school...

[drive12_5]

is literally driving me into the ground. literature reviews suck. they suck big time. literature reviews about the effects of domestic violence on little kids sucks and kinda makes me want to track down any spousal abuser and beat the living bejeesus out of them. oh well. gonna have to get used to this stuff

Comments

[theotherjay]

This is something that came up for me a few years ago when I was taking Darius Rejali's 'Approaches to Violence' class - lots of literature reviews about forms of torture. He warned us at the outset that this might happen - that there's a 'Cartesian solipsism' that arises from feeling like you're unique in the dispassionate, objective study of gruesome violence - but never really told us how to deal with it. It was basically "Cowboy up!"

I think it's important to have a solid, well-thought-out moral sense already in place, before embarking on study like this. The fact that you care in the first place is a good sign. If you remember that people matter and are worth protecting, no matter what you read, you'll be the stronger for it. You can use this knowledge in the service of your ideals, rather than letting it overwhelm them.