Violence Is Golden:

Abstract

Campus violence is strongly determined by our increasingly violent American culture. National increases in violent crime, weapon carrying, drug dependency, eating disorders, and youth suicide rates in recent decades are both reflected by and promoted by commercial interests. Addiction cultivation, wheter to cigarettes, alcohol or other drugs, diets, or violence per se is extremely profitable for its purveyors. The large and small screens, magazines and various forms of advertising sell ever more ways to be violent toward oneself and others. Colleges and universities show generally lower rates of violence than the surrounding culture, but they are inevitably heirs to the culture of violence, especially as it has trained youth both to victimize and to be victimized. Children and adolescents are being subjected to depictions of violence at record rates. Thus colleges and universities must do more to deconstruct and counter the training for violence. Our academic institutions can help by emphasizing their greatest contribution: the cultivation of critical thinking which can be an antidote to the mindless violence promoted by addiction pushers.