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Anti-Game Violence Lawyer Profiled
Thanks to Reason Online for their article discussing recurring anti-game violence lawyer Jack Thompson, whom they describe as "nothing if not relentless" for his repeated attempts to sue videogame companies on behalf of violence victims. They also shine a light on his pre-videogame concerns, which include acting as "a primary force behind 2 Live Crew's obscenity woes", and even "peddling some genuinely intriguing claims about Janet Reno's time in Miami." The piece concludes by referencing similar "brainwashing fears" common to Thompson and an earlier crusader, Fredric Wertham, who "was at the forefront of the campaign to stop comic books from rotting the minds of the young with fantastic, colorful tales of violence, horror, and unconventional living arrangements" in the '50s.
It's very easy to demonize people who try to look for societal causes for horrible things. Particularly when those societal causes are things like video games, or comic books. And so, in the 50 years since Seduction of the Innocent was published, Wertham has become a figure of comical ridicule - even by people who haven't read anything written by him beyond the oft-quoted paragraph about Batman and Robin.
...
/shrug.
The problem with things like that is that only token research paints a far more nuanced picture of Wertham.
I quote here from Will Brooker's excellent book Batman Unmasked, in which he gives a far more well-researched study of Wertham than most people do. He is reading here a passage in which Wertham talks about homosexuality:
"We might now quibble with the term 'malorientation', but overall, rather than expressing shock and outrage, Wertham's tone seems one of quite reasonable concern. He does not, in my opinion, come across as 'shrill' or 'anguished'. Rather than advocating a witch-hunt against deviants, he understands that in a climate where homosexuality is a great taboo, gay fantasies might be a source of worry for young men."
"If we learn that Wertham's suspicion of Superman comics was based on his discomfort with all aspects of Fascism and his fear that children might learn to admire both physical force and the domination of 'inferior' peoples, his writing on this subject may also make more sense.
It would no doubt surprise many of those who caricature him as a bigot to learn that, during the 1920s, Wertham was one of the few psychiatrists who would treat black patients; that he spent the war years campaigning without result and against great hostility to establish a low-cost clinic in Harlem; that his LaFargue Clinic was finally opened on 113th Street in March 1944 with the help of funding from Ralph Ellison and the support of New York's black ministers."
That is not to say that Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent is a good reading - his look at comic books is selective, and his case studies are limited.
But simplifying Wertham, or Thompson, for that matter, as an overzealous bigot looking to make a cheap buck off of popular hysteria is falling into the same trap you're accusing them of. As with most things, the issue is a lot more complex and nuanced than that.
I'm not saying that video games cause violence. But, considering the strong evidence that media does influence the attitudes of the people who consume it, I can see how a reasonable and intelligent person could believe video games to be harmful.
Demonizing things is bad, mmkay?
Philip Sandifer's academic website
I've said, in many posts, that there are problems with violent video games and that my experience, when I used to work in social work, is that, no matter what proponents claim, they lead to violent behavior.
But the idea of banning them is completely wrong.
On the other hand, if someone makes games that are proven to lead to violent behavior, it seems victims would have as much right to sue the game companies as smokers who can't read warning labels on cigarettes have of suing tobacco companies.
On the other hand, wouldn't it be really cool if everybody had the backbone to just accept responsibility for their own behavior and stop trying to blame others or big companies for it.