Discussion Main / ConditionedToAcceptHorror

Would it be a stretch to add The Addams Family? specifically the Charles Addams comics?

Doesn't this trope not have to be limited to the 'conditioning' being deliberate and designed? In real life (and in a lot of fiction), a person's life experiences condition them to accept horror (or at least not get phased by it). A person who undergoes a Trauma Conga Line is either horribly traumatized or something of a Zen Survivor (or similar). A soldier who doesn't become a Shell-Shocked Veteran after enduring lots of combat has likely found some way to cope with the horror—such as accepting and expecting it. Sometimes that conditioning isn't some deliberate plan or doing, but a side-effect of the actions of an enemy—an invading nation inflicting countless horrors on your people while your country is struggling to stop it.

This discussion from Star Trek is natter, and isn't going anywhere relevant or likely to end:

• To be fair, the Eminiar VII leader does offer the argument that a real war would kill more people and destroy civilization generally. The real underlying horror both sides have accepted is the notion that they can't live in peace instead.
  • Yes but the problem is they have been so Conditioned To Horror that they don't even TRY to stop or even reduce war! It's just about making it faster and not as messy as it used to be.
  • Kirk points out at the end that he wasn't really risking anything by nearly causing them to really start shooting: no more people would have died than would have in a simulated attack, the only difference being that the real attack would have made it difficult for them to really continue shooting and forced them to face the actual horrors of war.

This was just meaningless, or needlessly ambiguous: Real Life

• Truth in Television. For many reasons.