When there is any kind of violence or altercation, someone is always looking for a scapegoat to place the blame with. You hear also sorts of reasons explaining why there is violence ranging from their upbringing to the music they hear and the movies they watch. For example, media figures have been quick to blame violent video games for school shootings.
I've always thought that it was ridiculous to blame TV, video games, movies, etc. for the violence that happens. I've known plenty of people that have watched hundreds of violent movies or played video games that are nice people who would never consider hurting anyone. As long kids have good parental supervision and they're taught right from wrong as they grow up, then there shouldn't be a problem. However, I'm not saying that all of these media are appropriate for young children as some of it is clearly not, but ultimately, it should be the parent's responsibility to know what their kids are exposed and make sure that they know it is fantasy.
When I see physical aggression or even verbal aggression, most of the time I think it is simply male pride and the emotions that intense competition can create. Yet, in some instances, it clearly goes too far. The benching clearing brawls in baseball, the soccer riots in Europe, and most notably, the brawl that spilled into the stands during the Pistons-Pacers game. It's instances like these that show a much bigger problem is occurring. My bias leads me to think that these people were not taught the right things growing up. This could have been because there parents were not around or because there parents were the ones always yelling at their youth games and getting into altercations with other parents. Even sports can lead to gangs as in Europe many of the clubs have their own unofficial "firm" or gang that gets into altercation with opposing sides on match days. To me, this demonstrates a bigger problem in society with seemingly increased violence. There is an idea that violence increases at times when a country is involved with war and other possibilities include the TV like I mentioned before. I don't know why violence is becoming so prominent in our society today, but I hope to be able to explore these ideas more fully.
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4 comments:
Interesting thoughts.
Here's a couple that I was thinking about.
1. MALE AGGRESSION? Although this might exist, what about females? Do they have the same aggression? Are they affected by video games, just as girls are?
2. Although video games might not make someone violent, if someone plays a lot of video games, could they possibly missing out on something else, some kind of human interaction that helps them deal with their anger and emotions?
Could it be that the more time society as a whole spends with inanimate objects the less sociable we are which would lead to more violence. Afterall, the more parents put their children in front of screens, the less time they spend interacting with their children and teaching them right from wrong....leaving an inanimate object made by mass society to teach them morals.
You tend to do a lot of speculation in your thought process. You say that video games, TV and media figures encourage violence and that has a direct causal link to an increase in the violent tendencies of others. Now such demonstration is present.
Though you are just trying to reveal your bias, you present as if you are trying to make a point. If this is the case then I think you left out a number of important points:
Could it not be the participation in sports themselves that promotes the violence in them? After all they teach children to be physically aggressive
What about alcohol and other behavior modifying substances that lead to aggression?
What of the same parents that teach right from wrong also teaching their kids to be winners? If the winner lesson becomes more important than the morality lesson with respect to the child then is that the parents fault?
If violence is due to the male ego that shouldn't mean that we just blow it off. That's just silly. If this is so than clearly there is something horribly wrong with the socialization of men in today's culture. You assume this male ego to be unfixable. You refer to it as "simply male pride". Male pride is stupid and absurd. If it amounts to physical violence then it is also dangerous and should be remedied.
In response, lifesizesuperman made a couple of good points. I realized after I posted that I should have simply said aggression and ego without assigning the male gender in front of them. I also liked the idea that you brought up of them possibly missing out on social interaction and the next comment's idea of children spending too much time with inanimate objects which is probably becoming truer as I constantly see toddlers in minivans watching DVDs. In response to the third comment, I'm not sure where you came up with the idea that I thought video games, movies, and somehow media figures encourage violence. I was simply saying media figures blame video games and TV for violence and I personally find that whole idea ridiculous. I wasn't trying to make any point, but only point out my bias that those theories are dumb. I don't believe that male ego is not fixable either as I my thought was that the staring or slight push after a play in sports is ego or pride. When one player from a team in baseball is purposely hit by a pitch, the other team's manager and pitcher will openly admit to intentionally beaning the other team as a retaliatory measure to keep their pride. Male pride is stupid and absurd, but I personally don't believe that it is the reason for the very violent behavior that I'm thinking about. My whole idea was to show that my bias is that the violence is mainly caused by parents not teaching the right things to their kids as they grow up, but of course, there will always be exceptions to this as well.
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