Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: beheading video...should one watch?

the sad part is,i watched the news the other day and the reporter said the beheading videos are the best seller over there

They obviously have a total barbaric culture. It's a shame that humans thrive on this.
I would feel the same way if I saw an Iraqi getting his head cut off. A life is a life!

Denver,

Very well said, and I agree 100% with every one of your reasons for not watching the videos. I wished I had read your post before I made the mistake of watching one. I know, emotionally, I'll get over seeing it, as BigJohn pointed out he did, but it'll take a few days if not a few weeks. And I'll never be able to erase it from my mind.

md55, your post shocked me. Are you really equating theatrical depictions of violence with video taped snuff films of the real thing? Are you saying that our media depictions of violence have in any way made these barbarian thugs more likely to cut off the heads of infidels than they would have been without our films? Correct me if I misunderstand your proposition, but is your sub-text implication that our movies speak to a culture as depraved as one that celebrates videos of actual murders?

We may be horrified by viewing these videos, but not only are they best sellers in Arab societies, but they are powerful recruiting tools! Yes, the sight of the faithful cutting off the heads of Jews and "Crusaders" is a powerful source of pride, empowerment and a demonstration that these folks are winning the war, their war, their Jihad against the West, modernity, civilization, culture, ethics ...

BTW, I liked Kill Bill I and II, but it did not desensitize me to cruelty or incline me to go out and hurt another human being. The values of that culture resonate to the snuff videos of actual murder, they are celebrated.

Think about it md55.

I'm really surprised this bothers anyone... a single person dying? Come on, the media hardly covers megadeath (not the band - the tongue in cheek term for over 1000 people killed) but some guy getting his head sawed off is news?

One person coughing up the spark of life just seems so insignificant compared to something as simple as a signature on a piece of paper ordering economic sanctions that kill 10,000 people a month... air campaigns killing 2500 people a day... lax labour laws that kill a few hundred workers a day... one guy? All you can offer me is one decapitation? Tsk... I'll take that with my morning cereal.

Least someone performing one of these is enough of a hands-on type to actually get a little sticky... get a snootful of that copper smell. Not enough people take enough pride in their work anymore.

Bren R.

Hey Bren,

Just wondering if you've actually watched one these videos?

I mean, I get what you're saying, but there's still a big difference. Watching someone, even if it's just one person, have their head slowly sawed off with a kitchen knife, hearing their strained screams turn to gurgles and gasps as their windpipe is severed...dude, I know you're trying to be all witty and smooth and normally I'm down with that, but the issue here isn't simply the death of one man, and for me personally, it's just not something I'm ready to laugh off yet.

Bren, thinking a little more about what you said...I guess if I hadn't stupidly watched the video for myself, I would probably be more inclined to go along with what you're saying.

Maybe that's something we could get into on this thread: why is that witnessing one man die in such a horrible way troubles us so much more than the knowledge that government policies throughout the world cause the death of thousands?

JT- I dunno, call me callused, but yeah, I get emailed this stuff, and watch it... and it doesn't bother me as much as I'm told it should. After seeing photos from Abu Ghraib, seeing mass graves on every continent in the world, watching Palestinian children ending their lives as sappers against US-bought Israeli tanks - you name it, I expect very little out of the human race in war and pseudo-war conditions.

Conversely, I've been in funeral processions for a 16 year old construction worker killed due to employer negligence and a 26 year old Prime Minister's Honour Guard Piper killed by an impared driver and somehow that seems a lot more wrong to me.

I think the whole feeling is summed up best in an Anti-Flag lyric : "I feel less hopeful and less human as I'm reduced to nothing more than cheering on embassy bombings as the liars pave their way through four more years of war is peace, ignorance is strength and slavery is freedom"

I'm not trying to be political, I just have trouble understanding why one person's death stirs up so much outrage and another death is either overlooked or cheered. I am a global citizen.

Bren R.

Bren,

Yeah, I hear ya. And hey, if you're not as troubled by it as I am, that's okay. People are different. I am also troubled by the things you mentioned, just not on such an emotional level because I haven't personally witnessed it. Obviously, I was troubled by the beheadings before I actually watched one of them, but by actually seeing it, my emotions have been more intensely engaged and it's a much more visceral thing for me now.

In regards to your quote: "Conversely, I've been in funeral processions for a 16 year old construction worker killed due to employer negligence and a 26 year old Prime Minister's Honour Guard Piper killed by an impared driver and somehow that seems a lot more wrong to me."

Those are horrible things as well, but why do you think they're actually A LOT MORE wrong than the beheadings?

There are people on both sides of any conflict that do harm to the other side, and there are the propaganists that are paid to use it to each side's interest. Atrocities are as old as time, but set to the right music and being told the perspective it should be put into, they're still very powerful for uniting a group of people.

I just think it odd that something like this that hardly touches anyone's life (you don't know the person beheaded, or his family, never met the guy, probably don't even know his name) has a large group of people cooked up into war fever, wanting revenge... but for each of us who have lost a friend or family member to something that is preventable (everyone here has lost someone to cancer, heart disease, petty crime, corporate crime) but hardly anyone honours this loss with the same intensity.

Just one of those odd things that occurs to someone disturbed and yet morbidly curious about human psychology.

Bren R.