Our first serious disagreement came during dinner at an Italian restaurant in Narberth, right across from the theater where we’d just seen "Ransom." Dr. Joan was rattling on about the increase in violence in movies these days, as we had just witnessed, and also on MTV. All that brutality and bloodshed, she said, was doing tremendous damage to people, don't you think?
I repeated what I'd learned in a mass communications course at college, which is that over the decades, after countless commissioned governmental studies, the conclusion has always been totally counterintuitive, and that is that violence--or virtually anything else that is negative in the media--either has no effect on people, or it has an effect that is too small to be measured.
Dr. Joan frowned, shook her head. "That's just not true. There IS an effect, a most powerful one. Besides, constantly showing violence is colluding with the evil part of society that initiates it. It's an endorsement, an affirmation."
I replied that what she just said seems very much to be self-evidently true, but nevertheless no one--I repeat no one--has been able to demonstrate that any such effect exists.
"No, no, no," she said. "That just isn't so."
And I said, "Well, since you made the assertion you have the burden of proof, and I don't see any proof, merely an unsupported claim. Actually, it sounds to me more like an uninformed opinion."
"I don't have to prove a damned thing to you!" she said, a flush spreading on her neck and cheeks.
Somehow, thank God, we eventually managed to change the subject. I really didn't want to argue with her. What difference did it make, anyway? Maybe my professor was mistaken. Or maybe I misheard him.
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