John has gotten into the new show on HBO: The Leftovers. I've been watching it, and most of the time it leaves me bothered, because it sometimes shows scenes of horrible human nature that I hate to admit exist in real life.
There's a cult of people who eschew speech, their families, their pasts, and exist as living reminders of the fact that a sizable chunk of the population disappeared suddenly with no explanation why. Reasonably enough in a town that is trying to move on, the Guilty Remnant draws ire from the townsfolk. They peaceably assemble, they watch townsfolk. They're relatively benign and non-violent; however, the largest amount of violence in the show is against members of the Guilty Remnant. Horrible violence.
It makes me sad, because it's a reflection of how society is today: violent against anything objectionable or that's not understood.
Take, for example, transgender violence. There is an alarming rate of violence (and murder) against transgender individuals, a population that people don't understand, that somehow makes people feel threatened because, perhaps, they don't understand (or want to understand) that transgender people are people, just trying to live their lives.
Of course, transgender violence is only a small example, but nonetheless, I am disturbed by our need to respond to things with violence instead of dialogue. It actually makes me feel kind of ill. I've never been a violent person, but as I get older, the more averse to it I get.
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