What I read
In "Trump holds games violence meeting", David Lee (2018) reports that a participant in a meeting with US President Donald Trump to discuss the possible influence of violence in video games on violent tendencies seen in America's repeated shootings at schools has said that the meeting was "respectful." Lee also reports that President Trump has a history going back to 2012 of blaming extreme violence in games for having a harmful effect on young people in America, although game makers say that such claims lack any solid evidence, and a US Supreme Court opinion in 2011 ruled them to be free speech protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
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My response
When the US Supreme Court made its ruling in 2011, I read that decision with interest. I never play video games or computer games myself, but I know people who enjoy them, including the children of friends. It does not seem to me that those games, even extremely violent ones, cause the kids to become violent. The 11-year-old son of one friend, for example, has always been a pleasant, happy and friendly boy, despite his love of shooting and other violent games. I don't like the games, so I don't play them. But I don't think my dislike is a good reason to ban them. I don't like McDonalds either, but that does not seem to me a good reason to make Big Macs illegal. I'm reminded of when I was in high school. Then, it was popular to blame the rise of TV for a moral decline in behaviour and attitudes of young people such as myself, but the people who said this never presented any solid evidence for their claims. They wanted governments to control what people, especially kids like me, could watch, but although their motives might have been good, they were wrong and their wishes for government control were also wrong.
In this area, I always think of Japan, which has very high rates of violence in its famous manga comics, but also has very low rates of violent crime. If President Trump were even half right, we would expect Japan to be a very violent society, but it doesn't seem to be. Nor are rates of violence in other countries with plenty of violent media as bad as in the US.
What makes America so prone to gun shooting? I don't know. But I do think that a bit more perspective can be helpful. At 4.88/100,000, America's murder rate is about five times the rate for Australia and England, but it's only a little higher than Thailand's 3.5, and it's much lower than the murder rates in other countries, such as the Philippines (9.85/100,000) (Wikipedia contributors, 2018). I'm only guessing, but looking at the statistics, there seems to me to be a correlation between the perceived social equality reflected in equal rule of law and murder rates. The United States certainly has a problem compared to other developed countries, but it's much less violent than many other countries, and the violence rate today is much lower than it used to be: I think people often forget that things might be improving when horrible stories of violence are on the front pages of every news paper.
But I'm sure that the US Supreme Court was right not to let the government stop young people buying and watching violent video games. I suspect that Trump won't try that because he knows that the same court won't allow him to make any such laws.
In this area, I always think of Japan, which has very high rates of violence in its famous manga comics, but also has very low rates of violent crime. If President Trump were even half right, we would expect Japan to be a very violent society, but it doesn't seem to be. Nor are rates of violence in other countries with plenty of violent media as bad as in the US.
What makes America so prone to gun shooting? I don't know. But I do think that a bit more perspective can be helpful. At 4.88/100,000, America's murder rate is about five times the rate for Australia and England, but it's only a little higher than Thailand's 3.5, and it's much lower than the murder rates in other countries, such as the Philippines (9.85/100,000) (Wikipedia contributors, 2018). I'm only guessing, but looking at the statistics, there seems to me to be a correlation between the perceived social equality reflected in equal rule of law and murder rates. The United States certainly has a problem compared to other developed countries, but it's much less violent than many other countries, and the violence rate today is much lower than it used to be: I think people often forget that things might be improving when horrible stories of violence are on the front pages of every news paper.
But I'm sure that the US Supreme Court was right not to let the government stop young people buying and watching violent video games. I suspect that Trump won't try that because he knows that the same court won't allow him to make any such laws.
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My question
Do you agree with the US Supreme Court that video games, including sickeningly violent ones, are forms of free speech that the government should not be allowed to ban?
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Reference
- Lee, D. (2018, March 9). Trump holds games violence meeting. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-43325712
- Wikipedia contributors. (2018, March 5). List of countries by intentional homicide rate. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 11:52, March 9, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate&oldid=828988081
Unusually, I did some research for the statistics in my response. And I'm glad I did. I would otherwise have written what I remembered from older statistics that might have been right, but are definitely out of date. Because I used the ideas from that source, I had to cite it and include it in my list of references.
ReplyDeleteA note: if you use a Wikipedia article as a source, always let their "Cite this page" tool (on the left-hand column) automatically create the reference citation for you. Don't write it yourself. Copy and paste the auto-generated APA reference citation.
And be careful about using Wikipedia as a source.
Although I included a link to it, there was no need to cite the US Supreme Court opinion because I didn't use any idea from it that was not already stated in the article I summarised.
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