On Violence

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The first image you show, the 19th century painting by Gérôme, is certainly a picture of violence. The gladiator fights were famous and definitely violent.

The second, Minoan Bull-leaping, was not violent. It was dangerous, it didn't aim at injury. From Wikipedia:


emphasis added. The Cretan fresco is shown just to the right of that sentence.

The third image, the 6th century BC marble relief, is sports. Is Olympic wrestling considered violent? If done right, both wrestlers went home uninjured.

The painting from the Chroniques de Froissart shows another kind of sport. It was also dangerous, and was partly a training for war, but the people in the picture are doing sports, not trying to kill each other. 

I suppose that if you want to call American Football and that type of thing violent, then sports are violent. (I would agree that boxing is violent.) 

So of the four, the best example of what you're trying to prove comes from a time which many think of as being a high point in civilization. The Roman Empire at its peak enjoyed watching violent death. Some people might say that this form of entertainment gives the lie to the idea that it was actually a civilized time. 

Still, the number of simulated violent deaths we see in movies and TV far surpass what any Roman citizen would have seen in a lifetime.

1. The second, of the bull fight, was supposed to depict more violent notions of bullfighting which also existed at that time, but I couldn't find a good picture of that so I used it as a stand in as from depiction they look similar.

2. The second one was me trying to show an example of pankration, but again I was having a hard time finding a good picture, so I just settled for a depiction of wrestling, as in sculpture they look pretty much the same. Also, Greek wrestling was quite brutal in its own right. Heck, breaking fingers was legal early on, as was ankle dislocation. Also,  pankration  and wrestling were common forms of entertainment outside the Olympics, and it's a simulation of violence. The fact no one died is aside from the point. 

3. The point of jousting was to knock your opponent off their horse, which was quite dangerous with knights often winding up dead and the point is not killing, it's simulated  violence in general, even if it's simulated violence. I mean no one really dies in John Wick, but it's a simulation  of violence 

4. The amount of death seen is aside the fact  that people have always used violence, or at least, simulation of violence, as a means of entertainment.

Another bit about Greek wrestling: if one of the contestants broke a rule - no testicle grabbing for instance - the referee would beat him with a whip until he stopped.

Seems kinda violent to me.

Boru