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In article <[log in to unmask]>
[log in to unmask] writes:
 
>> By the way, wouldn't it be interesting to cast a glance at the
>> Japanese situation? As far as I understand (but my information
>> is very secondhand), this is a case where a popular cinema with a
>> high level of violence exists in a society with a relatively low
>> crime rate.
>>
Suffice it to add that the phenomenon of plethora of depicted
violence vs. low crime rate is not limited to cinema. See all
those businessmen or school-kids reading violent and/or
pornographic manga on trains & subways. Note, however, that
perceptions of safety seem to differ - when I tell my fellow
Japanese students that I walk around town on my own late at
night, they are shocked, and my professors told me "how
daring! that's dangerous!". As for my personal perception of
violence in films, computer-games (my above-quoted fellow
students love to play DOOM, with which I admit having
infected them) and comics and on TV and whatnot, I do not
see much interrelation between society's levels of violence
and its entertainments' levels of violence. I can't
see how either (violence on TV - lack of it in society)
could be used in favour or against certain political conclusions.
 
Birgit Kellner
Institute for Indian Philosophy
University of Hiroshima