Traveling in the Provence area of France some time ago, I missed the last train out of Arles and had no way to get back to my youth hostel, some 12 kilometers to the north. Since I couldn't afford a taxi, I decided to try l'autostop; that is, to hitch a ride.

As I walked along the highway that led out of town, I knew I should put out my open palm as a signal to the drivers. For the longest time, though, my pride wouldn't let me do it. I was genuinely embarrassed at having to ask for their help.

After about a mile of wrestling with my shame, I at last feebly stretched out my hand and managed to do so for every car that went by. This went on for about four hours, as the sun set and twilight faded into darkness, until at last a French student no ol der than I stopped and gave me a lift.

What had struck me during all this was how fast my attitude toward hitchhiking changed, how fast I lost my proud independence. Not only was I unashamed to put out my hand, I very soon began growing angry at the drivers for not stopping, only because I had grown accustomed to asking them. Thus, in only a few hours, I had come face-to-face with a very serious human problem: the problem of desensitization.

Desensitization is of course not new. It is a consequence of the human ability to adapt to different surroundings, to get used to things. Sometimes this trait is very helpful, as it can allow us to weather difficult circumstances, such as a long-term debi litating illness. But it can also be a curse, deadening our reactions to things that should shock and affront us, making it all too easy to regard such things as normal and acceptable.

Some of this is deliberate - desensitization for its own sake. Groups like Queer Nation are notorious for being as high-profile as possible, so as to alter American perceptions of flagrant homosexuality via a sort of moral anesthetic. A Berkeley student n amed Andrew Martinez gained fame as "The Naked Guy" for his refusal to wear clothes, trying to desensitize the campus to nudity. NAMBLA does the same thing, albeit a bit more cautiously (pedophilia still being technically illegal). Doesn't prove one iota about right or wrong, but it's a good psychological tactic.

Some desensitization is simply a byproduct of an amoral profit motive. Filmmakers and video game designers know that graphic violence sells, and as people grow used to it, it bores them, so the violence grows more graphic, and so on. The Mortal Kombat vid eo game series, for instance, uses realistic martial arts fighters and has great gouts of bright red blood and over 28 different "fatalities," including being impaled on spikes. Killer Instinct is the same way. (The movie Mortal Kombat, to its credit, did not stoop to such violence.) Gangsta rap "artists" are so vicious, predatory and misogynistic that even Time-Warner dropped their labels. And we're talking about kids hearing and watching this stuff.

Perhaps the most frightening sort of desensitization of all, though, is the sort that comes not from the television screen or the boombox, but from real-life violence. In Citizen magazine, John J. Dilulio Jr. quotes a big-city prosecutor, on the worst juv eniles: "They kill or maim on impulse, without any intelligible motive." No one denies this appalling level of inner-city violence, and there is at least anecdotal evidence that its perpetrators simply don't think all that much about it, that it's no big deal to them. Growing up surrounded by such brutality would make it very hard to be shocked by it, time after time.

Of course, desensitization is only one of many factors that breeds violence. Fatherlessness, a culture of moral relativism, a weak justice system, drug and alcohol abuse, total absence of religion and a host of other dangers help to wreak havoc. Also, tho se living in crime-ridden areas (such as those who put "No Radio" signs in their cars to deter thieves), may see desensitization as a mental survival tool, the only thing between them and a complete nervous breakdown.

Perhaps the answer is to separate emotional desensitization from moral desensitization, to determine to fight back against crime because it's wrong, whether it still shocks us or not. Perhaps we must realize that graphic depictions of violence can be harm ful and should be regulated. In any case, we should be aware that moral desensitization is like an anesthetic, and that one who is sleeping can become an easy victim.

John Keisling has seen Mortal Kombat three times. He is a math Ph.D. candidate. His column appears Wednesdays.