Why do we rejoice in human suffering?

The other night, I was up about 2 a.m. and wandering about the house checking doors and windows when I decided to participate in the favorite man pastime of flipping channels with the remote. As I went through the shows on how to lose 60 pounds in a week or how to make a million dollars in a week or examining the next great invention for the kitchen or the shop, I found myself wanting to see a movie. So I looked under the movie category and was dismayed to find a set of horror flicks guaranteed to set your mind spinning with fear as you watched blood and gore and death.

I forced myself to watch 10 minutes of a show about some students staying in cabins with a serial killer on the loose. During the 10 minute segment, I saw mutilation, hangings, a machete in a chest, decapitation, gunshots, and more blood than should ever reside in a person. I became sick and disgusted with the grotesque display of horror and destruction.

This viewing experience was on heels of having visited a local bookstore where a large percentage of bestselling paperbacks were about a serial killer or a murder of some kind. In addition, I overheard a conversation about a recent auto accident and all the details about the resulting pain. Are we as a society glorifying in human suffering?

Have we become cavalier about pain? Are we desensitized to the suffering around us? Is there really ever a time to rejoice over the pain of others? Is there really an excuse for inflicting suffering on another person? On the news we hear about bombs, and terrorist attacks, and exploding mines, and another soldier gone, and a madman on the loose, and we forget that for every death a mother's heart is broken. Because of connection and synchronicity, no death is an isolated event. If each life has any kind of meaning to someone, then that life has value and purpose.

Although some would call my position liberal and others might call it conservative, I call it humanistic. I cannot be comfortable watching horror, terror, or death in any form. I reject and denounce any kind of glorifying of human suffering. It is time to seek a more lofty and moralistic type of entertainment and experience. When I sit down to eat a meal, I prefer to avoid dirt, filth, infectious diseases, and animal waste. Instead, I seek to give my body the proper nutrients and necessary ingredients for good health with an occasional treat! When I sit down to watch a movie, I will not fill my head with images that are unproductive and despicable.