Cartoon violence

So today I ran across this book: Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence. Just in reading the reviews and the sample first chapter, this book resonated with me deeply. I think I’ll have to buy it.

I’ve noticed this with my own kids: despite a “no guns” rule in our house, my boys (and girl!) find ways to make weapons out of everyday objects. Today, that little decorative hunk of plastic is a wand from Harry Potter, with Elijah pointing it upwards shouting “Expecto Patronum!” Tomorrow, I discover Zach sheepishly changing that same hunk of plastic from a “gun-position”, making “bam bam bam!” noises, to a “musical conductor position” when he sees me glance at him questioningly. Sara smashes that same hunk of plastic against that of a playmate the next day in a sword battle, with occasional epithets shouted in make-believe language.

I have no doubt that young Joshua, when he is of an age to begin acting out make-believe, will join in the fun.

I keep hearing in the media how video games are “corrupting our youth”. News outlets make sure to emphasize how youthful killers were involved in Dungeons & Dragons, violent video games, or other forms of roleplay.

And every time I hear of these correlations, I find myself thinking “they just don’t get it.”

For me, as a kid, violent video games were the catharsis that I needed to avoid taking out my aggressions in real-life on other people. It’s make-believe. It’s pixels on a screen. Pundits against video-game violence, however, say it’s “desensitizing” to real violence.

I don’t believe that for a heartbeat.

I watched a man try to shoot another man to death on an East Los Angeles street. I was shocked and horrified, running for cover, adrenaline pumping through my veins as I had no idea what to do. Yet I’d seen that same scene many times in movies and video games.

I stared, aghast, at video footage of an F-16 bombing a group of insurgents in Iraq the other day. It was hard to believe I was seeing what I was seeing, yet it was real life, not make-believe. I was physically ill at the thought of just having watched several dozen Iraqis die, even though I knew they were armed and running to join a fight against U.S. soldiers.

The audio of Nick Berg being executed played on the radio several months ago, left me speechless and teary. I had to shut it off because I couldn’t take the stress of hearing it, or hearing anything more about it.

The way I see it, violent video games provide a way for children to feel powerful in a safe environment. They allow them to explore and master their “darker side”, preventing it from becoming the dominant force in their personalities. Even as an adult, being able to blow away the bad guys late at night allows me to be more gentle and tolerant with my own family during the day.

A powerless child needs some way to feel powerful and dominant, even if it’s only make-believe.

I think Christy gets this, too. This Christmas, despite the “no playing guns” rule that has been in place around our house since our children were born, we bought them four Lazer Tag guns. And I suspect that my kids are going to feel like, at home beating me in Lazer Tag, they can exercise the power they lack at school.

Recently, the governor of Illinois announced an initiative to ban violent video games. I think such a move would be a recipe for disaster. I can understand that certain types of violence, acted out in a video game, make us squeamish. And yet kids relate to this stuff on an entirely different level than we do, as adults.

Unfortunately, the power of correlation is difficult to oppose for the masses who don’t understand logic and statistics. For instance, let’s say that serial killers frequently mutilated small animals as a child. There’s a correlation. It doesn’t mean that small animals should be banned, or that small animals are the cause of the violent behavior as an adult. The correlation is that people with mental illness of the sort likely to make them into serial killers frequently act this out against small animals. It is something that should be observed, noted, and prevented through medication and therapy to normalize the child before he becomes a violent adult.

Make-believe violence, as much as our culture despises it, is, in my humble opinion, the solution to a lot of real-world violence. I think it’s a powerful argument in favor of “virtual violence” that, since 1993 when ‘Doom’ was released, heralding the beginning of the “ultra-violent video game age”, that crime in the U.S. began a sustained and dramatic decline. Something to think about.

(Note: I’m not advocating sitting your toddlers down in front of slasher flicks. The subsequent weeks of little sleep due to nightmares would be enough to discourage any parent. I am advocating that stories and play which enable a child to feel powerful and explore emotions in a safe environment, like a video game, can help them develop a fully-fleshed, dynamic personality.)

—
Matthew P. Barnson
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Thought for the moment:

Even though they raised the rate for first class mail in the United States we really shouldn’t complain — it’s still only two cents a day.