bell hooks on love and violence

From her great book All About LoveI’ve included this in a previous post but given the day I’ve had today, a day on which what I thought was a rather innocuous comment I made in a review became the focus of considerable attention and some ire, I wanted to reread it myself, and repost it.

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Were we, collectively, to demand that our mass media portray images that reflect love’s reality, it would happen. This change would radically alter our culture. 

We cannot talk about changing the types of images offered to us in the mass media without acknowledging the extent to which the vast majority of the images we see are created from a patriarchal standpoint… Individual women and men who do not see themselves as victims of patriarchal power find it difficult to take seriously the need to challenge and change patriarchal thinking… Patriarchy, like any system of domination (for example, racism), relies on socializing everyone to believe that in all human relations there is an inferior and a superior party, one person is strong, the other weak, and that it is therefore natural for the powerful to rule over the powerless… Naturally, anyone socialized to think this way would be more interested in and stimulated by scenes of domination and violence rather than by scenes of love and care. Yet they need a consumer audience to whom they can sell their product. Therein lies our power to demand change… 

This is not meant to be an argument for censorship… But everyone knows that all forms of violence are glamorized and made to appear interesting and seductive by the mass media. The producers of these images could just as easily use the mass media to challenge and change violence. When images we see condone violence, whether they lead any of us to be “more” violent or not, they do affirm the notion that violence is an acceptable means of social control, that it is fine for one individual or group to dominate another individual or group.

Domination cannot exist in any social situation where a love ethic prevails… When love is present the desire to dominate and exercise power cannot rule the day. All the great social movements for freedom and justice in our society have promoted a love ethic. Concern for the collective good of our nation, city, or neighbor rooted in the values of love makes us all seek to nurture and protect that good. If all public policy was created in the spirit of love, we would not have to worry about unemployment, homelessness, schools failing to teach children, or addiction.