Slashdot Mirror
Why the Gaming-Violence Connection is So Comforting
Warm Coffee writes "It's is well-established that the science supporting a connection between video game violence and real-world violence is tenuous. A new article at Ars Technica examines why society finds a gaming-violence connection so comforting. From the article: 'Sternheimer suggests that gaming is simply the latest in a long series of media influences to take the blame. "Over the past century, politicians have complained that cars, radio, movies, rock music, and even comic books caused youth immorality and crime, calling for control and sometimes censorship." She terms the targets of such efforts folk devils, items branded dangerous and immoral that serve to focus blame and fear.'"
Various "experts" sell books and make appearances to "explain" how the "problem" was created and what we should do to "solve" the problem.
The names of these "experts" change over the years.
As do their claimed "causes" of the "problem".
But their MO is always the same.
Whoever first corrupted youth with that new fangled "written language" was probably stoned to death and thrown to the lions. So be thankful if the politicians just want to ban your new artistic medium :)
Anyone who interacts with small children -- or even monkeys or parrots -- has seen them imitate behavior. Speech acquisition is imitative, interaction patterns are imitative. It takes no leap of imagination whatsoever to assume, as society does, that propensity towards violence is similarly learned (especially if you believe, as many do, that humans are innately nice and only do bad things because they're taught to.) I think the imitation behavior is so obvious, that the burden of proof is on the people who deny a connection, who say that humans *don't* get more violent from seeing violence. I personally believe that they generally don't because they have the cognitive ability to analyze behavior and decide which is acceptable and which isn't. A lot of people don't believe this, or believe only smart people can do this, or only adults, and they may be right. Forethought, and the ability to predict future events based on current actions, is a hallmark of intelligence. Not everyone has it. I think it's possible the reason the link between video games and violence is 'tenuous' is because for the large majority of people, there *isn't* any link, but for some impressionable, young, or screwed-up people, there *is* a tendency to imitate, because they're not good at separating reality from fantasy. But, really, that's no different than people who hear voices in their heads telling them to burn down churches. We don't blame the voices for the churches being burnt down, we say the people have problems. I suspect it's the same thing with video games. But, for people who dislike technology or new things they don't understand, it's easier to demonize the video game/comic book/whatever than to say that the people involved are the problem.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
The point here is that for as long as we've had civilization, we have had the compulsion toward placing blame for the wrongs of society on some outside force, hence the term, "scapegoat."
Video games are yet another in a long line of popular items to blame the collective wrongs of society upon in order to keep us from having to confront the real problems in society. Whether these problems are those purely indicative of cultural shift over time, or more serious issues like teenagers murdering their classmates, something easy is always found to blame. Nevermind the fact that we live in an exceedingly materialistic culture (that forsakes the bonds of families and friends for monetary gains) or the fact that parents these days don't seem to pay the same kind of attention to their kids that they used to, it's just a lot easier to blame something popular for the decay of society rather than society itself.
Our greatest enemy is neither a single man, nor is it a nation, it is, as it has always been, our own greed.
Strangely enough, I can almost understand it.
Our children are ultimately our legacy on this planet. Some people get to be in history books, but most of us don't. Whether or not there is an afterlife is irrelevant, what remains behind are our children and grandchildren.
In effect, many people feel as though their children are the measuring stick of their lives. This may not be concious, but it is there. When you are dead and gone people will look at your children and judge you by them.
Thus, what happens when things go wrong? Even the best of parents can have terrible offspring. Suddenly, good and incompetant people alike are presented with the possibility that their only legacy on this world will be a serial killer, a school shooter, or any other socially damaging aberration.
It doesn't matter whether or not they were loving or negligent, people have an inherently cruel judgement built in. They will see James Q. Killer in the paper, and assume much about Mr. and Mrs. Killer. They could be the sweetest and wisest people in the world, but the callous eye of society will comdemn them with their child.
This principle works even on lesser problems, such as stubbornness, bad grades, and direputable behaviour. Whatever is wrong with a child can gnaw at their parents.
While the wisest and kindest of parents may not turn desperately for a scapegoat, most people aren't that strong. 40-50 years into life, no one wants to hear they've been doing it all wrong. Facing this would mean accepting that, on some level, you've wasted half your years.
And so we have our "Folk Devils". These are comforting because they delude people to the truth and the difficulty of dealing with it. That this doesn't solve the problem means nothing, only that it takes the burden of responsibility off the shoulders of parents.
It's a flawed way of dealing with reality to be sure. The moment one engages in scapegoating, it is inherently admitted that one was never in control. This premise is essential, or else the scapegoat isn't sufficient. With control, some blame still rests on the parents. Without control, are we not blameless?
It also only compounds the problem. Scapegoating isn't a solution. Anything that might actually be causing or contributing to whatever issue there is with the child will remain unchecked. The parents are only concerned with Bad Influence(TM) X.
It's a lie, but a comforting one. To admit the truth is painful.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
All those people who thought stuff like rock n' roll was leading society into depravity were right -- or at least they weren't proven wrong.
Modern society is depraved according their standards. The fact that we don't see it that way makes it even worse.
Maybe the causal relationship isn't firmly established. But if you went back in time to visit somebody who thought listening to black music (rock) would lead to horrible things like miscegenation, and showed him what the future was going to be like, his worst fears would be confirmed.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Gaming and violence satisfy the same instinct. So do games (including chess). While they're related this way, they don't cause each other. Video games are bullied because they're percieved as minority's thing by older or technologically illiterate folks.
Simply blaming games (or, more generally, the media) for our society's problems with violence allows us to ignore the real roots of the problem -- which usually boil down to failures of societies as a whole. Which thought seems worse: "Video games are teaching kids to be violent", or "Our society's methods for protecting the safety and security of its members are insufficient and could fail again any time, and I'm probably part of the problem"?
Basilisk Digital
It's always been easy to place blame on something yes, but it usually involves placing blame on something that isn't well understood, researched or generally accepted by society. Imitating what we see and do is something that exists on the micro level.. yes we've all learnt as a child and we imitate what we see. But you don't see three year olds acting as a leader for groups of people and they probably wont be a factor in changing society as a whole. As we interact and form society's we decide whether or not an action/idea is accepted. What we've learnt through school and personal life lessons often comes from example. As we gather more examples and reasons to support or disprove our beliefs we can enhance our conscience. This can be why we can look at some societies and think "Wow, what the heck are they thinking!? That's so wrong?" But they may look at us thinking the same thing. As we grew up in different societies we were brought up differently, and sometimes there's conflicts of interest as a result. Violence in video games is easy to blame since it's effects are not well understood and more research needs to be done. Yes, some people may feel like they need to act out on violence they see but other people have learnt the difference between fiction and reality. Remember that those we elect also have the ability to relay their message to many people. Many leaders prefer to relay messages that society can relate with so they may stay in power. It's easy to say something people can agree with opposed to a conflict idea. With conflict, those who elected the leader remember it when it's time to vote for a new leader, and it's quite likely they'll remember more of the (bad/conflicting things) than the good. More research needs to be done on video game violence before society as a whole will begin to shift the blame away from it. Did you hear about the study conducted that shows playing first person shooters improves reaction times more than those who play Tetris? Funny how research that shows there's benefits to playing violent video doesn't get as much attention. But that is partly due to it conflicting with society's beliefs that violent games are evil, and as a result companies aren't as willing to fund research that examines the benefits of violent games.
Humans are predisposed towards cooperation, not screwing each other over. How would a species that fucks itself over evolve in the first place?
The theory I've read is that genetically we have a cooperative side and a competitive side. Most of the time, we operate in cooperative mode. When things get really tight, we switch over to competitive mode.
Around 4500BC, the Sahara and much of Asia went from being grasslands to desert. The people that had settled there faced famine on a scale never before seen, as in times past, hunter-gatherers just picked up and left when things got that bad. With the surplus and organization that agriculture gave us, we had another option for the first time: go to war.
There is no evidence of fortified towns before this. No weapons that were only for killing humans, not hunting. No mass graves. After that, you see a wave of these things in the archaeological record, spreading out from that epicenter of violence.
The problem was that you had a generation of severely Post Traumatic Stress Disordered adults raising a generation of brain damaged children. Starvation means poor myelin sheath formation over nerves, and brain damage.
What happened is that the competitive mode got locked in, long after it was no longer the most efficient strategy. Most of what we call civilization comes either from this PTSD, brain damaged culture of violence, or the reaction to it.
You can still find tribes in the rainforests of the amazon that have not been impacted by this culture of violence and competition. Look for a book called The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff. It talks about her time with one such tribe, and the theory of childhood development she came up with. The kids in this tribe never act out, never rebel, and are completely loving and non-competitive towards each other.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton