Sunday Morning at the Church of the Poisoned Mind

Mirror neurons are brain connections which trigger both when you do something, and when you see someone else doing that thing.  They're implicit in the empathy response.  You see someone else hurt and, if your mirror neurons are functioning correctly, you'll wince.

I've come to the conclusions that either a) mirror neurons are completely atrophied in most modern humans or b) most modern humans have devolved to the point where they see all other humans as "Other".  I've been led to that conclusion by the increase in the everyday acceptability of graphic violence; its value now is not to shock, but merely tittilate.

I think this is partly the result of violence-as-entertainment.  Most of the violence we see is "Hollywood" violence; it's made up for camera.  No-one really hits anyone, the bruises are make-up, the gore is red paint, the bullets are blanks.  At the end of the shoot, the director bids the dead to rise and they do, no physical harm done.

Looking around on social media these days though, and it seems that people in general view all violence as make-believe: it elicits no empathy response; it doesn't horrify, it merely thrills, in a toxic, shadenfreud kind of way.  At worst, images of real hurt, real distress, real violence, get thrown around to justify the wallowing in a kind of collective vainglorious morality: people RTing pictures of dead babies to show how much they suddenly "care" about a conflict that's been going on for over 4 years.

On a more everyday level, people share pictures of real severed limbs, real dead bodies, real flayed skin, real agony.  What is going on in their brains that they think this is OK?  They can't be genuinely affected or they wouldn't be able to keep looking at this stuff, much less want to share it.  The only reason I can think of - seen mostly on animal activist feeds - is that you want to hurt the people you see as being responsible for the harm by forcing them to view it.  But that's not a relevant explanation for most of the images that are shared.  Mostly it seems to be enjoyment. There seems to be an evil thrill of glee that goes far beyond shadenfreud: joy in someone's real distress, and joy in the power to cause distress in others by forcing them to view it.  All the while claiming "I'm promoting this because I care".  What utter bullshit.

There's a parallel here with the virus hoaxes that were very popular about 10 years ago.  Ignorant people wilfully frightening others while claiming the moral high ground while they did so. But no-one controls what you believe; and many people were educated when I got those e-mails because I'd hit "Reply all" and set them straight.

But you can't control what someone dumps in your social media feed, and if someone hasn't done it before you're going to get hit at least once before you can block them.  For those few of us whose mirror neurons are working fine or working double shifts, someone springing a vile image has consequences, whether that image turns out to be real or not.  And I do wonder if this is, ultimately, what's driving the practice.  In an individualistic, violently capitalist, consumer-driven culture, empathy isn't just uncool, it's actively threatening.  For the person committing violence-by-graphic-image, most of the people they hit won't, long-term, be any more affected than they are.  The people who will be damaged are likely the people who are damaged already, either through mental/emotional sensitivity or because they've experienced actual harm in the past.  The practice weeds out the first group, keeps the seond group down, and ensures everyone else stays desensitised.