Dave wrote:I think I'm asking a question that's a bit bigger, GlytchMeister.
I'm not just asking if game or movie violence is likely to cause people to become more violent themselves. I'll accept that the studies to date indicate that any such effect is not significant.
I'm asking, in part, whether being exposed to constant fictional violence may be making some people less sensitive to real violence: that is, less likely to act themselves to stop it when they see it or hear of it, or less concerned about those affected by the violence.
We know that there are situations that can cause people to become less sensitive to the pain of others... the Stanford prison experiment, the Milgram experiment, Abu Ghraib... it's easy for us to lose our sense of compassion and treat Others as objects or as less than human.
I guess I'm worried that exposure to lots of representations of gratuitous violence might have a similar effect.
As someone who has engaged in both:
Media violence doesn't even come
close. Not even VR can do it. Yes, they can get your heart pounding, and they can make you angry and frustrated.
But the violence in media doesn't have nearly the same effect. The act of beating the shit out of someone or taking them to the brink of death, holding them over the edge of the cliff... That is not something media, in my opinion, can desensitize someone to. If someone can do it and not question their own humanity later, or take it lightly, then they were already that way to begin with. The feel of the pulping of the muscle, the tearing of fibers, the snapping and crunching of bones, the separation of flesh beneath a blade, and the sharp report of a gun firing death on swift wings down a barrel... as a direct result of the force being applied by your own hands, or your own trigger finger... No media can desensitize someone to that.
They can make someone think they are ready. The media can make a kid be all gung-ho about it and think they've got the balls to take a life. But they aren't prepared. They aren't desensitized. They're simply fooling themselves if they think so.
You know what can desensitize someone to violence against another human being without actually being violence against another human being in the first place?
Killing animals. Slaughtering them. Grabbing a chicken, putting its head on the block, and beheading it. Wrestling a pig or a goat into the ground and slitting its throat. Shooting a cow or a deer.
And the warning sign is when it's not done humanely. Instead of a quick chop or a sudden twist, they slowly remove the chicken's head... Or they don't cut the throat of the pig or goat very deep, letting it bleed out slowly, so they can revel in the act, watch the light leave the animal's eyes. Or shooting the cow or deer in the gut or something
on purpose to make it die slowly, and not following it and catching it and putting it out of its misery.
That's why animal abuse is such a strong red flag for other problems. If a kid is setting cats on fire, and is aware of the concept of pain (some kids are stupid, I get it), you need to keep a close goddamn eye on that kid, because something is up with that child.
Simulated violence in media is still far too tame, too far removed from the reality of true violence for it to actually desensitize someone against real, in-person violence.
Sgt. Howard wrote:There's a great deal of debate (and I'm not REALLY convinced, but I will concede the possibility) that a goodly number of school shootings can trace their beginnings to the 'dehumanization factor' of violent video games and movies. If a child runs out of a theater screaming, THAT ought to tell you that the child being there was not appropriate.
Children deserve to have a childhood- I freaked out several times during 'Sleeping Beauty' when I saw it for the first time. Disney's 'Sleeping Beauty'. No shit. I finished Army Ranger School back in the 70's, so I doubt I would qualify as a 'sissy'.
Please consider my earlier post. The idea that school shootings trace their beginnings to dehumanization via violent video games is a non-representative sample logical fallacy. Most school shootings are done by people who are the target audience of violent video games. "Correlation, not causation" at best. Very frequently, there are many other things that contributed far more to the shootings than the games - bullying and inaction by teachers, parental abuse, a proclivity toward animal abuse that was not curbed. These factors don't get the same media attention because they aren't a hot controversial topic for the news agencies to start useless arguments over, and there's no money in the debate. Everyone agrees if a kid is getting bullied, they get beat like a dog by their dad, and they take out their anger on animals by kicking and setting them on fire, that kid's probably pretty fucked up.
Not everyone agrees kids who play violent games end up fucked up, and there's all kinds of money at stake in that debate.
I agree kids deserve a childhood, but perhaps we should focus more on things like child abuse, fixing the foster care system, figuring out a way to
stop bullying, and provide resources to parents so they can learn and know how to raise a child right instead of simply raising their children like they were raised... Because if I raised my kid like how I was raised, in absence of other influences, my kid would end up a monster far, far worse than my father or even my grandfather.