2000
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About Richard
RICHARD RHODES's most recent book is Hedy's Folly: The Life and Breakthrough Inventions of Hedy Lamarr, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World. Rhodes is the author or editor of twenty-four books including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer...
Causes Richard Rhodes Supports
Survivors International
our own violence displaced
I agree with you utterly, Richard. It's so much easier to say "the media" is the culprit. Our culture is incredibly violent, sometimes in strangely white-gloved ways. As the mother of a child in middle school, even in an affluent town in the Bay Area, I see an aspect of violence in the very sense of privilege so many children feel, and the callousness about others' economic or social status. The divisions go deep, and they inhabit all of us.