Separating violence and reality, and the limits thereof

by Wisdom 

Well, I love me some killing. Let me tell you, man, there is nothing more satisfying than seeing pixels explode on a screen and making that binary code take it like an Irish goat. The thought of random, indiscriminate violence strewn over video games makes me shiver. In fact, I know all of *my* unhealthy aggressions are channeled out using video games; after all, we all know that every killer stops after one kill, right? I mean, after I find a nice outlet, everything's going to be ok. Just give me my video games, and I'll be a productive member of society: but if you ever get in a Quake arena with me, your ass is MINE.

I really hope that sounds as stupid as I think it does. Because frankly, reading everyone's impression on violence in video games is like smashing a record to pieces and playing two lines from it, namely: "Bad!" and "Irrelevant!" What truly troubles me, aside from these damn people I have to keep killing because they won't back off, is that us, as a gaming population, sound just as stupid as they do. In fact, sometimes we one-up them and make ourselves sound like complete idiots. Well, disregarding that fact that we have HARDCORE GAMERZ, BABY!, we should be a relatively intelligent crowd. It does take mastery of some basic motor functions to play video games, after all. So why do I elicit more pain from our rebuttals than their presentations?

I'm going to start off simple. Violence is not good or bad. That's because violence is natural, and you can't judge natural things on an ethical scale. Violence has its place, and the only time we can judge it is when it's used out of its context. (Although some people tempt me. Man... some people really tempt me.) BUT, if we create an excess of indiscriminate violence, we then have a problem. Why, you ask? Because testoserone, the hormone responsible for my beloved male psyche, does not go away when it is used. This may come as a shock to some of you, but the mind is a MUSCLE. When you USE certain parts of this muscle, they become stronger. In Lamen's terms, this means that if I start acting on my aggressive tendencies, my body will RESPOND ACCORDINGLY. There's no such thing as an "outlet" for aggression that involves directly using that aggression. If you hit someone forty times one day, you're damn well going to want to hit someone again. So everybody throw out this idea of Timmy gunning down zombies instead of classmates. It's not healthy if he's using it because he wants the victims to be his classmates, but can't find daddy's AK. That's like saying: "Oh, Johnny likes to stab the couch every now and then. At least he's not stabbing us." See how dumb that sounds? That's right; nod your heads. Good children. So yes, there is something a bit disturbing about a six-year old shouting in glee when he pumps round after round, from his imaginary gatling gun, into a dead Space Marine. If you have to ask why, never, ever, come to my house. I mean that.

In the same vein, it's not much less disturbing to see a thirty-year old man shake with ecstacy when he's using Half-Life to depict all of the friendly things he'd like to do to his boss/coworkers/cat. That's not healthy either. Violence is being used out of context again: violence is not an escape. Baboons don't bash somebody's face in because they feel like it. I've yet to run into a militant dog who was bent on my destruction. Violence is just another way of reacting to the world around us; it's not some evil, cursed male emotion that has brought down huamn civilization, as a few of my femi-Nazi cohorts would like to pawn it off as. It's just a part of us, and it has to be accepted: not denied, as liberals would have you do, but not reveled in either, as the men in white hoods like to think.

I stray from my point. If you haven't gotten the picture yet, I'm not against violence in video games: I'm against violence being used as an outlet in video games. Yes, people, being continually exposed to violence does tend to change my perspective, although every one of us in support of video games doesn't want to believe it. A 10-year old that's never seen an R-rated movie, or played a violent video game, will have an aneurysm if they have to watch somebody play Half-Life. Playing video games does not introduce one to the real world: it separates us from it; that's why we play video games, because they can be fun distractions. I know I don't play Chrono Cross because I want to hear more about those essays I need to get around to writing, or how my car brakes sound like a chalkboard being bludgeoned with a hernia-ridden chicken. I play video games because it's fun, and interesting, to experience a new storyline, or see some particularly revolutionary graphics. I don't play video games because I hate my life or want to escape from it; I find that concept very, very disturbing. The gaming population has to own up to the words they deliver: if continual exposure to violence honestly doesn't make us more violent people, then let's start defending it using logic, not: "It's an outlet, just like my voodoo dolls are." Little Timmy may not be hurting anybody NOW, but as he grows up surrounded by violent video games, he's going to be much more accustomed to acting out on violence, and that could express itself in very nasty ways.

But video games are not responsible for mass-killings. A hell of a lot of factors go into that, and that's why the title of my editorial, (no, not the arm part), is SEPARATING VIOLENCE AND REALITY. The problem with introducing violent video games to children who haven't yet entered puberty, or even some children who have--I know far too many teenage idiots--is that their minds are still developing, and they're being introduced to violent stimulus in a grossly excessive amount than they would be otherwise. And even more telling is that THEY are being encouraged to act out on this violence by the game; the child is the protagonist, whereas in a book, a movie, or any other violent media, the viewer is not directly involved. Now I'm not saying that American kids are idiots... well, yes I am. They're going to have trouble defining a people-friendly outlook on life if a few hours of their daily routine is spent with a BFG. They're young, and it's just the way it goes. I'm not any better; when I was a kid, my parents and I lived in a house where I literally didn't have a neighbor for miles, so for a few years a good chunk of my free time was spent playing RPGs. And although I never went around whacking squirrels with a stick to see if I could find a $20 bill somewhere on their carcass, (Ok, maybe I tried a few times... maybe I still try...), I know for a fact it affected how I related to other people. It still does, because just like everything else in my life, it is a stimulus and it will affect me. The difference is that now, I choose how it affects me, whereas when I was a child, I didn't know how to regulate input. And just because I need to say this, Pokemon doesn't cause mass riots either. (At least not until Christmas.) Pokemon instills great amounts of rage in me because it's mind-numbingly stupid, not because Ash hits Jiggly Puff with some retarded ball to capture him/her/it and then pit it against other pocket monsters. Personally, I want to get a Jiggly-puff code for some overtly aggressive game, because THAT would be one hell of a good time. I can't think of many things I'd like to do more than frag a few Pokemon. Now that's good, healthy fun.

What's the solution, then? Ban violence from video games? God, I hope not. Like I've said around fifty times, violence is completely natural, and when used properly, it makes for a wonderful story. When Cecil struck down Zeromus to save the world, in Final Fantasy IV, I was beating my pillow with joy. When Sephiroth killed Aeris, a lot of people were emotionally affected, and that's great. (I, personally, cheered. Loudly.) And violence in video games is not the source of this planet's evil: we are. Hate to break it to you, but humans have a history of royally messing things up. The only time we do good is when our back is against the wall, and that doesn't really speak very highly for us. RPGs can be a trigger for delusional behavior, (which is why I had to kill my cat... thought he was Lynx for a second there...), or they can just be immersive, telling stories that make for a grand distraction. It's up to us to show everyone how to successfully separate what's on the screen and what's in our brain. That'll do wonders. (Offhand, I really wish I'd had a chance to be in that debate, with Darien, over ratings. The opposition didn't do a stellar job.) It's not the hardest thing to do, but some people honestly don't understand how, and they need to be taught. I support violence in video games, but I also dig letting parents decide if they want their kids to hold off on Quake until after they can spell "double homicide." They're not missing some great piece of reality if they don't know what an exploding human body looks like. Really, they're not.

And to the HARDCORE GAMERZ!--I didn't really mention you much this editorial, but don't get comfortable. I'll be mocking you again shortly. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go beat my neighbor to death with one of his limbs. Haven't done that in a while.