Video games and violence...

[Bdoomed]

wakela i love you. haha. That link is very interesting, and I can certainly use it to my advantage in my paper! (The darn thing is due Wednesday, and I have not started it yet because... oh, i have 3 OTHER papers to write! ...kill me now... its stressing me out, and i don't get stressed!)

anyways, some of you (or one of you... either way) in other countries (what? there are other countries than America?) are becoming kind of mad/peeved/annoyed at us Americans for discussing American issues, and consequently I feel bad for starting this topic now (but it was in the name of knowledge!!!).  Anyways, I would like to know the stats, opinions, etc. of people in other countries too, mainly Canada and the UK.  You guys have the same general games as Americans do, am I correct? Yet your violence rates are much lower.  (and i hate using 'your'... I don't like grouping so many at a time)

[JaredAxelrod]

as for today's games, Grand Theft Auto for instance, for every person you kill or whatever you do, your police meter rises, and eventually you can have the whole military on your back... thats consequence.  Games without consequence usually involve military action.  Fighting the bad guys

As someone who has slaughtered thousands of imaginary knights, cowboys, Indians, monsters, aliens and various other foes as a child--with far more gruesome fates in the clarity of my mind than the pixelated deaths currently available--I don't think there's much merit it your argument.  Who hasn't played "soldier" fighting "bad guys?"  We've all held the squirt gun imagining it was the real thing, and chopped through villians with a wooden sword.  Violence is part of childhood play.

If anything, I'd say video games are making kids less imagative.  They've always been violent.

[Bdoomed]

okay you've confused me... i'm not arguing against you, especially in that quote... that quote is about having consequences for violent actions in games, as a counterargument to a post about how videogames are teaching kids violence without consequence.

anyways

We've all held the squirt gun imagining it was the real thing, and chopped through villians with a wooden sword.  Violence is part of childhood play.

do you mind if i quote you on this in my paper?

[JaredAxelrod]

okay you've confused me... i'm not arguing against you, especially in that quote... that quote is about having consequences for violent actions in games, as a counterargument to a post about how videogames are teaching kids violence without consequence.

anyways

We've all held the squirt gun imagining it was the real thing, and chopped through villians with a wooden sword.  Violence is part of childhood play.

do you mind if i quote you on this in my paper?

Sure thing.  I'm not sure how much of an authority I am, but go ahead.

As far as no-consequences violence, my point was how many of those imaginary villians did you think I gave a second thought to after I "killed" them?  There was no consequences there, just a boy pretending to be a hero by vanquishing the enemy.

[Rachel Swirsky]

Right. Which attitude (that the opponents were evil and disappear after slaying) is probably at the root of a lot of our culture's acceptance of violence.

However, it's hardly a new idea.

In order for anyone to argue (not that anyone here is) that video games cause violence, one would have to first believe that America today is more violent than our historical forebears, and idealizations of 1950 aside, that's just a silly idea.

[JaredAxelrod]

Right. Which attitude (that the opponents were evil and disappear after slaying) is probably at the root of a lot of our culture's acceptance of violence.

Because no one plays soldier in Japan?  What are comparing this to?

[ClintMemo]

There is also the issue of desensitization. Images that would have emotionally upset me and my friends in the early '70s don't phase kids today.  That's not just a video game issue, but in all media. 

When people used to tell me that we are more violent than we used to be, I counter by telling them that the world is no worse than it has ever been, but thanks to our improved communication technology, we just hear a lot more about it so it seems more violent.

[Rachel Swirsky]

Because no one plays soldier in Japan?  What are comparing this to?

I add "in our culture" whenever I think I'm making an assertion that couldn't be held static across times and cultures. Certainly, I'm not comparing us to Japan, but I'm not going to take the stand that all places and times have been as violent as ours.

I think our immediate Western forebears, though, were very comfortable with violence.

[Rachel Swirsky]

There is also the issue of desensitization. Images that would have emotionally upset me and my friends in the early '70s don't phase kids today.  That's not just a video game issue, but in all media. 

Totally. But to some extent this seems, again, like a class/race issue (there certainly were kids who were experiencing daily violence in the early '70s, even though we don't tend to talk about them, because they're not the "default" -- white, middle class, etc.). And, then, also, it seems like a blip. Most times and places haven't had protected childhoods (our conception of childhood is, what, Victorian?), and in a lot of times and places, violence has been relatively commonplace (if you're thinking - say - the middle ages, where the nobility was allowed to dispose of serfs in basically whatever way they wished... or, heaven forbid, during slavery in the south, there were lots of abuses of human bodies available for everyone to see, and become desensitized to).

More or less what I'm saying is that we tend to treat the state of non-exposure to violence as the default, and exposure to violence as a new invention, when it seems to have operated in the opposite direction. That doesn't mean we shouldn't strive for non-exposure to violence (certainly of the real kind!), but the idea that our culture is "more violent" because of violent images is pretty ahistorical.

[Listener]

While I'm more concerned about the desensitization to sex (see below), I think that anything "bad" needs to be taken in the context of the people consuming it.  If kids are consuming violent content without parental supervision, then they have no one to look to when they see something violent.

I watched plenty of violent stuff as a kid -- pro wrestling before it was widely "accepted" to be fake, for example, and the end of Star Trek II was pretty bloody.  But I never turned out to be a violent person.

When GTA and games like it are used as babysitters, that's when you see the problems.

I'm also concerned that "watching out for violence to protect our children" is the rallying cry for most legislators trying to take away the freedoms of intelligent citizens to enjoy what they want to enjoy as long as it's not causing direct harm to anyone else.

For example, legislating sex.  Nice dovetail there, no?

I think that, more than violence, I'm concerned about desensitization to sex.  Not that I want to see less of it -- I *heart* sex  -- but the mystery of sex has been lost.  As a kid, I thought sex was pretty damn mysterious (the "having sex", not the biology; school taught me that part).  If I was 11 or 12 now, I would already know what sex was and might even have had it.

There's just something about the mystery of sex that is alluring to me, and I'm sad that today's kids won't have that same experience when they're old enough.

[ClintMemo]

While I'm more concerned about the desensitization to sex (see below), I think that anything "bad" needs to be taken in the context of the people consuming it.  If kids are consuming violent content without parental supervision, then they have no one to look to when they see something violent.

I watched plenty of violent stuff as a kid -- pro wrestling before it was widely "accepted" to be fake, for example, and the end of Star Trek II was pretty bloody.  But I never turned out to be a violent person.

When GTA and games like it are used as babysitters, that's when you see the problems.

Lack of parental supervision, or "a voice of wisdom" can cause all sorts of problems. 

I'm also concerned that "watching out for violence to protect our children" is the rallying cry for most legislators trying to take away the freedoms of intelligent citizens to enjoy what they want to enjoy as long as it's not causing direct harm to anyone else.

For example, legislating sex.  Nice dovetail there, no?

I think that, more than violence, I'm concerned about desensitization to sex.  Not that I want to see less of it -- I *heart* sex  -- but the mystery of sex has been lost.  As a kid, I thought sex was pretty damn mysterious (the "having sex", not the biology; school taught me that part).  If I was 11 or 12 now, I would already know what sex was and might even have had it.

There's just something about the mystery of sex that is alluring to me, and I'm sad that today's kids won't have that same experience when they're old enough.

I'm not really concerned about the "demystifying" as much as the "de-importantizing" of it (to make up a horrible term - someone please give me a better one.)  I don't think sex should be portrayed as "no big deal" because it can be a big, life changing event.  I'm all for sex education. More knowledge is always better, especially about important issues.

As a country, I think the US is much more neurotic about sex than they are about violence.  One big difference is that people need to have sex. They don't need to be violent.  Purging violence from the world would be a good thing. Purging sex would not. 

[Listener]

As a country, I think the US is much more neurotic about sex than they are about violence.  One big difference is that people need to have sex. They don't need to be violent.  Purging violence from the world would be a good thing. Purging sex would not. 

Yeah.  It sucks.

One bell I was always ringing on my blog is that we're not high enough on the hierarchy of needs to be the kind of culture that we think we have.  We're too worried about being accepted by other people -- and in many cases just getting food and shelter -- to even think about self-actualization.

I don't know why I just said that.  I had a point, but I forgot it.  I work in a newsroom; it's pretty noisy in here, and I get distracted.

Anyway, until we're higher up on the hierarchy, we as an American culture will never stop legislating and moralizing over sex.  Who my gay friends boink doesn't matter to anyone but my gay friends and the people they are boinking.  Who my kinky friends tie up and spank doesn't matter to anyone but my kinky friends and the people they tie up and spank.  And so on. 

It's just that it's so easy to legislate against sex because what lawmaker's going to come out and say "I think it should be permissible for men to have sex with other men as long as both are above the age of consent in this state"?  Even in non-Bible-Belt states, it's still a risky proposition.

[Anarkey]

I'm not really concerned about the "demystifying" as much as the "de-importantizing" of it (to make up a horrible term - someone please give me a better one.)  I don't think sex should be portrayed as "no big deal" because it can be a big, life changing event.  I'm all for sex education. More knowledge is always better, especially about important issues.

My shot at the word you're looking for: trivializing.

[ClintMemo]

I'm not really concerned about the "demystifying" as much as the "de-importantizing" of it (to make up a horrible term - someone please give me a better one.)  I don't think sex should be portrayed as "no big deal" because it can be a big, life changing event.  I'm all for sex education. More knowledge is always better, especially about important issues.

My shot at the word you're looking for: trivializing.

DING! DING! DING!

Anarkey wins the prize!

Thank  you.  That's exactly the word I was looking for.

[Anarkey]

DING! DING! DING!

Anarkey wins the prize!

Thank  you.  That's exactly the word I was looking for.

Oh yay!  I've always wanted the prize. 

[Rachel Swirsky]

I generally disagree. I think the reason we're neurotic about sex is that we insist on making it mystical and secret. It's, you know, part of life. This is OT, though; is everyone okay with the derail?

[Listener]

DING! DING! DING!

Anarkey wins the prize!

Thank  you.  That's exactly the word I was looking for.

Oh yay!  I've always wanted the prize. 

I am the one / the only one / I am the God of Kingdom Come / Gimme the prize!