Violent Video Games
July 1, 2011, 8:20 am
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
On this point, I think Archbishop Chaput is quite right.
Here are my questions:
1. Are video games different because they make people the virtual agents of violent wrongdoing, not merely (as in literature) observers of it?
2. Do we have any literature on how actors playing dark, violent criminals are affected by their roles; and can we adjust for professionalism and training. Or, perhaps, undercover agents?
3. Are video games different because they are addictive in some way–particularly for young eople? (I speak as one who had to pry her iPhone–with Angry Birds on it–out of the determined hands of my eight-year-old niece, who is preternaturally good at hurling birds at pigs.)
Video games make you dumb. Anybody who’s ever played a few hours of video games has probably noticed that you come away with a lot of your brain stupefied, as if all the electricity gets routed to a few quick-reaction circuits and everything else has to be powered-down to compensate.
But I have never seen any convincing evidence that video games make you violent. And a lot of people with agenda have looked energetically for that evidence. I therefore conclude they probably don’t.
I played(and enjoyed) violent video games like Grand Theft Auto during college. Of course, I was an adult. These games are like rated R movies. There’s nothing wrong with restricting their sale to minors. I particularly liked when Archbishop Chaput quoted Justice Thomas.
The first amendment does not give you the right to say anything you want to kids without their parents’ permission. The first amendment should not give you the right to sell violent video games or rated R movies to kids without going through mom and dad either.
I don’t like video games b/c they make me sick and dizzy.
What my son is allowed to play and for how long is a constant battle, The medium is so pervasive that even if you pull out all the devices and gizmos at home, kids will play them at the library, other kids’ houses, their phones. Probably everyone caught the factoid on the news the other night, that video games now outsell movies and music sales combined.
Like most parents who worry about the effect of new media, I’ve read a lot of the studies. Most show that the effect of video games varies on different individuals. Some studies suggest that violent video games may stimulate violent thoughts in a kid who already has violent tendencies, but that most people who play even the most violent games aren’t affected by them any more than they would be by pinball.
There are games I will not allow in my home, and explaining why has sparked some useful conversations with my kid. As with any other media–books, movies, music–encouraging the creative, interesting, and stimulating and helping the kid sort that out from the dross is part of being a good parent.
I fully expect to be surrounded on my death bed by people “plugged in” to their various e-readers, video games, phones, and iPads, probably “messaging” people sitting right next to them info about my condition. I hope my mind will be fixed on higher matters at that point.
Didn’t we go through this with comic books in the 1950s?
I, for one, am not about to accept an argument from anyone, particularly Archbishop Chaput, based on, “The reasonable person understands . . . I don’t need to prove that because we all know it. It’s common sense . . . ”
Here’s an excerpt from Scalia’s decision:
If it is so obvious that video games have a deleterious effect on young people, there ought to be some persuasive research that actually makes a good case. Also, someone is going to have to explain why, if “common sense tells us that the violence of our music, our video games, our films, and our television has to go somewhere,” the rate of violent crime is at a 40-year low.
“The first amendment does not give you the right to say anything you want to kids without their parents’ permission.”
I don’t buy this; if you don’t want your kid to play certain video games, don’t let them in the house, and check out the store’s sale-to-minors policy. They’ll put one in place ASAP if enough parents stop letting their kids shop there.
Raber, however, agrees, and we had quite a sinus-clearing argument about this night before last.
In response to Cathy Kaveny’s questions:
1. I think literature involves more than being an observer.
2. It would be interesting to know, but I know of no information.
3. It seems to me if you’re addicted to a video game, it’s the game you are addicted to. If there are any cases of people first addicted to Angry Birds who have escalated to using actual birds as ammunition in slingshots, they have not made the news.
On this point, I think Archbishop Chaput is quite right.
Who is posting messages under Cathleen Kaveny’s name??? :P
Ha!
Okay, not to give you a heart attack, David: I’ve never been sure why some Catholic conservatives I know–friends of mine–are way more worried about sex in movies than violence. I think the reason has to do with thinking viewers (boys?) are more likely to emulate the sex part than the violence part.
So I give him lots of credit for worrying about violence, as well as sex.
Cathy,
Given the climate over at First Things, I think Gregory K. Laughlin’s On the Square post (Wrong Today, Perhaps Right Tomorrow) is a lot more in keeping with conservative Christian concerns. Even in the wake of the Supreme Court deciding 8-1 that members of the Westboro Baptist Church can scream “God hates fags” at a military funeral, these folks are terrified that sometime in the near future, they are going to be put in jail for speaking against homosexuality and same-sex marriage. One would think they would be relieved to see the court aggressively defending First Amendment rights.
” Video Software Dealers Assn”
That Justice Scalia would accept the testimony of this association as objective only shows that he has no understanding of human nature. He’s a smart but tunnell-visioned man.
That video games cause a threat to only some people is no reason to allow the games. Machine guns threaten only some of us, but too many.
Someone mentioned comic books. They too have bad repercussions and have since the 40s too. There is such a thing as “giving kids ideas”. That’s why they’re sent to school. We cannot think without images, and too many people cannot handle a lot of violent ones. The fact is there is a part of human nature that has a taste for violence, and it’s time we acknowledged it.
I’m ready to impeach a third of the Court for their bias in favor of commercial interests. They’ve gotten just that bad. I’m usually rather extreme about defending freedom of speech, but when it involves kids its another matter.
Apb. Chaput being wrong about many things does not imply that he is wrong about all things.
“I’ve never been sure why some Catholic conservatives I know–friends of mine–are way more worried about sex in movies than violence.”
A conservative friend gave me an answer worth thinking about: Not everybody has the urge to be violent, ergo fewer people are influenced by violent images. Very few people, particularly kids with hormones a-ragin’, don’t want to have sex. Hence the sexual images and situations they see might be used to rationalize their own desires.
As context, the SC this year has been termed by commentators as pto”business” and “free speech”.
That’s pretty much in line with a lpt of contemporary American ethos.
I often find it les than congruent with the Catholic traditin of the comon good.
So in this instance, While there is cartain addictiveness to video games, the maturity of our young and the ability of parents to “control” their choices was viewed simplistically by the court.
I have seen one case of transfer from the virtual world to the physical world; car-racing games have made my son a more alert but also more aggressive driver.
David:
Good catch in Scalia’s analysis and good analysis from Scalia who,as a conservative, supports exactly what you are saying.
I will have to look it up but from what I have read, violence in the form of physical assaults is actually decreasing not increasing. However, when it does occur it is very dramatic and captures media attention.
There is also a difference between impulse and action which is alluded to by Scalia and these distinctions are so critical in terms of understanding the problem.
However, for young males who have historically been agents of physical violence there was an interesting studies of elephants in Africa that might shed some light. They found that when the adult bulls were removed from the herd, the young male elephants would charge trees to destroy them, ram into young females to injure them and engage in similar kinds of destructive behaviour. When they reintroduced the adult bulls to the heard, the simple presence of the bulls dramatically reduced this kind of behaviour.
As the aboriginal elders say up here, if you want to learn about yourself listen and watch the animals.
And for young females, from what I have heard anecdotally from friends who work in the courts with youth is that when females are involved in violent action, it is almost always connected to what is termed, swarming. Swarming is like the phenomenon of flash mobs but turning violent but is done for similar reasons, thrills, public attention, etc.
“A conservative friend gave me an answer worth thinking about: Not everybody has the urge to be violent,
Freud is not very popular right now, but he did have some insights have stood the test of time insights which he himself found unwelcome. One of his most unpopular insights is that that even normal people have very strong violent impulses which have to be controlled. They are so strong and so unwelcome to our rational selves that we repress them naturally == or at least normal people normally do. But even Freud didn’t go far enough. See the famous and shocking Milgram experiment in which *normal* people were *easily* induced to give what they were led to believe were extremely painful, even lethal doses of electric shocks to other people, supposedly for the sake of science. The experiment is now itself forbidden as totally unethical by the professional psychology associations, but it was repeated before this prohibition.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
(Yes, Freud’s theory has been criticized as being unfalsifiable. But there is some solid evidence (if not satisfactory proof) that he was right about the reality and irrationality of our unconscious inclinations to violence. What the critics of Freud don’t tell you is that their objections to Freud would be distorted if Freud is right, and hence should be suspect as solid science. In other words, Freud and his critics are equally non-objective so far as we can tell. So logically it’s a draw.)
As I see it, the moral question is: should we risk being wrong about addiction to extreme forms of “play” violence when there is no moral necessity or even advisability to allow such games? The games have no great social value. Their only value is the amusement of some people (which in some players also results in serious addictions). That minor advantage should not be allowed to over-ride the disadvantages of the games, viz. addiction and the production of an extremely violent sub-culture whose members act out their inclinations.
The configuration of the majority didn’t seem to match the conservative/liberal split we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on a lot of social issues.
Btw, Jon Stewart showed a couple of examples of video-game violence on his program last night (Thursday 6/30/2011). I hesitate to link to it here, not only because I’m too lazy to track down the URL, but because it really was gross. I don’t care if research strongly supports my view or not: as a parent, I don’t want my children playing those games, I don’t want publishers marketing them to my children, and I want the state’s support via common-sense regulations to support me on this.
“these folks are terrified that sometime in the near future, they are going to be put in jail for speaking against homosexuality and same-sex marriage.”
A sentiment recently echoed by the Chief Rabbi of London (no intellectual slouch or reactionary, he).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/8609531/Chief-Rabbi-Equality-laws-leading-to-new-Mayflower-exodus.html
“One would think they would be relieved to see the court aggressively defending First Amendment rights.”
Of course First Amendment rights (a) are not all of a piece nor (b) exist in a vacuum. So one could have different views on the extent of the bundle of First Amendment rights and not be intellectually inconsistent.
Child Shoots Another Child on Playground in Hillcrest Heights
Updated: Friday, 01 Jul 2011, 11:00 AM EDT
Published : Thursday, 30 Jun 2011, 5:13 PM EDT
HILLCREST HEIGHTS, Md. – Prince George’s County Police say a five-year-old boy shot a four-year-old boy on a playground in the 4400 block of 23rd Parkway in Hillcrest Heights.
Read more: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpp/news/maryland/child-shoots-another-child-on-playground-in-hillcrest-heights-063011#ixzz1Qs38m6OO
” will have to look it up but from what I have read, violence in the form of physical assaults is actually decreasing not increasing.”
George D — there are significantly fewer people in the current young generation. This accounts for at least some of the reduction.
I can say from my own experience is that when I was a young teen-ager (14?) I was allowed to walk six blocks to a friends house at night through relatively dark streets and return around 10 p.m. alone. It was a normal area for crime. Now I live in an area with relatively less crime than other neighborhoods in this city, but I wouldn’t go out in my back yard alone past sunset. Don’t talk to me about silly notions of freedom of speech when I can’t walk around the block at 7 p.m. safely. Isn’t there something in the Constitution about freedom of movement? There ought to be.
Jim P. –
I agree entirely about the clips on Jon Stewart’s show last night. Even Jon, Big Liberal, is having very, very serious doubts about allowing such horror in his house. The one of a woman being disemboweled was particularly horrible. Anybody who isn’t morally repulsed by that it sick, sick, sick.
David-
“I, for one, am not about to accept an argument from anyone, particularly Archbishop Chaput”
Ad hominem attacks are kind of weak (and inappropriate, esp on a blog sponsored by a Catholic magazine). Don’t you think, my friend?
A
” Video Software Dealers Assn”
That Justice Scalia would accept the testimony of this association as objective only shows that he has no understanding of human nature. He’s a smart but tunnell-visioned man.
Ann,
Scalia is not citing the Video Software Dealers Associating. He is citing Video Software Dealers Assn. v. Schwarzenegger,, the case that was heard by the 9th Circuit Court prior to the appeal to the Supreme Court.
I find visual violence harder and harder to bear with age. I recently watched “Clockwork Organe” for the third time. The first time I was a teenager, and I thought nothing of it. The second time, I found it disturbing. This last time, some scenes were almost unbearable, and I don’t think that there will be a fourth time.
It is possible that there is a coarseness in most teenagers that makes violent scenes wash over them without leaving much of a trace. As Jim said, that doesn’t make those games any less repulsive, and I really wish my son hadn’t spent hundreds of hours of his youth shooting down black pygmees in the game “Diablo”, and other similarly offensive actions.
But I am more upset about lost opportunities – time stolen from his and his friends’ lives, hours spent daily on those games instead of doing something else – than about active harm directly caused by those stupid violent senseless games.
“Clockwork Orange”, as everyone will doubtlessly have understood.
David –
Thanks. I did misread that.
Ad hominem attacks are kind of weak (and inappropriate, esp on a blog sponsored by a Catholic magazine). Don’t you think, my friend?
Anthony Andreass,
I really don’t believe it was an ad hominem attack, but how about if I say it like this:
In the FWIMBW category:
Google: military training and video games
Claire, I had the same reaction to “Clockwork Orange” when I saw it last time. Perhaps as you get older, you understand pain and suffering better, and you’ve come to terms with the fact that life is finite. Violence seems more real and horrifying.
I’m not sure teenagers and young people were less coarse in the 1960s and 70s when I was growing up. Shocking the elders with bad words and a blase attitu de toward sex and violence was part of the pose we shed when we become adults.
Even if we’re not particularly shocked, I think it’s our job as parents to ACT shocked and to send a clear message that certain behavior and “entertainment” is not allowed in a decent home.
David N. (9:56AM) is right. We went through this in the ’50s with comics, without the impressive dynamic interaction of video games. Parental censorship applied, naturally, and was bypassed by going away to summer camp, where comic-swapping was customary. Parents’ concern was part of their normal broader practice in day-to-day child-rearing of pointing out to young ones examples of good and bad behavior that happened to be observable.
Today, the quantity, ubiquity, and easy access of video games change the environment of a child at a fairly young age. The ability of parents to exclude or explain undesirable exposures fades rather early. Therefore, the question posed is important. The absence of persuasive proof of damage is revealing. The only argument as weak as Abp. Chaput’s assertion that “common sense tells us …” is “obviously, ____”.
Most agree that correlation is not causation. However, sometimes correlation suggests where to look for causes. Given the reported recent decrease in major crime, it is worth asking if the availability of violent video games in fact is a contributing factor to the decrease. Perhaps they provide an innocuous alternative to acting out in the real world. Golf and tennis sometimes seem to funnel off a lot of adult energy that might otherwise be anti-social.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/24crime.html
Violent video was introduced to the living room by the Vietnam War on TV, an historical first. (Wrestling was soon recognized to be drama, not real violence.) Now, real violence in the streets, nationwide and abroad, is the stuff of daily TV and internet news. Real-looking synthetic violence is a common ingredient of a number of hit (widely watched) adult shows. Who are the consumers and why? Where did their tastes come from? Could it be that adults are teaching more by what they do than what they say when it comes to vicariously experiencing violence?
If visual media do not have an effect on observers, particularly young observers, why do corporations spend untold gazillions on all possible forms of advertising each year? Why have liquor and tobacco ads been banned from all public media?
AA – that was not an ad hominem attack, just “prudential judgement.” Don’t some folks just hate it when that little opt out catchall comes back against them? Chaput and any other Prince of The Church deserves no more credence being given to his statement than any other person.
In this case I happen to agree with what Chaput said but not because he is a Prince of The Church, ontologically changed or any other non-pertinent reason usually given for one to say “Yes, Father, whatever you say Father.”
“Given the reported recent decrease in major crime, it is worth asking if the availability of violent video games in fact is a contributing factor to the decrease.”
Sounds like an argument to promote pornography to keep rape under control.
During the sixties many of us were quite disturbed over the Beatles influence on young people. Until I noticed how some of my exemplary students in Catechism class were gaga over the Beatles. This taught me a great lesson. Until 2002 most of the Catholic world blamed the victims over the perpetrators in the abuse scandal. Children have to be corrected at eight years old and in their formative years. They need most of all to be taught to give rather than receive. Most of us were part of the attitude towards victims. That is the area that needs to be changed. Not comic books, music or video games.
Sounds like an argument to promote pornography to keep rape under control.
There is, indeed, some interesting evidence that the availability of pornography lowers the rate of sex crimes. However, it’s useless to talk about it. Remember how Nixon and the Senat both denounced the Report of the National Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.
It seems pretty evident that the “war on drugs” has done more harm than good (kind of like Prohibition). But these are topics that it is almost impossible to discuss rationally.
Bill-
I am confused. What is this referring to?
Most of us were part of the attitude towards victims. That is the area that needs to be changed
AA
“Violent video was introduced to the living room by the Vietnam War on TV, an historical first.”
Jack, good points above, but don’t we have to make some distinctions between seeing violence as part of an informational broadcast and violence as a form of entertainment?
Anthony,
Do you not remember how the vast majority of Catholics blamed the victims rather than the abusers? It is only after 2002 that the there was a swing in favor of the victims. My point is this shows a systemic problem with the church where things are covered up rather than correcting the problem being covered up; that bishop’s authority is more important than the gospel. The essential problem, as I see it, is that the bishops are more into authority than service; that they dominate rather than serve. They should emerge from the church as living examples. Not someone who has found favor with Rome. The pomp and circumstance must change and revert to the integrity of the gospel. Everything else is tangential to that.
I incline to the “it’s just a game” defense. But for the sake of argument, shouldn’t we at least distinguish between just and unjust violence? And “proportionate” violence should be determined relative to the strength of the enemy. Judge Richard Posner:
“Take once again ‘The House of the Dead.’ The player is armed with a gun-most fortunately, because he is being assailed by a seemingly unending succession of hideous axe-wielding zombies, the living dead conjured back to life by voodoo. The zombies have already knocked down and wounded several people, who are pleading pitiably for help; and one of the player’s duties is to protect those unfortunates from renewed assaults by the zombies. His main task, however, is self-defense. Zombies are supernatural beings, therefore difficult to kill. Repeated shots are necessary to stop them as they rush headlong toward the player. He must not only be alert to the appearance of zombies from any quarter; he must be assiduous about reloading his gun periodically, lest he be overwhelmed by the rush of the zombies when his gun is empty.”
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-7th-circuit/1146977.html
Non-pacifists should at least give an OK to those games that satisfy traditional just war criteeria.
Just a game?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam
“China used prisoners in lucrative internet gaming work: Labour camp detainees endure hard labour by day, online ‘gold farming’ by night”
“It is known as “gold farming”, the practice of building up credits and online value through the monotonous repetition of basic tasks in online games such as World of Warcraft. The trade in virtual assets is very real, and outside the control of the games’ makers. Millions of gamers around the world are prepared to pay real money for such online credits, which they can use to progress in the online games.”
Consider the game of chess. The etymology of the term “checkmate” is from the Arabic shah mat/i> (the king is dead!!!>
But chess is not considered by most to be violent even though the ultimate strategy is to kill the king. It has value in terms of its ability to help participants think strategically, advance to a goal and outmaneuver their opponent.
Didn’t we go through this with comic books in the 1950s?
Didn’t we go through this with theater in the 1500s? Books for children in the 1800s? Movies in the 30s? etc.
As Ann said: “There is such a thing as “giving kids ideas”.” The question really is whether we want kids to have ideas. We prefer the ideas come in a properly balanced nuanced way, as when Julius Caesar is assassinated, Hamlet ends in a bloodbath etc. So what we need is to encourage responsible people with responsible ideas to produce video games — and undoubtedly we have some of those mixed in with the irresponsible. So that we can give kids ideas and they can learn what to do with them.
In there is the new things being taught, so that kids can be more alert when driving, or fighting in a war, or doing other mimicked activities. And so they can recognize the horror in A Clockwork Orange when they see it, something that comes with experiencing pain and suffering but may come from virtual encounters.
Bill,
Do you know the expression “one hit wonder”? If not, I suggest you look it up. You might also check out the term “one track mind.” Where in this thread have we referred to the church and the sex abuse crisis? Yes, it is a very important issue, but it is not the only thing that human beings can talk about. Sometimes you remind me of some conservatives who can bring up abortion when some brings up wallpaper.
AA
Jim McK –
You can say that the games are only virtual encounters, but they are also actual games producing actual excitement and actual pleasure at imagined spilling of other people’s guts. The question is: what are memories of the images, feelings and thoughts present in the experiences doing to the unconscious minds and future behavior of the children and adults who choose to have such experiences?
There are many sorts of memories, including images of events and *images of feelings* themselves, which are stored in the unconscious. It seems to me that it is foolhardy to expect that the players of the games don’t shove those socially unacceptable feelings engendered by the games down into their unconscious minds. Treating such suppression as minor, it seems to me, is a very risky business psychologically. Unconscious feelings are particularly insidious because they can influence our conscious states even when we do not realize that they are doing so, and there’s the rub.
Aside from that speculation which fits the facts only too well, there’s lots of evidence that by repeated repression we can learn to squelch our feelings of compassion for suffering beings at least to some extent. Just look at people who work in slaughter-houses and infantrymen who have to kill in war. Sometimes the latter’s suppression works very badly, of course, resulting in severe mental problems for some veterans.
It would be very strange if the people who play those games don’t also learn to smother their empathy. And the loss of empathy, as the social scientists continually tell us, can result in treating people like objects. This, of course, is the usual explanation of how genocide happens. And note this about genocidal feelings: they are often inspired not by facts but merely by what was*said* about them. In other words, genocidal feelings can be founded on lies and fantasy.
I’ll grant you that not enough research has been done on the psychological effects of these games. But there are enough analogous sorts of events to make the games at best highly suspicious as a healthy-minded pursuit.
David Nickol and I have already gone back and forth a bit on this over at First Thoughts, but I thought I would offer a little more background here.
I first became very concerned about this issue after reading Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s groundbreaking book “On Killing”. Grossman is considered one of the world’s foremost experts on the psychology of killing and spends most of his time working with military and police forces. He is also a former West Point professor and career army officer, now retired. (Incidentally, and not germane to this discussion, one of his articles is the inspiration for the “sheep dog” half of Fr. Corapi’s new moniker.) “On Kiiling” explores the issue of how the military teaches people to overcome their natural resistance to killing and what the psychological repercussions of doing so are. The final chapter of the book is devoted to a troubling phenomenon that Grossman became aware of in the course of his research for the book: namely, that the very same techniques that the military uses to teach people to kill are replicated in our mass media but without the tight controls imposed in military training. Grossman then went on to write an entire book on this subject called “Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill” in which he laid out the overwhelming evidence that links media violence with real world violence. Literally thousands of studies have been conducted on this topic, and there have now been several good meta-studies (studies to analyze the overall findings of all the numerous studies), and they lead inescapably to the conclusion that there is a causal (not just correlative) relationship between the two. These are solid enough to cause the American Academy of Pediatrics to issue warnings to parents about exposing kids to violent media. It should be noted that most of these studies are not focused specifically on video games, but there is no reason to think that the same forces aren’t at work in video games. Indeed, as Grossman explains, there are actually good reasons for thinking that video games are more pernicious than many other forms of violent media in this regard. Grossman has since updated the research from STOKTK (1999) in two chapters of his more recent book “On Combat”. (linked below)
I will quickly summarize a few of Grossman’s conclusions:
-There are three primary demonstrable effects of media violence: increased aggression (covering a wide range of behavior from verbal aggression to lethal violence), desensitization to violence (where we are less likely to perceive violent acts as violent, and more likely to tolerate them when we do), and increased anxiety/fear (particularly for children exposed at a young age).
- media violence affects us through classical conditioning in many instances (causing us to associate positive feelings with violence, and/or dissociating negative feeling from violence), but also through operant conditioning in the case of violent video games
- the operant conditioning is powerful enough that the military routinely uses video games as training tools to help develop in soldiers an ability to reflexively fire and to discriminate between targets. It is also powerful enough that in multiple instances it has an enabled school shooters who have nearly no experience with real guns to shoot with deadly accuracy. (This is relevant to the Supreme Court case because it is a matter of public safety if kids are being made more lethal. Even if the video games don’t cause a kid to go berzerk at school, it matters that they can make a kid who does go berzerk many times more lethal.)
- Recent brain studies confirm that violent video games train the user’s brain to enter a mode where conscious thought is suppressed and both decisions and actions are made reflexively.
Here are the links to the two chapters from “On Combat”. They are a bit lengthy, but also quite eyeopening with some very vivid examples. If you are looking for a fuller presentation of the voluminous research on media violence, you will have to find a copy of Grossman’s “Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill”.
http://www.killology.com/on_combat_ch2.htm
http://www.killology.com/on_combat_ch7.htm
n.b. I have focused here on the work of one professor. While Grossman first put me onto this issue, I have seen numerous analyses over the last few years that confirm what he says. (e.g. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/28/AR2006112800839.html ) There are other researchers working independently who have come to the same conclusions, as indicated in the SCOTUS case
“Where in this thread have we referred to the church and the sex abuse crisis?”
Anthony,
If you read my initial post you will find that I related our concern with violence in video games with our concerns in the 60′s with the “evil” of the Beatles. While we do this we still support and nurture a pampered and corrupt hierarchy. It is my contention that we allow our discussions to be framed by the bishops. While we have come a long way in realizing that the bishops must be held accountable, we still let the bishops set the agenda. They should not set the agenda when they do not set the example.
Bill-
So really what you are saying is that the bishops really cannot speak about anything else but the sex abuse crisis. That really is the only topic they should ever speak on for the foreseeable future. Is that correct?
AA
Anthony,
Looks like you choose to be an apologist for the bishops now. What I am saying is they should correct their terrible cover-up and reform their lives first. We have our own responsibility to talk about more serious issues like human trafficking and the terrible abuse of workers in this country. We talk too much about abortion and same sex marriage avoiding with the bishops more serious issues. 100,000 people in the US are enslaved in this country while 23 million are enslaved worldwide. The government spends a half trillion a year on goods and services, whose employers pay less than minimum wages.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/opinion/02sat3.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/opinion/02nittoli.html?ref=opinion
“China used prisoners in lucrative internet gaming work: Labour camp detainees endure hard labour by day, online ‘gold farming’ by night.”
This has nothing to do with the games, and everything to do with China’s prison system.
Thanks to David Tenney for a summary of Grossman’s study.
However, I think MANY factors have to be taken into consideration, including the kid’s proclivities, the type and amount of violence in the game, the amount of exposure to various levels of violence, and perhaps the types of people he plays these games with, and parental/family disappropbation of the nature of some games.
Bill,
You win. There is no point in arguing with someone who monomaniacal. I should have learned years ago and do what most people do on this board and simply ignore most/all of what you write.
Signing off and promising never to engage you again
AA
Thanks to David Tenney for the Grossman links. Here’s a great example of how ethics/policy might be informed by good social science. Some basic distinctions might be apropos:
1. Is the effect of violent video games worse or different than the effect of violent movies, TV shows, playground games, etc.? By and large, we are a culture that entertains itself with violence in our mass media–who likes Dexter? Who watches CSI? Or any of the horde of “Law and Order” franchises out there, in which we are entertained either by murder or by sexual crime, if you prefer. Even the excellent “The Good Wife” quickly turned from legal cases involving corporate misdeeds to crimes of sex and violence, even though that cannot be the main business of the firm in the show. My understanding is that even “My LIttle Pony” has an evil character who must be stopped. Sheesh! And let’s not forget all those war movies in which war heroes either survived against all odds or died quickly and with dignity. Enemies just dropped when you shot them–they never screamed, cried, or wept for their loved ones. Real war, I’m told isn’t so cleanly binary.
2. Do we need to differentiate between games in which the player is defensive from offensive? Iow, do we need to distinguish between Grand Theft Auto, in which committing murder and rape get you points, and Halo, in which the player–still violent–is on the side of the angels?
3. Do violent video games appeal especially to those already drawn to violence? Might they be an outlet, or do they only reinforce negative behavior patterns?
4. Do graphic and realistic games have a different effect from cartoon-ish games? I remember two games from the early days of gaming, one in which the player is a frog trying to cross a busy street without being cartoonishly squished, and another in which the player drove a simple outline car trying to run down stick-figure pedestrians, who squealed and turned into gravestones that you then had to avoid. I found that game grimly funny, but never once have I run after a real pedestrian. But as the violence gets more realistic, does it translate more easily into daily life?
All of these, I submit, are amenable to sociological study, including and beyond what Grossman cites.
Well, the rate of violent crime may be down, that same New York Times article reports that it’s up in NYC:
“But the gains were uneven. New York saw 536 murders last year — 65 more than in 2009, which was the lowest since 1963.
The number of rapes in New York City jumped 24.5 percent; robberies, 5.4 percent, and aggravated assaults, 3.2 percent.”
The murder rate of young back men also continues to grow:
New York — An NYPD report released yesterday reveals the spike in the city homicide rate last year was due to a surge in the number of Black murder victims.
While the number of white murder victims was down (dropped 27 percent) in 2010, the number of Blacks jumped 31 percent from 272 to 357, according to the “Murder in New York City: 2010″ report.
Two-thirds of the murder victims in 2010 were Black despite only being 25 percent of the city’s population. A third of the people murdered in the city were black teens and young men between the ages of 15 and 29.
http://newsone.com/nation/newsonestaff2/nypd-black-white-murder-homicide-2010-rate/
The genocide of young blacks is a tragedy that demands far more attention than it’s been getting.
The genocide of young blacks is a tragedy that demands far more attention than it’s been getting.
Frank Gibbons,
This is a little bit off topic, but I hate to see the word genocide misused, and you misused it, in my opinion.
Some statistics from the document to which you provided a link:
• For black suspects arrested, 85% of their victims were also black
• On average, suspects arrested for murder in 2010 had seven prior arrests
• 18% of the arrested suspects were confirmed gang members
• 30% were on probation or parole, or had a warrant for their arrest at the time of the murder
When young people in any group are killing other young people in that same group, there is certainly cause for alarm, but it’s not genocide. This goes for the high rate of abortions among blacks as well. It is not genocide. If you want to argue that the cause is racism, and ultimately non-blacks are responsible for the fact of black-on-black crime, I am more than willing to listen. But young black men, and unborn blacks, are not the victims of genocide. It’s unacceptable, and I am sure not nearly enough is being done about it, but it’s not genocide.
Year after year we read that there is a correlation between poverty and crime, not crime and ethnicity. There is also a correlation between lakc of education and crime — and that’s an easy one to figure out: if you don’t know how to do anything who is going to hire you? Of course you will turn to crime. It’s that or not eat.
Lesson: work on the education system, and that doesn’t mean just the schools. If necessary, educate the parents who have to be seen reading books if the children are to learn to read, the sine qua non of education.
Question: can the clever people who invent violent games computer be induced to work on educational games that interest the (possibly violent) parents of the kids who turn violent?
Lisa’s good questions (2:25P) end with one about the translation to daily life. Today’s immediate concern is with computer-produced visual-aural displays representing violence in virtual environments. How is that related to the nationwide tolerance of hockey and football? In these games, strong live men in armor try repeatedly to hit each other as hard as possible, knowing serious injury sometimes results. Crowds of young and old observe and cheer, on the scene and in front of TV, as often as possible. What are the discriminants between favored and undesirable displays of violence? How does decapitating a zombie rank relative to breaking a real quarterback’s leg?
What I’m missing in these comments is an acknowledgment that we’re talking only about what the federal government should or should not do to protect children. We seem to be assuming that it’s definitely the government’s business to be in the parenting business – or, perhaps, that a big chunk of what used to be considered parenting is now in the domain of the government.
In democracies, government’s job is to obey popular opinion, not to make moral decisions. Always and only. Any decision that the executive and legislative branches make in what seems to be the direction of morality (for example, civil rights) is in effect nothing more than obeying popular sentiment. Any decision the juridical branch makes when it strays from strictly legal reasoning is made for exactly the same reason.
David Tenney,
There are a lot of issues being discussed here and over on First Things, but it seems to me that whether the Supreme Court decided the video games case correctly and whether violence in the media induces those who view it to commit violent acts themselves are two separate questions.
I suppose if there were a society in which no one ever saw violence itself, or saw depictions of violence on television and in the movies, or never read about violence in the newspapers, or never read books that contain violence, there’s a strong possibility that the level of violence in such a society would be significantly lower than in a society such as our own.
But the Supreme Court had to decide whether the constitution allowed the government to abridge the right of free speech of game creators, game stores, and young people who buy games. It did not do so purely on the question of whether video games had negative effects on young people. There is a very succinct outline/summary of the decision on The Volokh Conspiracy web site that I won’t reproduce here. But it seems clear to me that the evidence presented to the court did not demonstrate that video games were significantly harmful to young people, and it opened a can of worms by saying that violent video games had the same measurable effects on young people as Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner cartoons.
The research you refer to is largely about media other than video games. It seems to me that if you buy the arguments that depictions of violence in books, television shows, movies, and video games are harmful to minors, and you buy the idea that the government should help keep these things out of the hands of children, you have put the government in the business of passing laws not only against what video games children may buy, but also what books they may read, what television shows they may watch, and what movies they may see. And you have also opened the door not just to laws that say children can’t view these things without their parents’ permission. It seems to me you have opened the door to making it illegal for children to read certain books, watch certain shows, see certain movies, and play certain games no matter what the parents think. If the government decides Grand Theft Auto is damaging to children and wants to do something about it, and the First Amendment is disregarded, why can’t the government make it illegal for the kids to buy it and for parents to give it to them?
I think it’s up to parents to make sure their kids do not play video games that may be harmful in the same way it is up to parents to make sure their kids don’t read inappropriate books, see inappropriate movies, and watch inappropriate television shows.
As has been pointed out, there is a voluntary system in place for rating games and selling them only to people in the right age groups, just as there is a system of movie ratings. I think the movie-rating system works reasonably well, and whether or not the game-rating system works I don’t know, but I haven’t read anything to suggest there is a huge problem with game sellers violating their own voluntary restrictions.
So even though there may be good reasons to be concerned about the exposure of children to violence in various media, it seems to me we don’t want the government making the decisions about what children can and cannot view, read, or play.
David Smith –
Every time a government forbids or pinishes murder, stealing, etc, it is making a moral decision. The common law which is the basis of most states laws was founded on the assumption that there are some things that are morally wrong, and it is the function of the laws and courts to uphold moral standards. The whole notion of natural rights is founded on natural law theory. Government doesn’t *give* us certain rights, we are born with them simply because we are human. They are those inalienable rights we learn about in school.
Yes, there is argument about how far those rights extend. Nut if we adopt the notion that goverent awards us rights, then government may do anything the majority wants to us.
David N. –
Public libraries have always had adult sectiOns and children’s sections. It used to be that if you didn’t have an adult card you couldn’t check out adult books. I don’t know if that has been tested in the courts, but, of course, if a parent wanted a kid to have a certain book the parent could check it out . That deprived no one of anything, I never heard any complaints about that system.
However, there have been many, many complaints about censoring required reading in the schools. Those issues are somewhat different, however, involving questions such as who is responsible for curricula and whether certain are harmful to kids. The latter issue is most like the violent games issue, I think.
As I see it, if parents can buy the games then that is like checking out adults books for their kids. It really is not censorship because the parents get to choose, and the kid gets the games.
So long as parents have rights to refuse things for their kids (e. G. Which other toys they willl be allowed to buy) I dot see this as a First Amendment problem.
Ann (4:57 pm), nope, democratic governments make legal systems; they do not make moral decisions.
Sigh. Let me try again. Democratic governments do not – may not – make moral decisions. They can make only legal decisions.
There is a difference between “The government should not prohibit parents from allowing their children to do things that are harmful to them (i.e., to the children)” and “The government should not prohibit parents from allowing their children to do things that are believed to make them do harmful things to other people.”
If parents don’t care if their kids turn into brainless zombies, they should be able to let their kids watch TV, play video games, listen to the stuff the “music” industry sells and view pornography. It’s pointless to try to prohibit that. But maybe they should not be able to let their kids play games that teach them how to kill.
On the other hand, as somebody (Jack?) pointed out, that could mean the end of high school football. It’s probably easier to prove that football is mostly just state-subsidized mugging lessons than to prove that Grand Theft Auto teaches murder.
“Signing off and promising never to engage you again
AA”
Ex abundatio cordis, os loquitor.
there are enough analogous sorts of events to make the games at best highly suspicious as a healthy-minded pursuit.
Ann,
I agree with you completely on this. There are violent video games, violent TV, violent movies, violent theater, violent fairy tales, etc. That was my point. If the violence in Shakespeare causes political assassination, then it is a no brainer that the violence in video games encourages violence in real life. But I am not sure everyone thinks the violence in Shakespeare has such bad effects. I know some who positively affirm the violence in Grimm’s fairy tales. So I am not sure analogous sorts of events are the way to go in building an argument against video violence.
I also agree with you entirely on the evils of repression, though apparently unlike you, I see the efforts to suppress violence in video games as repressive. It might be better if we could keep our children innocent, with no idea or experience of violence. Or that might be the worst of all, since it leaves them unsensitized when they do experience violence in A Clockwork Orange or other real or virtual encounters. So I guess I have my doubts about keeping these things away from people.
Addiction to video gaming seems more likely to promote slothful inaction than violent action, but that is another line of thought entirely.
Felapton (6:27 pm):
Toy guns, too? The government, having no brain or discernment of its own, is extremely poor at recognizing the differences between points on a continuum. People are notoriously bad at it, too, but human societies do a much better job of coming to a working, though mobile, consensus. All governments can do is carve something in stone. Far too rigid. Keep them out of it, or you’ll find your kids in jail for saying “Bang!” in a public place.
CK #3. “Are video games different because they are addictive in some way–particularly for young people?”
My sense is that personal computer uses tend to be hypnotic for many, if not addictive – games and also web-surfing, programming, blogging, shopping, ….. Several factors combine. The system tends to interact with you at your speed, whether fast or slow. The linkage can be visual and/or aural. As you move above each learning threshold, it tends to do what you told it to do. It tends to keep rewarding you with something to read, play, argue about, draw, behead, ….. often enough to keep you from walking away in boredom, and it will keep doing that as long as you want. It tends to be fairly forgiving of many dumb errors these days, allowing for normal imperfection on your part. That’s an attractive and satisfying instrument for young and old to deal with.
In my view, the other media mentioned above have their own distinctive features, but none offers the intimately interactive connection found in video games. Interacting in virtual reality with virtual entities and real people, all in real time, appears to be an experience without precedent. Understanding the human effects and the vulnerability of various individuals will take a while. Strict parallels between other media and video games deserve to be treated cautiously because of the differences. In the meantime, practical suspicions and judgments as mentioned above by Jean, Claire, et al. will probably preserve the foundations of civilization as in the past. The government will sort it out in time as in the past.
If anyone is interested, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has recently addressed this issue due to their government’s drafting of new guidelines related to the classification of video games. Interestingly (and apparently to the great distress of some pro-family organizations), they take a middle position.
Summary
http://www.catholic.org.au/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=1147&tmpl=component&format=raw&Itemid=355
Full document
http://www.catholic.org.au/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_view&gid=1146&tmpl=component&format=raw&Itemid=186
Regarding the specifics of Brown vs EMA:
(with the caveat that while I’ve looked at key portions of each section of the decision, I still need to conduct a thorough read-through of the whole thing)
I’m inclined so far to support the Alito/Roberts position. I think there may be constitutional grounds for restricting this kind of speech, but I’m not sure the California statute is precise enough in its language. California’s statute was written carefully to make use of already established definitions of obscenity used in prior jurisprudence:
——-
the California law imposes the following threshold limitation: “[T]he range of options available to a player [must] includ[e] killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human being.” §1746(d)(1). Any video game that meets this threshold test is subject to the law’s restrictions if it also satisfies three further requirements:
“(i) A reasonable person, considering the game as a whole, would find [the game] appeals to a deviant or morbid interest of minors.
“(ii) It is patently offensive to prevailing standards in the community as to what is suitable for minors.
“(iii) It causes the game, as a whole, to lack serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors.”
——
One of the most popular lines of violent video games among teens is the Call of Duty series. Each game is centered around a particular armed conflict in Amercan history, and allows users to play the role of U.S. military personnel or, in multi-player versions, their enemies. (The most recent version of the game which focuses on the War in Afghanistan raised eyebrows by allowing players to play as Taliban insurgents killing U.S. soldiers. http://www.aolnews.com/2010/08/13/new-video-game-will-let-you-play-as-the-taliban/ )
These games clearly teach target acquisition and reflexive firing, and allow the user to commit countless brutal acts of violence from a first-person perspective- basically, many of the key concerns that I highlighted above. But can such games be said to lack serious political value? One could certainly make the case that these games serve a certain civic purpose (historical education, promoting patriotism, appreciation of the sacrifices of our nation’s military personnel, etc). Perhaps even especially in the instance of users getting to play the role of Nazi soldiers or Taliban insurgents, I can see someone making the argument that such games constitute protected speech. (Imagine a 16 year old member of the Westboro Baptist Church playing the part of Taliban insurgents killing U.S. soldiers so as to be on the side of God’s wrath against America.)
I am beginning to wonder whether it is possible to construct a statute that is both broad enough to be effective and narrow enough to protect political speech. In as much as state-sanctioned violence is a core part of our national policies, it may not be possible to both protect political speech and restrict access to violent material.
The really key question then is the one raised by Justice Thomas, do minors have the same rights regarding political speech that adults do?
The Australian Bishops’ issue paper (Thanks, David T.) mentioned in passing a word worth considering – “downloads”. I just connected to 6 continents within 10 minutes and retrieved material (news) more easily than if I had fetched the morning paper from the front walk. If you are reading this online, you can do the same now. Independent of freedom of speech issues, the feasibility of constraining the distribution of undesirable material has shrunk to a degree which needs to recognized.
Past constraints like the Index and Legion of Decency film ratings were helpful to those who wanted the help or felt obliged to accept it. Others were unaffected. Similar results seem likely with efforts to limit violent video games short of some extreme multinational censorship effort of scope and detail which I find unimaginable.
“I also agree with you entirely on the evils of repression, though apparently unlike you, I see the efforts to suppress violence in video games as repressive.’
Jim McK –
Indeed, such suppression is repressive. But there is repression and repression, and some is natural and a means of preserving civilization. Some is automatic, engendered by unconscious forces (as when we deny this or that experience whose reality we don’t know how to handle, e.g., having witnessed a terrible crime), and some is a matter of consciously controlling our destructive impulses. The former can be dangerous psychologically because if we don’t realize things are being repressed, they can come back to haunt us in strange even destructive ways. That fact is all the common culture has seemed to have picked up of Freud’s theory — the weird part. But contrary to popular belief, Freud thought that repression is also an effective means of controlling our unconscious aggressive drives. The latter is necessary and is, in fact, one of the foundations of civilization. Freud wasn’t one to say, “Let it all hang out”.
I grant you that more research needs to be done about the effects on people of all these experiences of violence, including paticipatory violence (the games), observed violence (Shakespeare) and vicarious (football). (Does it make a difference, for instance, if the violence is only imagined but our reactions are real?) It seems to me we have to stop kidding ourselves — stop denying — the possibility that too much of such experiences is destructive of our fundamental human value, that we must never injure others unnecessarily..
One thing is true by definition: violence destroys. Are the rampant experiences of violence in our culture actually destroying something in the players of violent computer games, the contemplators of art, the fans of that consciously controlled aggression we call football? There are many hypotheses consistent with the facts which indicate that the answer is Yes.
David writes (1:41 am):
Back to families, no? Far better to leave it there, I think. Families can easily deal with moral questions and nuanced reasoning because parents don’t have to take the entire society into consideration; whereas for the government, it’s effectively impossible. Government is a blunt instrument. What’s needed here is individual discernment.
Well, that’s a question that has to be decided by governments, because it pertains to laws governing all three hundred million people, not to individual children.
Thanks for taking apart the statute for us. It all sounds extremely subjective – “reasonable person”, “deviant”, “morbid”, “offensive”, “prevailing standards”, “value for minors”. Ridiculous – courts have no business playing with such fuzzy language.
There are many hypotheses consistent with the facts which indicate that the answer is Yes.
Ann,
No one has yet suggested where this violence is happening. Why is the rate of violent crime falling? If these violent impulses are not manifesting themselves in crime, what effect are they having? I am having a problem finding good statistics, but it seems that school violence is decreasing as well.
Also, what about people who actually are trained to kill in real life (on the battlefield) and do so? Is there a higher rate of violent crime and murder among veterans of the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan?
David N. –
Is the rate of violent crime *against people* falling? An editorial here today says that since Jan. property crime has gone down but crimes against people have not.
Not all violence is reported to the police. The media is full of reports of greatly increased incidents of bullying on school playgrounds even among girls (which is quite a new phenomenon). And who are among the largest group of computer games players? Yep, them.
Ann, with respect, when you start counting playgroung bullying as crime, of course crime will go up.
David S. –
I didn’t say bullying is a crime, I said it is violence, and it is.
David S. wrote: It all sounds extremely subjective – “reasonable person”, “deviant”, “morbid”, “offensive”, “prevailing standards”, “value for minors”. Ridiculous – courts have no business playing with such fuzzy language.
——–
These are the standard terms used by courts to determine obscenity in sexual matters. And the “reasonable person” standard is a frequent feature of many areas of the law. So they are not quite as subjective as they sound; they have precise legal definitions.
I think you are right though that regardless of the feasibility or wisdom of instituting effective laws in this area, the primary effort has to be a social one. And while parents have the responsibility for forming their own children, I would hope that Christians would not give in to our cultural bias towards individualism by simply resigning this to the discretion of individual families, but would instead work communally. I would greatly welcome an effort by Church leaders to get American Christians to reflect on our widespread cultural acceptance of violent entertainment and our deeper cultural and political reflex towards violence as an effective way to solve problems. We could stand for some sustained communal reflection on the Christian obligation to be peacemakers.
David (12:38 am):
I very much agree. This seems to be a natural for Church leadership, especially since right and left seem to be together here.
Yes, I understood you to say this was modeled on the obscenity-law language. But, really, how can anything be decided objectively using language like that?
A short piece on the Scalia-Thomas disagreement is in Wash Post p.A-13 7/4/11. Didn’t find much support for Thomas view on parent-children relation and free speech.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2011/06/30/AGikhmwH_story.html
Playground bullying IS a crime when it is tolerated by school officials and parents who just think that it (1) is boys/girls being boys/girls, and (2) it will help the kid being bullied to learn that life is hard and you need to learn how to fight back and kick butt when you are bullied.
I suspect that many who downplay bullying haven’t been bullied themselves – or were bullies once (and maybe still are in one form or another).
DS – If I follow your logic, the fewer things that are counted as crimes, the more the crime rate will go down! That’s a good thing – right?
That’s the way the rate of pedophilia by priests was cut waaaay down from what it had been – don’t count a lot of incidents that other people count.
This thread shouldn’t end without some mention of the excessive snarkiness that is now tolerated in the U. S, Language can also be cutting. Did i’s rise coincide with the popularity of violent games?
Hmm.
Ann, I think it’s likely that the two rose to the top in tandem. We live in crude, loud, very snarky times.
Yes, David, the times are so. But there are always causes.