"It Was You, It Was Me, It Was Every Man"

Saw a couple of interesting interviews on video game violence: one with gamer and gaming comic artist Tim Buckley, and a counter opinion full of idiocy from a guy named Jack Thompson. Buckley's responses are pretty strong, and he makes the same sort of argument I do about video game violence and real-life violence: first, most kids can tell the difference between real and fantasy violence; second, that most of the responsibility lies with the parents. Parents need to pay attention to what their kids are doing and playing, not buy the violent video games for the kids, and basically be parents. Thompson made the sort of argument you'd expect--video game companies ought to be responsible, shouldn't make these games, blah blah blah. He even purposely misinterprets one of the questions (whether or not he thought age and sex had any impact on violence, a question obviously asking whether the age and gender of the kid have anything to do with it) so he can set up a straw man argument about sex and violence linked in the brain and all that crap.

The whole video game violence argument annoys me to no end. I've been playing video games for years. I played Mortal Kombat. I played Halo. I played the Grand Theft Auto games (and got pretty bored with them after awhile). I played all sorts of games with killing, blood, guts, etc., and I'm a pretty well-adjusted individual. I don't go around trying to emulate those games, because I know they're games. Fantasy. Pretend. Not real. I recognize this, as do most gamers. As Buckley points out, the sort of kid who goes out and does something violent after playing a video game was most likely predisposed towards that sort of behavior before they ever picked up a controller. The great majority of gamers can tell the difference between fantasy and reality, right and wrong, and blaming gamers or games for the stupidity or inability to tell the difference of a few individuals is ludicrous.

It reminds me of a song by Jack Johnson called "Cookie Jar." Just like the old children's song that asks, "who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?" and then passes the blame along the line, Johnson explores a series of groups and individuals who refuse to take responsibility for a single violent act. Johnson ultimately decides that everyone is to blame: "we all have the blood on our hands." No one and everyone is responsible because we all denied our responsibilities. And that's the case here, with these video games. The games in and of themselves are not what is wrong. What is wrong is that parents aren't teaching their kids right, kids aren't bothering to learn the difference, video game makers are creating these games, retailers aren't bothering to check the age of the people buying the games. We're all responsible, and none of us want to be the one caught with our hand in the cookie jar.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Jack Johnson, "Cookie Jar"