The level of concern that individual people maintain about the existence of violence rarely ceases to amaze me. I'm in a position where I can observe other people's thoughts and beliefs on a near-daily basis, and the disparity in people's opinions and thoughts can be jarring, at times. Much like Kelsey's post earlier in the week, my entry is going to focus primarily on video games, because... well, because that's what I know best.
One of the most common things I hear from parents is that they don't want their child to play a game with violence in it. This kind of request is, by far, the hardest for me to deal with, simply because it's almost impossible to fulfill while making everyone involved happy. I've lost count of the number of times that I've wanted to enter into a discussion with the parent, if for no other reason than to explain to them that their view on the subject is too broad, and needs specific definition. The below picture is one of the best examples that I can give anyone.
You don't -actually- get extra lives for killing stuff. Usually.
Violence is something that exists, in some shape or form, in the vast majority of entertainment-based media that is available today. From Call of Duty (where you kill people to save the world), to Star Wars (where you kill people to save the galaxy), to Mario (where you kill turtles and other things to save a girl that may or may not be into you) - there's violence everywhere. You could draw the distinction between games like those and non-lethal violence (say, Pokemon, where the worst that happens is that your Pokemon faints) - but is that really enough of a difference to be consequential? My basic thoughts on the matter are that violence is something that exists within our everyday life, and I don't think trying to keep people completely sheltered from it is a good idea.
So wait, John, you say. Are you advocating that people let their kids play whatever they want, do whatever they want, and run rampant, because they're going to be exposed to violence anyway? No, not at all. I believe that it's the responsibility of parents and guardians to teach children the difference between real life and a fantasy world (of any kind). I can speak, personally, from the viewpoint of someone who was raised without any restrictions on the content of things I was exposed to. One of my earliest memories is of watching the movie Basic Instinct (which is rated R, and very much deservedly so) with my family when I was young. The experience of watching people get killed didn't desensitize me to the concept - if anything, it helped to ingrain the idea that reckless violence was a terrible thing that I should never do. Playing "Cowboys and Indians" with my sister when I was little didn't teach me that I should become a genocidal maniac. ... I don't think it taught me anything, actually, which still doesn't hurt my point. I don't believe that media on its own is powerful enough to directly influence most of the population. I believe that the environment people are in, combined with personal experiences, do most of that. I've seen a lot of parents smack their kids around in the store (or, in some cases, right after they leave the store), and that seems a lot more likely to influence behaviors and thinking than games, in my opinion.
At my previous work location, I had a customer who would come in regularly (at least once a week) with her son to find a game to play. I spent enough time at that location that I watched the kid grow from a young child to a preteen. The mom was fantastic about asking questions about the different games - more specifically, about the content within. One of the concessions that she made early on was to allow him to get the game Halo. This is typically one of the first barriers that comes down for parents, mostly because in Halo, you're killing aliens. Which is, apparently, much more acceptable than killing humans. ... Seems a bit speciesest to me, but I digress. Playing Halo didn't change the kid into some monstrous killing machine - he seemed to really enjoy the experience of it, particularly since he could do it with his mom. Some time later, the two of them got one of the Call of Duty games, hoping for a similar experience. The kid brought it back that night, and I couldn't help but smile at his reasoning for doing so.
"You have to kill people in this, and that just really makes me sad, because I don't think they're bad people."
This kid, who couldn't have been more than ten years old, was able to recognize that he wasn't emotionally ready to play a war game involving humans. To me, this is the best indication that the kid is being raised properly (in the area of our discussion, at least). He hadn't become desensitized to violence - if anything, he seemed to be more aware to the content in the games, and how it affected him. I've helped a few other kids like this since him, but sadly, they're not as prevalent as I'd hope.
This has turned into a fairly long post, so I'm gonna start wrapping it up - but before I do, I feel the need to point out two other mediums that are violence-heavy, yet more socially acceptable. I grew up on cartoons, and nearly every single one of them involved violence of some sort. Even things like Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry feature violence more often than not (heck, one side of the Looney Tunes focuses on a coyote trying, eternally, to kill a bird). But because they're cartoons, I think, there's less worry there about it influencing kids to do things in real life. I mean, when's the last time you saw someone try to drop an anvil on a bird?
Poor Wile E. Coyote. He can't win.
Finally, there's been an entertainment medium around for a long time that's naturally violence-heavy. It's marketed to all ages, and often deals with issues that are rooted in everyday life. I'm referring to comic books, of course. The first issue of Action Comics was published in 1938, and it featured the debut of a character named Superman. A year later, a different publication debuted the character that would eventually be known as Batman. More and more comic book heroes have shown up through the years, and they've always served as role models, of sorts, for kids. But they all have to combat the villains with... violence. Some heroes are more deeply rooted in it than others (I'm looking at you here, Batman), but it exists in nearly every comic out there - after all, one of the key elements to a good story is conflict. But there's a lightheartedness around comic book violence that somehow removes it from being too influential to kids - I've never heard of someone being desensitized to violence from reading too many comic books.
I think I veered off-topic a few times in my post, but my basic point is that violence, by itself, is so ingrained into almost everything we do that I don't believe it holds enough power to influence people. I think that the prevalence of violence almost serves to dilute it as an influence for most people - and, as stated, I think that the environment people are in plays a much larger role in shaping who they become. There may be some level of desensitization that occurs from near-constant exposure to violence, but I don't think that it can reach a harmful level by itself. In my opinion, there have to be some other external factors.
Thanks for reading through this - hopefully it wasn't too random. Please feel free (nay, encouraged) to leave any relevant comments - feedback, questions, it's all welcomed. We'll have a new topic announcement tomorrow, and I'll post for you all again next week.
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