Games and Music, the New Book Burning

It seems that a Newport News, VA pastor finally got around to reading Fahrenheit 451 and has decided that it was a good idea. Despite several studies claiming the contrary, Rev. Richard Patrick is blaming violent video games and music for crimes that he say has affected 90% of his congregation in one way or another.

Comments

read the interview

[stoolpigeon]

It's worth clicking through to this interview which is linked in tfa. It's not as bad as they are making it out to be, in my opinion. He talks a lot about reasons for the problems and doesn't talk about video games that I could tell. The closest was this question and answer:
 
  Q: How significant a problem do you believe violent video games and violent rap music is?

A: It has a tremendous influence on young people and violence. That's basically all they see. Most of them try to emulate what they see, when in reality, the people they see don't even live in those communities. Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas - they live in the suburbs somewhere. It's all a facade.
 
It sounds to me like he is responding to the rap music part of the question and never deals directly with the video game part. But ultimately that doesn't even matter. If people want to voluntarily burn their own property - more power to them. Where I live we call that freedom of speach.

Re:read the interview

[jacquesm]

Rock music in the fifies, rap music today, it makes really no difference. Anybody that 'emulates' some figure be it a pop musician, a movie star or a religious figure should learn to think for themselves.

All these people getting their panties in a twist about some kids being influenced should spend more time educating individuals, not attacking the availability of role models, no matter where you go you'll find good ones and bad ones.

If parents can't educate their kids to the point where the kids are so easily influenced then the solution is not to attack the people that are being followed.

It's not like these rappers have mind control or anything like that.

Re:read the interview

[g0bshiTe]

I live in Va, on the south side of the river. What the post and tfa fail to mention is that the area where his congregation are is a heavy drug crime related area.
search Wickham Ave

Some more interesting data, the average income in this area is less than half the states average income. Income and home value tables

With numbers like these the problem is not video games or violent music, the true problem is socio-economical.

Re:read the interview

[JustinOpinion]

If people want to voluntarily burn their own property - more power to them. Where I live we call that freedom of speach. Where I live we also call that needless pollution.

If you disapprove of a particular book (or video game, etc.), don't burn it: rather, just don't buy it in the first place.

Re:read the interview

[Hatta]

What's funny to me is that we in the west look at conservative mullahs in the middle east shutting down rock music and dancing, and we have a good laugh at how backwards they are. Then conservatives in the west turn around and try to ban comic books, or dungeons and dragons, or marijuana, or violent video games.

It's all the same thing, some conservative nitwit gets scared of something new, and they try to ban it instead of understanding it. It's a real shame we keep falling for it.

Re:read the interview

[NeutronCowboy]

Here's what cracks me up: apparently, the kids are so easily influenced that just listening to some rap song or playing some video game corrupts their minds. However, the parents and community, with whom the kids interact far more than with their music and games, is incapable of influencing them.

The only conclusion I can draw: parents and preachers are less involved in their kids lives than music and videogames. Either that, or they are less interactive than Nico Bellic.

Re:read the interview

[Applekid]

. . . Then conservatives in the west turn around and try to ban comic books, or dungeons and dragons, or marijuana, or violent video games. . . . It's a real shame we keep falling for it. Only 1 out of the 4 you mentioned are successfully banned in the US. Sounds to me that we're not continually falling for it.

Re:read the interview

[fool4jesus]

It would be great if you knew what you were talking about. I spend a lot of effort trying to interact with my kids. I spend a lot of time talking to them, and listening to them. However, they spend a lot more time talking to their friends and being on-line. It's easy to do nothing and then point the blame at the parents when things go wrong. The reality is that most parents are trying hard to do the right thing, but time and peer pressure make it very difficult. Finally, I find it interesting that some of the same people who support "it takes a village to raise a child" scream like crazy when somebody so much as suggests that the community even HELP raise kids.

Re:read the interview

[gcalvin]

What's funny to me is that we in the west look at conservative mullahs in the middle east shutting down rock music and dancing, and we have a good laugh at how backwards they are. Then conservatives in the west turn around and try to ban comic books, or dungeons and dragons, or marijuana, or violent video games... ...and we have a good laugh at them too.

Re:read the interview

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, you have no idea what being a parent is like.

Go away until you do.

Re:read the interview

[porcupine8]

What your kid does is entirely within your control. if "they spend a lot more time talking to their friends and being on-line," try being a parent and exercising some parental control.

Bold words from someone who has "chosen not to have them until I'm in a position to raise them in a way that they deserve." I'm sure you'd also freak if this guy tried to ban his 16-year-old from playing GTA.

It's been shown over and over again that once children enter school, their peers have greater influence over their personality and decisions than their parents do. You've got genetics plus about 5-6 years to instill your values, then do what you can and hope for the best. Both the genetics and the first few years can be very strong influences, but they're both often rebelled against during the teen years and their true influence might not be seen til after college.

Re:read the interview

[fool4jesus]

It's amazing how easy it is to be a perfect parent - until we actually are one. Imagine what we'd say to somebody who says "I always program everything without any errors at all - that is, I will when I start programming." "I am a faultless driver - or I will be when I start driving." I'll listen to you a lot more when you actually have some experience with the things you're talking about.

It's also amazing to me how you make the leap to assume I don't do any of these things. Believe me, I try - but when your kids spend 7 hours in school and several more hours doing homework and being online, you're competing against a lot.

Re:read the interview

[cleatsupkeep]

That's because red and blue states are a terrible way to reference individual states.

If you look at the electoral votes in all the states in the various elections, the majority of most are between 51% and 55%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2004#Election_results

In 21 states the difference was less than 10%, and its this red state/blue state electoral college delineation that I believe is a huge polarizing factor on the country and isn't good for our political system.

Re:read the interview

[dangitman]

I know, it's a big question for a Monday afternoon, but a lot of people think that glorification of violence in music and video games carries over into common life, moreso in poor areas than wealthy ones.

Why do people only ever seem to mention the glorification of violence when it comes to music or video games? the other day I saw the new "Indiana Jones" film - and it had parts where grisly deaths were actual comedic elements, and the entire cinema laughed out loud.

On the other hand, even in very violent video games or rap music, the violence is usually portrayed as something dark and sinister - not as a punch-line to a joke.

Personally, I find the use of violence as comedy in Tv and films to be much more disturbing that its use in video games and rap music. It's much more contextualized in the music and video games, while in the film/TV mediums it often appears to be entirely gratuitous. Yet the moral crusaders appear to be more concerned about showing boobies or saying "fuck" than they are about the consequence-free violence.

Re:read the interview

[element-o.p.]

What your kid does is entirely within your control. if "they spend a lot more time talking to their friends and being on-line," try being a parent and exercising some parental control...Better yet, you could go on the road and try to teach others to avoid the mistake you made: having children without having the resources and maturity to take care of them and raise them properly.
Spoken like someone who has no f-ing idea what they are talking about. Have you ever raised a child??? Wait, I see further down in your post that you haven't -- so I would recommend a little less high-and-mighty preaching to someone who *has* been there and done that.

Yeah, you can be a Nazi in your own home if you want, but all that will do is push the child farther away. It's a fact of life: when kids hit their teenage years, they will interact more with their peers than their parents (unless you live on a homestead a bajillion miles from anywhere and homeschool your kids). The teenage years are when your kids begin to act like individuals, and stop taking advice from their parents. Overall, this is a good thing -- it's when adult traits like responsibility and the highly touted "ability to think for yourself" begin to develop, but like most learning processes, much of that development comes from screwing up and dealing with the aftermath. A parent's job at this point is to let kids make the mistakes that will help them learn while trying to prevent the mistakes that will cause them serious (i.e. legal/safety/etc.) problems.

The parent post is correct -- your kids will spend a lot more time talking to their friends and being on-line. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's a simple fact of life that this is a delicate time in the relationship between parent and child, and as such, it requires a lot of wisdom and judgment from the parent. You can stop them from interacting so much with their friends, but the result will most likely be worse than the problem you are trying to solve. Parents will be in competition with other influences -- many of which aren't so good for their childrens' well-being -- but taking your advice and being an absolute authoritarian is probably the worst thing you can do.

Re:read the interview

[steeviant]

"And I know an otherwise wonderful woman who now suffers from schizophrenia after smoking marijuana for most of her life. Just because [i]you[/i] haven't come into contact with the negative effects of marijuana doesn't mean they don't exist."

Most of the very successful people I know use drugs, among them marijuana. Such people are usually operating at a very high level where they are expected to take risks, and sometimes even fail. I can speculate that these people are prone to use drugs (including party-pills, cigarettes, coffee and alcohol as well as illicit substances) to stay awake, enhance their confidence, and de-stress after a hard day, and of course because they have the disposable income to afford them - but it could be that their drug use or the corresponding cost of it is what caused them to be so successful. I can't say for sure what part drugs played in their success...

In the same way, you can't possibly know whether your friend was drawn to drugs as a way to self-medicate and mitigate the symptoms of her condition. Your friend may have been borderline schizophrenic before she started smoking pot, and delayed the inevitable by smoking constantly, or her marijuana use may simply be absolutely unrelated.

I know many people who smoke pot (whereas you profess to only know one), and not a single person I know of has behaved in a way that would suggest, or been diagnosed with a mental illness - therefore I deduce that pot-smoking can protect you from mental illness using a far more convincing sample size than yours - it doesn't mean my conclusion is any less baseless than yours.

He'll be starting with the Bible then?

[MrSteveSD]

See above

He is not the government...

[pigiron]

and has every right in the world to burn whatever he wants that is his in order to make a point.

Individual responsibility

[HaeMaker]

As long as we always have SOMETHING or SOMEONE to blame, we never have to be responsible for our own actions.

Slashdot made me do it!

Crime is new

[electricbern]

Yes, yes, it's all music and games fault, after all, before music and games there was no crime and no violence. "Witch" burning only happened after a Burn the Witch video-game and war and massacre only happened after we got a song telling us to do it.

Re:Crime is new

[mshannon78660]

Yes, yes, it's all music and games fault, after all, before music and games there was no crime and no violence.

Cool - so since people died before guns were invented, guns aren't dangerous? Or since people got cancer before radium was discovered, it's OK to stand in the reaction chamber of a nuclear reactor? I don't agree that video games and music are the source of all of society's problems - I'm not even sure I'm convinced that they are the source of any of society's problems. However, just because those problems existed before video games and rap music doesn't prove (or even suggest) that video games and rap music aren't contributing to those problems.

someone needs to read the original article

[everphilski]

The original article is pretty tame. Nowhere does "Rev. Richard Patrick is blaming violent video games and music for crimes that he say has affected 90% of his congregation in one way or another". Rather he answers the question "Have you been affected personally by the violence", in which he responds, "Not only has it affected me, but, I would say, 90 percent of the congregation has been affected in some way by violence or crime."

The closest he comes to bringing games to violence is when he answeres the question "How significant a problem do you believe violent video games and violent rap music is" with "It has a tremendous influence on young people and violence. That's basically all they see. Most of them try to emulate what they see, when in reality, the people they see don't even live in those communities. Some of the rappers they see on TV portraying crime don't live in the urban areas -- they live in the suburbs somewhere. It's all a facade."

Where I think, to a point, he's straight on. Note, he never says "games cause violence". Rather he says the same thing most parents will tell you about kids, and most computer scientists will tell you about comptuers - garbage in, garbage out. What you surround yourself with is what you become familiar with. And the sad part is, like he says, it's all a facade.

Please, RTFA before blowing it out of proportions.

Re:someone needs to read the original article

[LWATCDR]

Actually this guy does seem to be trying to make a difference. I don't think that Gangster rap or video games cause violence but as I have tried to say time and time again if books and art can influence people they why not music and video games?
Anyone want to claim that the Turner Diaries or Mein Komf never influenced anybody to act in a less than pleasant way?
Who hasn't heard someone say that this or that book has changed their life?
There is nothing wrong with saying "I don't think kids should play violent video games"
Just as there is nothing wrong saying that "I don't think people should eat meat".
This is only a problem when people try and make them illegal.
There is a huge difference between dislike and censorship. I don't want my kids reading the Turner diaries but I don't want them outlawed.

Saying that music and video games can not effect people is the same as saying that no form of art can effect anybody for good or evil.

still its in bad taste Re:read the interview

[Essron]

agreed, but i think we can all agree that invoking the reputation and usual applications of 'book burning' is in terribly bad taste due to how horrible the connotations are.

furthermore i doubt he was thinking of this in terms of a clever free speech statement, rather he made a poorly thought out statement using unnecessarily loaded words.

All you need to know

[Oddster]

To disprove anybody who thinks there's even a positive correlation between violent video games, music, movies, etc and the violent crime rate in this country, simply ask them about the White House crime statistics, or even go to the horses mouth and ask the US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The rise of exceptionally violent and explicit media, starting in the early to mid 90's, is actually inversely related to the violent crime rates. That's right - as media has gotten more violent, actual violent crime has provably gone down.

Anybody trying to claim that violent media is responsible for any objective worsening of American society doesn't have a single iota of evidence in their favor.

The difference is the context

[EmbeddedJanitor]

In the 50s, rock music was radical - compared to society - but society was pretty rigid back then. You called your teacher/cop/authority figure "Sir" otherwise your father gave you a thrashing.

Now rap music is radical - compared to society - but society has lost those controls that it had. Extreme now != extreme then.

In the 50s very, very few kids would have taken "Kill the fucking cop" songs to heart.

Re:Environmental neurotoxicity increases crime rat

[statemachine]

While you support your argument about lead poisoning, you offer nothing about the other two elements.

I'm guessing you're one of those that didn't vaccinate your children and avoid fluorinated water, even though all the peer reviewed research shows you're just putting your children at greater risk of disease and tooth decay, rather than decreasing any risk of autism. But while it's a guess, I'm basing it on your trying to link lead research to mercury and fluoride without proof.

I also suspect that you'll next say "but mercury is toxic!" and show a bunch of links about mercury toxicity as a red herring. Fine. But you can't come up with one reputable peer-reviewed link against fluoride in drinking water. And don't you dare try to say MMR vaccinations caused autism, because the long-term results are in.
ADHA on Fluoride
ADA on Fluoride

23 studies refuting MMR and autism link
CDC's website on MMR and autism

If I've gotten you all wrong (which I doubt, based on your anti-fluoride stance), then you have my apologies. Next time, support your argument.

What's a shepperd without sheep?

[Scrameustache]

learn to think for themselves. That's not what organized religions want.

Shameful

[^_^x]

We are considering having something similar to a rally where parents and children can bring CDs and video games that they consider are destructive to the mind set of our youth and have a burning...

  Young people are being influenced by what they see and what they hear. They are being influenced by television ... television and videos are telling young people a vision but something that's not reality...

How sad is that? Kids have all kinds of games that bask in sex and violence, and if you ask most of them, they'll tell you it's just a game and that's what they're like. Then you have people like him, inciting grown adults to go out and do this empty, ignorant, exercise in hating a common enemy so they can feel like they've made a difference. The adults are behaving more foolishly and suggestibly than the children!

If these crimes have effected 90% of his congregation, maybe the common factor to the crimes is not gaming but... his congregation?