I've been wondering why it is that often artists and writers sneer at scientists?
I have read so many long diatribes about how scientists should take responsibility for the impact of their work and how so often they are blinded to consequences and just rush headlong into dangerous research.

The usual story being that scientists just want to discover things and be remembered as geniuses and like the money that the big corporations pay them so they ignore the moral implications.

In college we even had a Science and technology in society module in which an extremely left-leaning lecturer told us what we *should* think and tried to persuade us never to become lackies of the capitalist machine :)

But what about the responsibility of artists, designers, writers, film makers and other creative people?

It seems to me that hardly anyone takes the impact on society that these folk have seriously enough.

The selling power of celebs, the role model positions of footballers are often discussed in the media. But the steady drip drip drip of tv, books, articles, blogs, and many other places where art/writing crops up is so much more influential.

It may sound simplistic but that doesn't make it untrue - the more a person is exposed to something the less they see it or are consciously aware of it.

There is a physiological response called adaption - it is the ability of the body to 'airbrush' away irritations. For example if a person wears glasses that turn the images fed to their brain upside down - after a while they no longer have any difficulty - their brain just translates the image to seem the right way up again. Then when the glasses come off - the 'correct' image seems upside down - until the body adapts again. This is the same process that allows people to live in a noisy environment or a smelly one - they just switch off noticing the noise/odour.

So it is not being silly to suppose that being constantly bombarded with violence, shocking scenes in writing or film, swearing, anger, intolerance - will lead to a similar response.

Nobody will go off and commit a crime after watching one nasty film or reading one graphically explicit novel (unless they are already seriously disturbed) but after the hundred thousandth time of seeing comedy bashings, dramatic violence, artistic representations of scenes of carnage, violent films - especially if they have been exposed to such things from a very early age, maybe they might be so desensitised to do something small, or if under the influence of drugs or alcohol (again drip drip drip from media, books film and celebs that it is wild and exciting and cool to be a free spirit and tortured by addiction) they might.

Even if they don't actually do anything criminal, they might be just generally depressed and despondent by a sensory overload from all corners that tells them life is pain, suffering, violent and grotty and that there is little hope of ever surmounting this status.

I know I sound like a drippy middle class wally. But that is exactly my point.

There was a time when people were allowed to want and express a love of life and a wish that other people would be happy and nice to each other. There was a time when children and families lived together in harmony and neighbours supported each other and community meant something wonderful and cosy and wasn't a buzz word meaning something quite the opposite and used by social workers.

A time when social workers were not in constant danger going about their business.

It wasn't perfect, it wasn't a dream world - but it was manageable and the deeply unhappy were the unusual ones not the norm. Yes people were unsatisfied in various ways - but overall people were measurably more content.

I wonder why some artists etc think that the way to enthuse a shell-shocked population is by shocking them some more?

Maybe the poor buggers are burnt out and now would be the time for artists to do something really radical and start giving the world some hope for a better tomorrow.

And if you read all that I'm amazed. But at least it's out of my system now

;)