Model Of Desensitization

Individuals become desensitized to certain things such as violence and bullying when they are overexposed to these things in their environment. Maggie Nelson in her essay “Great to Watch” explores the violence prevalent present culture. She claims that repeated exposure to violence make individuals desensitized. Desensitization to violence not only reduces responsiveness towards violence, but can also increase support for violence such as the event of Bernie Goetz, where Goetz shot four African American in the New York City subway. Malcolm Gladwell, in his essay “The Power of Context: Bernie Goetz and the Rise and Fall of New York City Crime” discusses the event of the Bernie Goetz incident to demonstrate the history of violence in New York

City and the effect it had on the people of New York City. He references the “Broken Windows Theory” of James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, which explains how little unnoticed and overlooked things in society can eventually create a big issue in the society. Furthermore, Loffreda explores the unnoticed and overlooked things such as intolerance and bullying, which led to a brutal anti-gay murder. Beth Loffreda, in her essay selection from “Losing Matt Shepard: Life and Politics in the Aftermath of Anti-Gay Murder” discusses the murder of Matt Shepard and the repercussions it had on the town of Laramie. She investigates the social issues of intolerance and cultural norms presents within the town of Laramie, which eventually led to the horrifying murder of Matt Shepard. Repeated exposure to violence or sadism from sources such as the media or one's surroundings reduces an individual's fear or anxiety towards violent acts in general. Eventually this desensitization culminates to what Gladwell describes as the "tipping point," meaning that the desensitization become the moment of critical mass, where the idea of violence or violent behavior spread really fast.
Desensitization creates emotional distance in human interaction through reducing an individual's ability to empathize with one another.Violence decreases the perception of injury severity as well as decreasing attention to violent events. Individuals are being exposed to violence in their everyday life through media, such as games and TV shows. Overexposure to violence makes individuals less sensitive to violent events. Nelson writes that “Paranoia as intolerance. ‘Paranoia places its faith in exposure,’ ...-which is to say that the exposure of a disturbing fact or situation does not necessarily alter it, but, in fact, may further the circular conviction that one can never be paranoid enough” (Nelson 300). As individuals get exposed to violence again and again, it becomes a general event that is part of their regular life. Furthermore, desensitization can also be applied to intolerance and cultural norms. Deriving from Nelson’s theory, the majority of people in Laramie are desensitized by the cultural norms of intolerance. As Loffreda writes that “Those realities may be too complicated to sum up through the convenient shorthand of railroad tracks and trailer parks, but they still flow, hushed yet turbulent, beneath daily life in this town”(Loffreda 255). People of Laramie became desensitized to the intolerance. Individuals in Laramie were so “hushed” towards the violence and intolerance that media had to twist the “turbulent” part of the story of Matt Shepard's murder in order to get the attention of public. This method of media shows that people are so desensitized that it requires twisted and manipulated story in order to get their attention. The media knows that people just wouldn’t react or pay too much attention to a murder because they became desensitized to violence. Furthermore, desensitization toward violence decreases the reaction to the violent act as well as reduces the hatred for violence.
Desensitization toward violent acts shift public consciousness in such a manner where individuals perceived violence as normalcy.Violence increases the belief among individual that violence is normative.

Since violence had become part of every individual's life, they see it as a regular event, which reduces the hatred for violence. Nelson implies that when an individual get exposed to controversial violent acts such executions, those individuals are less likely to react and take action against this violent topic. Nelson argues that “Model of shaming-us into-action-by-unmasking-the-truth-of-our actions cannot hold a candle to our capacity to assimilate horrific images and to justify or shrug off horrific behavior” (Nelson 300). Desensitization to violence takes away the individual's senses of supporting “right” and “wrong” cause of violent acts. As a results, individuals either try to justify the violent acts or just ignore or deny. Likewise, instead of getting horrified by the news of the murder of Matt Shepard, some residents of Laramie became defensive, by attempting to deny the existence of intolerance in their town. Loffreda writes that‘“Hate is not a Wyoming value,’ residents kept telling each other, telling the visitor, telling the press. ‘We really take care of each other here,’ a woman told me one day in a coffee shop, echoing a dearly held ethos I’ve heard from many in Laramie ”(Loffreda 254). Media, through their twisting and manipulation of the murder was

still able to bring out the existence of intolerance and cultural norm of Laramie town. However, through the media exposure, they became defensive instead of accepting the truth. Furthermore, this behaviour lead individuals to forget about right and wrong cause, also instead of being horrified, they become intrigued by violence and they use it as entertainment.
Desensitization creates spectatorship where individuals enjoy the violent act as well as feel powerful by watching other people getting victimized of violence which lead to more violence. Spectatorship is created by dehumanizing the victim of violent act, which increases the aggression among spectator as well as decrease helping the victim of violence or intervening in violent act to help individuals. Gladwell describe the reaction of the media to the event, where Bernie Goetz shot four young African American boys who tried to mug him on a subway train. The Media supported Goetz’s actions and spoke of him as a hero. Gladwell writes that a few days later “ the New York Post ran two pictures on its front page: one of Goetz,handcuffed...and one of the boys Goetz shot-black...being released from the hospital. The headline read, ‘led Away in Cuffs while Wounded Mugger Walks to Freedom”( Gladwell 150). Through this headline, the newspaper made Goetz the hero and dehumanized the young boys in order to create sympathy for Goetz. Through using the phrase “wounded mugger” to describe the young boy, the media dehumanized the young boy in the mind of people in New York City.Through dehumanization, media supported and justifies Goetz’s violent actions. Dehumanization is the antecedent and descendant of violence. Violence, intolerance, and prejudice toward an individual makes them dehumanize meaning they are not worthy of human treatment. Nelson describes the Blue Servo uses project, where publics through the use of surveillance cameras can watch the US-Mexican border to find any illegal or violent activities such as looking for “illegal immigrant”. As a result, it creates spectatorship among individuals, where the public participating feel like a hunter, which filled them up with a rush of exhilaration . “The condition of Spectatorship” is serve as a “form of empowerment” where individuals feel good and powerful watching the border for violence action or watching out for the illegal immigrant (Nelson 303). The word such as “illegal immigrant” establishes a sense of dehumanization, leading to to spectatorship. People feel happy to spend hours of their time just to watch violent activities. As a result, people become immune to violence against “dehumanized” individuals. Furthermore, individuals themselves get involved in violence against dehumanizing individuals.
Individuals using their consciousness can reduce desensitization toward violence that will increase positive human interaction.

Gladwell discusses how by changing or fixing little issues existing in society, the authorities of New York City fixed bigger problems. First the authority realizes the problems, as Gladwell writes that “Like graffiti, fare-beating could be a signal, a small expression of disorder that invited much more serious crimes” (Gladwell 152). Gladwell presents a solution to regain insight as a community through being aware of the small issues in the community. When community became over involved with violence, they ignored the little issues such as graffiti andfare beating. Likewise, Nelson claims that when individuals pay too much attention and become too involved in violence they become unaffected by the violence. Nelson writes that “In light of the heightened state of perception conjured by Cage’s piece-its profound capacity to “return us to our sense” via an emptying out of input rather than an overload” (Nelson 306). To realize the problems in the New York Subway system, authorities needed to “empty out” their over-attentiveness towards the violence and “return” to their sense, which enables them to see the issues that are actually causing the

problems.
Desensitization takes away individual's sense of fear and anxiety toward the certain thing that they are being overexposed. Desensitization also reduces the emotional connection between humans, by reducing human attention and empathy towards violence events. It also makes violence part of their regular life, which not only decreases the hatred for violence, also increase the severe level of aggression. As suggested by Nelson, individuals need to free themselves from such effect of violence and use their consciousness and awareness to support the right or wrong cause. Individuals need to use their consciousness to understand what they are watching and how it is affecting their perspective.