Is anyone else sick of "games vs morality"?

I was about to read this whole article, but then I asked myself "do I want to waste as much of my time reading it, as this guy wasted writing it?" Maybe sometime I'll read it for "entertainment" value. But for now, his summary is enough to convince me of this persons sheer ignorance to human psychology and another example of his Americanized "pigeonholed" view of society.

Once again, just incase anyone isn't clear on the matter: There was rape, murder, assassinations, genocide, kidnapping, homocides, and a platora of other such violent acts before the advent of videogames.

oh yeah, here's the link http://www.igda.org/Endeavors/Articles/rreynolds_intro.htm

note: and just so I don't get flamed for my statement, yes I'm a born/bread American, and for the most part, we do live in an amazing country.

Yea I'm pretty sick of it. I'm gonna be 17 aug-4 if I was gonna go on a killing rampage b/c of a game giving me and idea to I prolly woulda done it already. In my opinion I don't think music or ne thing is responsible for voice. No offense to any parents, but I do think it's their fault if they won't partcipate in their kids lives. My parents are always wanting me to go do stuff. Oh well

Its all in how stable your personality is and how strong a sense of ethics you have. Its quite a delemma when you put any thought into it. I love to play SOF and yet I am an old school aging hippie dinosaur/skate punk. When I think that there are people who actually enjoy slasher flicks and other media examples of violence I am disturbed.

The Romans had the games and it did not stop their violence, their entire culture was steeped in violence. The Hindus have a religious and cultural philosophy of peace and yet you don't have to search far for examples of war and violence in India.

I worry that our Western culture with all of its fantastic entertainment options has lost sight of how to use them to teach ethical values to its children. How to separate what makes a good story from what makes a good way to deal with life. Its not just the religious wack jobs that wrestle with this. Its very easy for messages of peace to get drowned by the sounds of gunfire.

"Spare the rod and spoil the child." That spoiled child will eventually become sociopathic. I have a cousin who is exactly the same way. Putting the fear of God into a child should be a parents first concern IMHO.

I remember hearing about some girl who went on a rampage with some sort of hand cannon before the dawn of video games entertainment and she was like 14...

I dunno, perhaps she was a beta tester for space invaders

If they want to make retarded excuses for deeper problems in society than let them.

But there's no single item in our culture that can be blamed for violence. Teenagers and Pre-Teens are NO LONGER expected to behave like adults. Therefore most don't develop emotional controls or a code of ethical social behavior. This causes them to be prone to psychological stress, social isolation, emotional scarring, and difficulty controlling anger.

So who's to blame? If I had to do any serious finger pointing it would be a schools with lack (or non-existant) standards of conduct.

And to rebute, if you want to make a graph it would look pretty dramatic as to how common murder was before video games existed. As a whole, murders have decreased in the past 500 years and haven't shown ANY increase due to violent video games. There are no statistics proving ANY kind of connection between the two.

And I don't know about anyone else, but I'd be near-murderous if I didn't have video games to vent my ever-fueled hatred of the misinformed and hypocritical members of humanity...

My favorite is when the discovery, tlc, and court Tv channels all have some really really sick stuff on during the day just waiting for "kids" to turn in to. That is where I go to get my dose of psycho killers and rapists......just joking. Man some of that stuff is just sick. Geez and there has been murder on this planet since the first carnivore evolved millions and millions and millions of years ago it is just a fact of life. But man I will never forget the time I took my BFG gun and wasted a whole colony on Mars. Than I rocket jumped my *** out of their and got my +3 sword of the dork and killed a bunch of elves. Than I went and lvl 20 chain lightninged a bunch of hopless townfolks. Than I tried to rocket jump out of there again but I was low on health and exploded.

Actually when you throw in government endorsed murder like the holocaust in Europe and Kampuchea or ethnic cleansing pogroms the 20th century was the bloodiest century in history, co-incidental with the rise of mass media and more efficient means of removing unwanted populations. Even the Mongols with their bloody twenty year invasion of all of Asia and Eastern Europe were probably responsible for an estimated 2.5 million deaths. Between the Soviets, Nazis and Kmer Rouge alone we are talking over ten times that amount (civilian non-combatant populations).

Figures for murder are very easy to manipulate, historically it wasn't illegal to whip a slave to death, murder an unfaithful wife or unruly child, or even duel someone you disagreed with. Also many of our current batch of psychopaths would have found homes in a military (where atrocities were an accepted part of war) or been caught quickly because communities were more tight-knit and abberational behaviour would have been noticed earlier.

The point about deeper problems is the same one I would make. Without a solid ethical foundation any society is going to have problems with violence, theft and honesty. If you think Enron and Worldcom are the exception and not the rule then all you need to do is wait for the next newspaper headline. Any society that prizes wealth and things above people and the common good is one that is going to be prone to problems.

Video games, mass media entertainment and five second soundbites are'nt the problem they are just symptoms of a culture that is unaware of or doesn't care about the world around it. I don't blame schools, parents corporations, or the governments for this, it slowly crept up on us until it became the "Way it is". Captain Slugs point about emotional controls and codes of ethical social behaviour are the results of three to five generations of people looking out for number one. How many of you have grandparents or great-grand parents in nursing homes? A hundred years ago our aged died in the homes of their families not surrounded by strangers. Think of the ethics of that.

Blaming video games for violence seems pretty pointless but when you are faced with the sheer complexity and pressures of modern life it must be comforting to be able to find a simple solution. Clueless but comforting.

See. Now is it just me, or do the majority of these posts sound more intellegent then the beaurocratic BS we hear in the media everyday. I think alot of it just comes from our societies (speaking about the US) increasing decline of personal responsibility. If your child turns into some killer who shoots up their school, I'm willing to bet there's some problems in the home; be it bad parenting or a lack of functional parenting.

I'm compelled to adamantly disagree with Penguin, nothing personal dude but there's been more blood spilled through history in the name of "god" or religion then any other cause todate.

Although my solution may seem to argue against my stance on game violence I think if we somehow "did away" with all the soccermoms, polititians, religious zealots, and like minded ignorami not only would we get rid of the Games = violence debates, but probably make society as a whole much better for the general populous altogether.

Just a thought

people (specifically those in america, considering that seems to be the main topic of this string) no longer have to take responsibility for their actions. now, many people can screw up by making some of the stupidest mistakes imaginable and end up gaining massive amounts of money as a result. how about the classic story of the woman who spilt hot coffee on herself and sued McDonald's? or the people who got fat and are now sueing Micky D's, BK, wendy's, and KFC? these are some of the sorriest excuses for intelligent thought i've ever heard of, but these people are shifting the blame to someone else and no longer responsible for their stupidity. others may see this and decide that they, too can shift the blame away from where it might rightfully belong...

my 2 cents.

I don't blame America and in fact was talking about "the West" and its dependency on massmedia (lowest common denominator for sex and violence) and large corporations and their bottom dollar outlooks. My only real complaint about America is that because of mass media it is no longer an informed society and as a result has lost sight of its democratic ideals (less than 50% vote in national elections and less than 20% in local elections). I blame television and a comfortable standard of living for the complacency. Remember the Romans and "bread and circuses". The parallels are frightening.

Saying that I also believe that when pushed into a corner or faced with an obvious wrong there is no people on Earth that could turn it around faster. American dynamism isn't just legend its fact. I think that the far right political turn in America is just a swing of the pendulum. By using the media and smug five second sound bites to make complex issues simple they might hold on for a while, but any group who has to hold power through intimidation, fear, dirty tricks and jingoism will eventually find itself on the outside looking in.

Thats all the hype about violence in video games is. The people doing it are preaching to the faithful. They don't expect anything to change. I don't even think they want change because then where is their next excuse for violence going to come from? Television? Tom and Jerry cartoons? Itchy and Scratchy?