Below is an image and a link to a video that are extremely disturbing, I guess that's kind of the point.
Some 10 years ago, a friend of mine who at the time was a respected CBC journalist told me of stories that come across the wire that simply could not be reported, that were just too gruesome for the late night news. A man murders his wife, he stands, blood covered in the streets of the Chicago projects holding his two month old baby by the leg at his side. He manages to smash his own progeny into the sidewalk mere seconds before he is taken out by a hail of police bullets. The video of this was deemed unsuitable for general viewing.
What a difference a decade makes. In the same week where pictures of a man who has had his face ripped away by the teeth of another surface, the internet provides us with an actual snuff film. Until now the existence of such films could never be substantiated. Rumors were rife, but if these films existed they were available only to the underground few. Bestgore.com has posted a little film called "1 Lunatic, 1 Icepick" that shows the murder and dismemberment of a human being. Now this may or may not be related to the body parts being sent to the Progressive Conservative Headquarters, allegedly by a Quebec porn actor and cat killer named Luka Rocco Magnotta who was at one time involved with renowned Canadian serial killer Karla Homolka. It could simply be a different lunatic. C'est La Vie.
This social evolution is inevitable. How is it that we manage to keep our sanity in the 21st century? Most of us are aware of the horrors that we humans inflict upon one another, but if anything we perceive it in some abstract way. We keep it at the edge of our conscious minds, if it has no effect on our lives it lacks a certain reality. The amount of fear, hatred, insane thought and action, and lack of conscience that permeates this planet every minute of every day is truly incomprehensible. Optimism and idealistic philosophy topples in its wake. We aspire to be a noble species when daily events clearly show otherwise. We keep this reality at the periphery of our day to day lives. It is our self defense against the inconceivable amount of misery happening at any given time. Every three seconds a child dies of hunger on this planet, one has died in the time it has taken me to type this sentence.
Don't get me wrong a lot of this misery is entirely out of human control. Mortality is a simple fact of life. Indeed life causes death. I think it's fair to say that we are as equally bloody a society as the ones that came before us, we are just more efficient. You'd think that we should be living in an enlightened age, but how was Bedlam any different than watching "The Jerry Springer Show" now? However maybe the internet with its social media applications will be the wake up call we need. When an emboldened killer uploads his deed for all to witness maybe we shouldn't ignore it. I'm not saying watch the fucking video, there are things you can't unsee. But in doing so this lunatic has provided us all with an opportunity. He has removed our blinders, he forces awareness upon us that his victim is one of us, a son, brother, father, etc. This is something we can all relate to as we go about our business. Maybe this will be the impetus we all need to take a stand against the inhumanity we perpetuate against each other as individuals and nations. Social evolution is an extremely slow process, it was less than sixty years ago that Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus. I hope that awareness increases because of the proliferation of Youtube videos, tweets, and other future internet services from individuals and countries that are under siege from whatever source. This makes the internet an important and powerful tool for us to find our destiny as a species, maybe that's why Governments are trying so desperately to restrict it.....
Here is the link to the snuff video: UPDATE: I just took it down, it seems the site is unresponsive, and may have been compromised. However it is also available for viewing at Youtube, go figure.
Maybe things like this will force us to care, something has to.
Could it be as simple as that though? After all my premise does nothing to deter our reverence of ignorance, our complete lack of parenting skills, our disregard for civility due to self absorption, racial intolerance, the problem of a large portion of us not understanding the definition of the term equality, insistence on clinging to religion, the lack of realism in the judicial system, mental illness, greed, and our innate thirst for power. Maybe we're just fucked....
UPDATE- This just in:
"A 21-year-old Morgan State University student told investigators that he ate the heart and portions of the brain of a man whose dismembered remains were found in his home, according to a grisly account from the Harford County Sheriff's Office.
The case comes on the heels of shocking incidents in cities like Miami, where a naked man believed to be high on bath salts ate another man's face, and New Jersey, where a man disemboweled himself and reportedly threw his intestines at police officers. Police there say they aren't sure whether the man, Wayne Carter, was on drugs or suffering from mental illness".
Strike the maybe.
