Virtue is the music of the soul, the harmony of the passions. Early love is frequently ambitious in choosing its object. All power is trust. We are accountable for its exercise. From the people, and for the people, all springs, and all must exist. Philosophy must take its impetus (the force or energy with which a body moves) from actions rather than from pure thought. Actions is an expression that means the whole of our life, thinking, feeling, willing. Therefore, it is the whole person in one’s concreteness that philosophy must look in its quest for truth. Once must turn from abstract thought to actual experience in all its fullness and richness. It is indeed this experience itself that motivates the philosophical quest, for humans by their nature must act, and then one cannot help questioning the means of their action. Although we have not chosen to live and know neither whence we come nor even who we are, we are continually taking action and engaging ourselves in chosen policies. Though home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuring.  Power loves to be trusted. We cannot be content to say that action has no meaning. Human beings must have action; and if they cannot find it, they will make it. Motion and sound inevitably go together. In the heart, as in the ocean, the great tides ebb and flow. Human reason, fortitude, and perseverance, are adequate to the accomplishment of anything upon Earth. Ordinarily, we do not have to have been encouraged to be violent in order to get violent with someone who is harming our child—this usually comes quite naturally to us, no matter how removed from aggressiveness we have been prior to such a circumstance. Does this mean we are sentenced to being violent? No. However, we carry in us the potential and capacity for violence, and we are often violent towards ourselves in our inner warfare—as epitomized by how our inner critic may be allowed to mercilessly put us down. So, we would do well to acknowledge our own propensity for violence, getting to know it so deeply that we do not act out our desires, except under extreme circumstances (*as when our safety or the safety of those close to us is being strongly threatened).   

There is too much violence on the television. It is exemplified in Shooter, the raw, far-from-glamorous violence of which is filtered through the multifaceted, tortured character of the protagonist. In film, there are many examples of multiple-perspectival explorations of violence, ranging from Fear, Way of the Gun, and White House Down. Shooter is one of the very best of these examples developed by John Hlavin, the title of which invites a double take on violence: a consideration of its evolution in general and a history of one man’s ongoing violence. This television show does not just feature plenty of violence, but also conjures, while we are watching it, our own unmistakable—and not easily acceptable—reactions, conflicted and otherwise, to violence. Scenes are set up to provoke a certain response from us, drawing on our assumptions and sympathies, and then are twisted or tweaked to leave us facing this very response from unexpected, and often uncomfortable angles. In one episode, I believe it was episode 8, of season one, gunmen go in an office building and shoot up about 15 people, blood splattered all over the walls.   

What kind of relationship do we choose to have with our own capacity for violence? Do we let it enter our living space, or do we keep it caged in the outback of our consciousness? Do we engage with it, or do we keep it muzzled and mute? Do we include it in the circle of our being—the family or our qualities—our do we ostracize it? A single deed of violence and cruelty affects our nerves more than when these are exercised on a more extended scale.  On 2 December 2015, much like the scene from the TV show Shooter, 14 people were killed and 22 were seriously injured in a terrorist attack at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California USA, which consisted of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing, and it seems like John Hlavin may have been hoping, however secretly, for such a schadenfreude-suffused event. America’s mainstream media presentation of itself to the World—is no longer one of a freedom loving, straightforward, we will protect the innocent façade, instead what is festering is an abundance of not-so-caring, far-from-noble qualities, including violence that is framed as something other than violence.  

Shooter is deglamorized and distilled to the raw basics, portraying a humanity that is opening, however reluctantly or unhappily, to its inevitable violence, letting it take place at the table, like any other family member. In 2016, shootings in Chicago are up by 88 percent. 4379 people were shot, 3664 people were shot wounded, and 715 people were shot and killed in Chicago. While we have such a high rate of gun violence in America, it is irresponsible to make TV shows that promote gun violence and homicide. USA Network, NBC Universal, John Hlavin and the television show Shooter has brought forth their ability to be violent and exploit it to the extreme, just as pornography reinforces the capacity for sexual obsessiveness and exploits it to the extreme. Let us take ownership of our violence, keeping a clear eye on it, taking full responsibility for what we do with it so we can prevent situations like the one on 12 June 2016, when Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a terrorist attack/hate crime inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida United States of America.  

To deny or disown Americans violence is to violate it, to force it into hidden corners of the population where it may mature into savage extremes of itself, extending itself beyond capacity. Many people, even politicians and celebrities are boycotting the coronation of President Trump, but no one seems to care about all the people who are senselessly being shot and killed every day. The population cares about the massacres for a few days, maybe a few months, and then they forget about the people who were robbed of their lives or injured so badly that they will never be the same. However, you are walking out of class, rioting, and protesting the next President of the United States because of his skin colour. And Beyonce is such a hypocrite, she performed from Muammar Gaddafi, but is protesting President Trump. Despite its horrors, violence and illegal activities are normalized, as if it were just part of life, the number of casualties not registering with much more impact than the latest headlines about wardrobe malfunctions or the number of followers a celebrity has on social media. While justifications for ultraviolence bombard us. Violence and illegal immigration are major crimes!