Triumphing In Our Humanity

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Triumphing In Our Humanity “No people before or since have so reveled in displays of mortal combat as did the Romans during the last two centuries B.C. and the first three centuries thereafter, nor derived such pleasure from spectacles in which slaves and convicts were exposed to wild beasts and killed in front of cheering spectators.” So writes one of our century’s renowned awards winning scholar. Sissela Bok was born in Sweden and educated in Switzerland and France before coming to the United States. She received her B.A. and M.A. in psychology at the George Washington University in 1957 and 1958, and her Ph. D. in philosophy at Harvard University in 1970. Formerly a Professor of Philosophy at Brandeis University, Bok is currently a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. http://www.pbs.org/now/society/bok.html She has written several books that are relevant to society’s behavior in general and to this generation. One such book is entitled: Mayhem: Violence as public entertainment (1998) from which excerpts has been set in essay form to showcase aspects of her research points. The opening quote in this essay is taken from one such essay; Feasts of Violence. See acknowledgements on page 546 of our text, “Writing from Sources” sixth edition, by: Brenda Spatt. Lesslie 2 In the essay, Feasts of Violence, Dr. Bok writes that the great Roman philosopher, Seneca, who said “Man, an object of reverence in the eyes of men, is now slaughtered for jest and sport . . . . And it is a satisfying spectacle to see a man made a corpse.” understood that people who emotionally participated in the thrill of that kind of violent spectacle became hardened and desensitized in their humanity. And that such exposure would increase their capacity for further cruelty. It eroded the foundational truth of developing in humanity, in
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