There is a cultural factor promoting violence which nowadays undoubtedly is highly effective is the mass media. And particularly everything that enters our minds through pictorial media.
Interpretation
The quote highlights how mass media influences and perpetuates violence in society.
Alva Myrdal's quote points out the significant role that mass media plays in shaping cultural attitudes towards violence. She suggests that the imagery and narratives presented in visual media are particularly potent in influencing public perception and behaviors, thereby serving as a powerful factor in promoting a culture of violence.
In practice
In discussions about media regulation, one could use this quote to highlight the responsibility of media creators.
Because war and preparations for war have acquired legitimacy, and because of the tremendous proliferation of arms through production and export, so that they are now available more or less to all and sundry, right down to handguns and stilettos, the cult of violence has by now so permeated relations between people that we are compelled to witness as well an increase in everyday violence.
War is murder. And the military preparations now being made for a potential major confrontation are aimed at collective murder. In a nuclear age the victims would be numbered by the millions. This naked truth must be faced.
The longing for peace is rooted in the hearts of all men. But the striving, which at present has become so insistent, cannot lay claim to such an ambition as leading the way to eternal peace, or solving all disputes among nations.
Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.
There is mercy for everyone, except those who are bored with life.
As, in religion, man is governed by the products of his own brain, so in capitalistic production, he is governed by the products of his own hand.
Since no daily responses are given from heaven, and the Scriptures are the only record in which God has been pleased to consign His truth to perpetual remembrance, the full authority which they ought to possess with the faithful is not recognized unless they are believed to have come from heaven as directly as if God had been heard giving utterance to them.
This rule of silence is upheld when the culture refuses everyone easy access even to the word “patriarchy.” Most children do not learn what to call this system of institutionaliz ed gender roles, so rarely do we name it in everyday speech. This silence promotes denial. And how can we organize to challenge and change a system that cannot be named?
War is very uncertain in its results, and often when affairs look most desperate they suddenly assume a more hopeful state.
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