Monday, October 4, 2010

Exploitation of the Innocent

I just watched a particularly unsettling episode of Law and Order: SVU while I was working out this morning (granted, I'm willing to concede that all of them are unsettling.) The kicker was at the close of the show, when one perpetrator was talking to Elliot and asserted that they could continue arresting all those participating in child pornography, and do so for as long as they wanted, but that at some point, they'd realize the growing population--the refusal to do things their way, to play by their rules--the question of whether or not "normal" people were now in the minority.

Did you just get that unsettled feeling like I did?

Now, I'm not saying that I agree with this character, and that healthy, functional adults within the realm of socially acceptable boundaries are in the minority. However, it does make me consider that our numbers are dropping, and that the boundaries are getting stretched into shapes almost unrecognizable. Pornography is the number one internet hobby, and a recent statistic said that the age most children are introduced to pornography is 11. It's now insultingly easy to access anything, anytime over the internet--and get assaulted (in chat rooms, message boards, etc.) while you do so, whether it's with proposals or with insults. And that's just the internet, folks. Look around the world and you'll see that clothing is not only getting more expensive, but also shrinking. Hem lines are shorter, drivers are even more rude, simple gestures of kindness are no longer commonplace, rules of etiquette are being thrown out the window. I can now watch a headless body hanging from a ceiling fan as the opening credits to CSI: Las Vegas opens, on prime-time television--no cable needed! In fact, if you have a set of headphones, you can plug into just about anything now, with free torrents and public share sites--whether it's educational talks, music, offensive jokes, obscene lyrics...anything. Step right up, people, the next show goes on in 30 seconds!

This is not entirely a post about how bad the world is, because I believe there still is a lot of good in the world. This is more a post about how bad the bad is--and how the bad is spreading to infect everything it can lay its dirty little fingers on.

Seth Godin spoke of the issues of internet anonymity in his book, Small is the New Big (if you haven't read this, do it now, because it will blow your mind.) The opportunity of being anonymous directly correlates with the propensity towards acting like a total jerk. People say things online in faceless, nameless settings that they never would in person. It's not even about losing tact: it's about digging tact up, desecrating it, reburying it and then dancing on its grave. Now, this is just a portion of what's happened because of the (technological) advancements of our society. I'm wondering how much our growing boundaries (or lack thereof) contribute to the acceptance of sickening behavior, such as child pornography. Sure, we can all agree that it's bad, but is it really that bad that pre-teens have role models with bigger drug problems than a crack house, and less clothes than a brothel? Where do the boundaries start, and how much more are we willing to stretch them until one day we look around and realize that we really are in the minority?