hooby
07-31-2012, 07:03 PM
Finally someone who makes a valid point:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/6101-On-The-Subject-Of-Violence
(in this otherwise often very derailed discussion).
There's only two points I'd like to add to that:
The first one is, that this is only history repeating.
I mean, the works of Marquis de Sade made people cry out for a ban on books. People claimed those devilish books were morally spoiling good people, leading to sexual perversion, sin and satanism.
Similar with "The sorrows of young Werther" by Goethe - that book caused quite a lot of imitation suicides - called the "Werther effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werther_effect)". People cried out for a ban on that book because it made people kill themselves.
Same thing happened to music. Rock and Roll, with it's slogan "Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll" frightened parents. The heavy percussion - inspired by african drums - was considered much too loud and wild by people used to the soft Swing and Big Band sounds of the time. Elvis was considered the devil in person. The proposed law to ban that kind of music which was warping the youth even went as far as a hearing of the senate.
It happened to radio too. After the radio play "War of the Worlds" caused a mass panic in England, people were calling out for a ban of such radio plays.
It happened to comic books - which actually really got heavily censored in the U.S. by the Comics Code Authority. A practice which lasted many decades.
It happened to Pen & Paper roleplaying games. Some christian organizations claimed that those games were kind of a gateway drug to satanism and witchcraft. There was some serious consideration of banning those games by law - especially after that one Tom Hanks movie.
And of course it happened to Hollywood and movie industry too. This was a very long discussion which still does get sparked back into life from time to time even today.
It happened to any form of new kind of medium ever.
Whenever a new medium started to get really popular among the youth, while their own parents didn't know that medium during their own youths, someone tries to make political profit of parents natural worry about their children - by creating hysteria.
Use the fears of people to gain votes. Oldest trick in the book.
And the other thing is - there is no statistical reliability in comparing how many massacres where caused by young people who where in contact with violent games (or movies) for the simple reason, that more than 99% of the youth have been in contact with violent games (or movies).
I mean, if there was any statistical relevance to that, then the fact that there has been at least one school shooting where we know the shooter had no connection to video games at all (I don't remember which one it was, but there has been one) - would mean that purely statistically speaking, people playing violent video games are less likely to run amok, than those who don't. Because the percentage of culprits of shootings playing violent games is much lower than those 99% (because of that one instance of non-players).
But the fact is, the penetration of violent games is so extremely high, that there is no statistical relevance in it anymore.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/the-big-picture/6101-On-The-Subject-Of-Violence
(in this otherwise often very derailed discussion).
There's only two points I'd like to add to that:
The first one is, that this is only history repeating.
I mean, the works of Marquis de Sade made people cry out for a ban on books. People claimed those devilish books were morally spoiling good people, leading to sexual perversion, sin and satanism.
Similar with "The sorrows of young Werther" by Goethe - that book caused quite a lot of imitation suicides - called the "Werther effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werther_effect)". People cried out for a ban on that book because it made people kill themselves.
Same thing happened to music. Rock and Roll, with it's slogan "Sex, Drugs and Rock'n'Roll" frightened parents. The heavy percussion - inspired by african drums - was considered much too loud and wild by people used to the soft Swing and Big Band sounds of the time. Elvis was considered the devil in person. The proposed law to ban that kind of music which was warping the youth even went as far as a hearing of the senate.
It happened to radio too. After the radio play "War of the Worlds" caused a mass panic in England, people were calling out for a ban of such radio plays.
It happened to comic books - which actually really got heavily censored in the U.S. by the Comics Code Authority. A practice which lasted many decades.
It happened to Pen & Paper roleplaying games. Some christian organizations claimed that those games were kind of a gateway drug to satanism and witchcraft. There was some serious consideration of banning those games by law - especially after that one Tom Hanks movie.
And of course it happened to Hollywood and movie industry too. This was a very long discussion which still does get sparked back into life from time to time even today.
It happened to any form of new kind of medium ever.
Whenever a new medium started to get really popular among the youth, while their own parents didn't know that medium during their own youths, someone tries to make political profit of parents natural worry about their children - by creating hysteria.
Use the fears of people to gain votes. Oldest trick in the book.
And the other thing is - there is no statistical reliability in comparing how many massacres where caused by young people who where in contact with violent games (or movies) for the simple reason, that more than 99% of the youth have been in contact with violent games (or movies).
I mean, if there was any statistical relevance to that, then the fact that there has been at least one school shooting where we know the shooter had no connection to video games at all (I don't remember which one it was, but there has been one) - would mean that purely statistically speaking, people playing violent video games are less likely to run amok, than those who don't. Because the percentage of culprits of shootings playing violent games is much lower than those 99% (because of that one instance of non-players).
But the fact is, the penetration of violent games is so extremely high, that there is no statistical relevance in it anymore.