We don’t have to watch violence to know it exists

‘It’s one thing to be aware of the horrors of the world, it’s another to dip yourself directly into it’

No — just no. I’ve started a one-person campaign. You can’t make me do it — and I won’t.

“Police release footage of dramatic assault on Charlie Hebdo suspects ... French police have released a video of storming of the factory in the outskirts of Paris where two men suspected of (the Jan. 7) attack on the French magazine Charlie Hebdo were hiding.” I’m not watching. You can watch anything on the Internet. But should you?

A small Chinese boy puts firecrackers into a hole in a manhole cover. The resulting sewer gas explosion fires him high into the air. When he falls, like a rag doll, he is obviously injured. A massive manhole cover falls with him and just misses his head. It clearly would have killed him.

Do you need to see it? Watch your own child run into the edge of the kitchen table with a good crack and you can feel the pain of it in your own forehead.

Maybe if you can’t feel the pain of a blown- up boy, too, that should be a message to you.

The siren song of the clickbait advertisement pops up everywhere — “You won’t believe this,” “Wait until you see what happens.”

The evening news tells you about the latest ISIS terrorist video, the latest beheadings and burnings, and if you haven’t changed the channel by then, you can watch the video run to exactly the point where news producers think they’ll lose you for sure. And then, if you have some interest, you can track down the video online and watch every gruesome bit. But once again, should you?

A man stares out at you in a single frame, his pickup truck crushed to the width of a single person by two transport trucks, one on either side. You can see his eyes. Do you need to?

I know from experience that, faced with horrible things, you can make yourself into a hard, impervious little bead.

You can harden yourself off, like a plant facing frost.

But that isn’t really any kind of permanent solution. Things that are hard can also be brittle.

It isn’t putting your head in the sand to choose not to watch; you can still understand exactly what has happened. It’s one thing to be aware of the horrors of the world, it’s another to dip yourself directly into it. And if you believe you don’t come out of that dip with the experience still all over your skin, you’re wrong. There are things you can’t unsee.

But you can choose not to see them — not to bring them into your office, into your home. I think I’m choosing that. I’ve said it before, but the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said it best, way back in 1886: “He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”