CJ wrote:People who know me are always amazed that I'm into these kinds of games. They can't figure out what such a sweet-tempered, slightly docile, person such as myself can find of value in this kind of violent fantasy. Well, it's pretty simple, actually. I'm a "repressed" person living in a repressed society. I've long ago acknowledged that I have a dark side (not violent, just dark) and this kind of entertainment is merely an outlet for that side; like scary movies or novels that plumb the depths of human alienation, games such as Doom3 are cathartic. Detractors often decry the existence of such entertainment when there's already so much violence in the world. "Why add to it?" they ask. Well, if you consider joystick twiddling and button mashing violent activities, then I agree. But these aren't violent activities. They're games. Lines of code written to provide a thrill (and we seek that thrill enough to want to shell out US $50 or more to get it). Detractors also say that such games incite others to violence (as has been the case in a few widely reported cases). Well, I have news: if you look for this kind of cause-and-effect relationship, absolutely anything that is a cultural artifact can have undesirable effects on fragile minds. Rape, murder, incest, kidnapping, cannibalism, for example, are all themes we can find in the fairy tales of the brothers Grimm. With the advent of television, a child of today sees more sexual situations and violence, including killing, before he or she is eight years old than most adults saw in their lifetime a mere sixty years ago. Should fairy tales, television, and games (and paintings, plays, sculptures, films, books, and music, for that matter) be banned for this reason? No. I don't think so. What's important is that these things be understood in their proper setting, that they be contextualized, and used or enjoyed responsibly.
Almost anything we can say about violent video games and their effects on people’s thinking can be contradicted by a selective presentation of facts. We know that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold liked violent games, and we also know that they killed classmates and teachers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. We know that violence reported in the media tends to be followed by a spike in similar violence, demonstrated by careful analyses published in respected scientific journals. On the other hand, the vast majority of those who are exposed to the same events (like CJ) are not inspired to do anything antisocial.
Certainly, many people I respect believe that the media, including video games, have played a role in shaping the social values of our society. I once took a college class in which we viewed slides of media images from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, and how these paralleled the thinking of the American public about the family, violence, women, race, and money. I guess the point of this exercise was to show that there is a parallel between what is depicted in the media and the prevailing social values. Which is the chicken and which is the egg? I am not sure. As CJ suggests, games may serve functions for us that have nothing to do with shaping our behavior.
Pauline wrote:So the theory that games, music, film ect effects us to be violent is not true, it is in human nature that the violence and restraint comes from. I am not highly educated but thats the way i see it.
Nursary rhymes.. like Hansel and Gretel.. they push the witch in the oven and burned her alive.. and we tell that to our children, we try and most suceed in teaching our children right from wrong yet we tell them from an early age its ok to murder
Hansel and Gretel acted in self-defense against a witch who was preparing to eat them. But I still think firm conclusions about the effects of media violence are premature. Public opinion polls consistently find a majority of Americans expressing concern about such violence—especially the parents of young children. The serious issues pertain to what processes (if any) operate—vicarious learning, desensitization, catharsis, legitimating of violence, etc. Also, whether media violence presented in an appropriate context is as likely to facilitate violence in the viewer as media violence displayed without such a context. Noting that violence has occurred in the past, that human beings are genetically capable of violence, that it is found in fairy tales, and so forth does not bear on any of these issues, which pertain to the conditions under which there will be less of it or more of it. To say that there exist conditions of some sort under which it occurs—or has occurred in the past—is indisputably true.
Jamie Ann.... so is that an agreement?? I did mention I am not highly educated..
Pauline
I don’t think education is a factor here. And we do at least partly agree. I was only trying to clarify the issue as I see it. It is not whether any violence exists, or whether any has existed in the past. It is whether violence in the mass media stimulates a higher level of violence in society than would exist without violence in the mass media. I am aware of research that concludes yes; I am aware that there are critics of that research. I generally put my trust in research, but in this case researchers themselves have not fully resolved the issues that separate them. In the United States, at least, it is parents’ groups who believe most strongly that media violence —> more violence in society. Are their intuitions right? I do not know. Would Hansel and Gretel have gone after more than the witch if they’d had violent media images dancing in their heads — that is the question!
Well, one thing's for sure: if Hansel and Gretel had been exposed to media images they would've sued the witch (or her estate) in a second.
Thanks, Jamie Ann, for trying to clarify the issues. These issues do, in fact, matter. My own intuition on the matter of violence and the media is that we'll never be able to eradicate it nor to censor it "from the top down" (with all due respect to Senator Lieberman). To me, it looks like this:
1. Violence is a fact. From the birth of stars in the Orion Nebula to the death of an ant inadvertently squished on the sidewalk, the universe is a violent place.
2. The human species gained ascendancy not only because of the more fully developed cerebral cortex of its members but because of its ability (and willingness) to use violence to achieve that supremacy (see, for example, in a more mythical context, the opening "chapter" of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey).
3. Human culture is built around both violence and "connectedness" (although violence seems to be its primary feature--the history of humanity reads very much like the history of warfare).
4. Heavy repression of "natural" instincts leads to aggressiveness and violence. This holds true for both individuals and societies in general (when I say "natural instincts" here, I'm referring to connectedness, not to violence).
5. Thus "disconnected" (or, literally, "alienated," i.e., being strangers not only to each other but to ourselves even) we revert to violence as the organizing principle of our life, again, both as persons and as a culture.
6. That violence will be mirrored in the cultural artifacts we produce (much in the same way religion reflects our desire for connectedness). We can try to further repress that violence but I think that further repression will inevitably lead to further violence.
7. Just to belabour the point, violent media images and entertainment are, again, a reflection of who we are (and, again, in pretty much the same way as are our sacred texts throughout the world). Media are mirrors; they don't produce anything original, not even violence, they just show us who we are (and who we think and believe we are).
The mistake many make (and, yes, this includes media watchdogs, parents, and legislators) is to believe that by pasting over parts of that mirror we will cease to be who we are as a species. We won't. The structured and wilful suppression of our baser, more animal, instincts--however much we may exert ourselves to achieve it--is doomed to failure. We cannot successfully deny who are (ask any crossdresser).
I realize that the underlying assumption of those who seek to control and monitor violence is that we can change who we are. They're working toward a better future for society, one that is as violence-free as possible. Okay, I can (and do) agree with the goal. Nevertheless, I disagree with the method. Rather than trying to censor violence, to erase what is an indelible feature of our species, why not instead work at promoting and increasing the value of its other indelible feature, namely, connectedness (or the need and desire for such)? There are two prongs to this approach: First, we have to contextualize violence, to put it in its proper frame rather than simply try to deny its existence. When we see violence for what it truly is--a natural impulse we cannot divorce ourselves from--we disarm it, to some extent, much like years of psychotherapy will, to some extent, disarm the mechanisms at the source of our neuroses. Second, we need to work harder at promoting values that are related to connectedness. In grade school and high school we teach kids about the Civil War and the length of the hypotenuse but we spend little time teaching them what it means to live with other human beings and how best to do so sanely. The explication of co-operation, empathy, sensitivity, benevolence, tolerance, and compassionate ethics are rarely part of the curriculum (this may be changing, though, if the growing trend in the schools to teach peaceful conflict resolution is any indication). This focus on connectedness rather than on our (ineradicable) violence stands a better chance to succeed, I think, in our aim to make society less prone to violence than does censorship and further repression. And this may be, Jamie Ann, one of the best hopes at having a condition under which there may be less violence in society.
Having said all this, I'll admit that I haven't looked at any of the research. This is why I prefaced this post by saying I was referring to my intuition. This is merely my own way of looking at, and understanding, this "problem." Unlike you, Jamie Ann, I don't put much faith in the results of research done in the social sciences ("hard" science, on the other hand, is a different story); issues of methodology and sample size and representativeness all contribute to the possibility of a researcher skewing the results in any direction she wishes. I've never understood how we can take seriously the claim that the views and opinions expressed by, say, a thousand or even two thousand people can be representative of the views of, say, 325,000,000 people. It doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, that's my own failing, I guess.
Finally, back to gaming violence. I'll freely admit that gaming violence is in a category all its own, just because gaming is an "interactive" experience (and it's especially marketed as such). Gamers, in addition to merely "observing violence," also "participate" in it, to some extent. But do they, really? Violence (in the human context--forget about stars and ants for a minute) is the harm we do--both to ourselves and to others. Yes, this harm is certainly psychological as well as physical. But who is harmed when I take a virtual shotgun and kill a virtual zombie? It's a game; it's not real. Plus, it's cathartic. It's an acceptable way to channel my own aggressive impulses (and, although in my case they're somewhat muted, I do have them--we all do... even His Holiness the Dalaï Lama does). It harms nobody. Even participation in many organized sports (a major entertainment in our "bread and circuses" society) aren't as acceptable an outlet as this, given the levels of physical harm that they can engender.
The question of the true effect of our desensitization to violence is a difficult one to answer. Yes, there's much violence in television, films, and novels. But, when we look at it more closely, we see that it almost always happens in the context of a morality play where we learn that violence is ultimately rarely the answer. Usually, "the bad guys" (an expression that, itself, comes from a violent way of thinking), are defeated in the end. Yes, sometimes through violent acts on the part of "the good guys" but the good guys are almost always remorseful about their own use of violence. So, it's not a question amenable to a pat, black and white answer. Violence plagues us, yes, but what plagues us more is the fantasy that we, as a species, can ever be rid of our violent potential. The Dylan Klebolds of the world are an anomaly; their degree of alienation is so profound and their despair so great that their moral compass was effectively destroyed. It's not so much a matter of their immersion in violent fantasies, such as playing Doom or listening to Marilyn Manson or what you (both of which are, again, reflections of what he, Klebold himself, felt) as it is a matter of their sense of connectedness to the world around them having dwindled to zero. This, of course, doesn't excuse what Klebold and his friend did, but it explains it.
Conclusion: explain violence; contextualize it; don't demonize it; promote peace, self-actualization, harmony, co-operation, and tolerance. Violence won't then disappear but it will be, dare I say it? emasculated. Exactly in the same way video game violence is an emasculated form of violence.
CJ wrote:I realize that the underlying assumption of those who seek to control and monitor violence is that we can change who we are. They're working toward a better future for society, one that is as violence-free as possible. Okay, I can (and do) agree with the goal. Nevertheless, I disagree with the method. Rather than trying to censor violence, to erase what is an indelible feature of our species, why not instead work at promoting and increasing the value of its other indelible feature, namely, connectedness (or the need and desire for such)? There are two prongs to this approach: First, we have to contextualize violence, to put it in its proper frame rather than simply try to deny its existence. When we see violence for what it truly is--a natural impulse we cannot divorce ourselves from--we disarm it, to some extent, much like years of psychotherapy will, to some extent, disarm the mechanisms at the source of our neuroses. Second, we need to work harder at promoting values that are related to connectedness. In grade school and high school we teach kids about the Civil War and the length of the hypotenuse but we spend little time teaching them what it means to live with other human beings and how best to do so sanely. The explication of co-operation, empathy, sensitivity, benevolence, tolerance, and compassionate ethics are rarely part of the curriculum (this may be changing, though, if the growing trend in the schools to teach peaceful conflict resolution is any indication). This focus on connectedness rather than on our (ineradicable) violence stands a better chance to succeed, I think, in our aim to make society less prone to violence than does censorship and further repression. And this may be, Jamie Ann, one of the best hopes at having a condition under which there may be less violence in society.
Well, there is much with which to agree here, CJ, both in the quoted portion above and in your fuller message. But I think the underlying assumption of those who seek to reduce violence through altering the social environment — through legislation, if necessary — is captured in the old expression, “As the twig is bent, so grows the tree.” If human beings have a intractable potential for violence — and I do not think anyone disagrees with this, save a few “tabula rasa” proponents from the 1930s — then the goal is to tame that potential. Your recommendation that society seek to promote an impulse for connectedness actually is based on the very same underlying assumption — that the potential in the twig may be realized more or less strongly, depending on external circumstances.
If I understand Senator Joseph Lieberman’s position (link) correctly, it is to regulate the sale of CD’s (compact disks) and video games to children, just as we now regulate the sale of alcohol and tobacco products to children.
As for the desirability of giving more attention to the human virtues that make civilization possible, I agree with you.
