What does our current appetite for violence-laden entertainment do to our society? Well-adjusted individuals may leave the theater or put down the book and go on with their lives and enjoy their roles as spouse, friend, parent, employee, or whatever.

But what of those of us who are not well adjusted? What of children living in dysfunctional families? Teenagers facing a world of confusing values?  Veterans returning from serving in a war zone and struggling to deal with horrors they knew there? Civilians, such as the emergency rescuer I read about, who needed counseling after witnessing a terrible accident?

The atmosphere of the present day leads to a revisionist portrayal even of literature written in the past. Take Sherlock Holmes as an example. A presenter at a conference that I attended introduced us to Conan Doyle’s sleuth as the cerebral detective. Readers are enticed into the story world, the speaker suggested. Violence is seldom used. The pace is not hyperactive. Relationships draw us in.

I thought I would find these qualities in a current movie resurrecting the Sherlock Holmes story. The movie, however, portrayed Holmes as a ruffian upholder of justice. Violence, gore, and torture impregnated the plot, as well as adrenaline-laced chase scenes. (One wonders how our current appetite for such movies affects veterans with post traumatic stress disorder.) Though the relationship between Holmes and his sidekick, John Watson, was portrayed, it took back stage to the frenetic action scenes.

We do not, like the ancient Romans, stage gladiatorial contests where combatants face life or death situations to entertain the masses. Wonder where those reality TV shows are headed?