As a member of the first generation to be brought up on video games (Pong, anyone?), I
really can't see the "link" between animated graphics on a CRT and real violence. With
silicon avatars I've done tremendous amounts of virtual violence, from early tame
environments like the "Adventure" text-based game to full-scale orbital bombardments that annihilated entire sentient races along with their planet's ecology. Has this made me a
homicidal killer?
I started shooting at age 10, and had my own firearms since I was 17. I collect military and military-style arms and munitions. I've seen scores of Hollywood's "action" movies, which range mostly from bad to entirely silly. I've played the computer games that the media rails against, like "DOOM", "Duke Nukem" (all 3 versions), and "Grand Theft Auto". I've even played those flight simulators, perhaps even the ones that "made" that Japanese guy kill the 747 pilot so he could fly an airplane (hmm, I just go pay somebody to fly, odd...). Again, curiously, I don't seem to be a homicidal killer.
I'm afraid these synthetic forms violence don't have much of an effect on me. I remember when I went to see "Jurassic Park" at the theater, and an elderly woman sitting next to me said after the movie "You didn't jump once!", in a somewhat startled tone. It's just a movie. I know which shots are puppets and which are CG work. I've seen real
tyrannosaurs and velociraptors, at least what's left of them. I know that liberties from the truth are taken in the name of "entertainment". Like the fact that velociraptor's skull was only 9 inches long, about the size of my Labrador retriever's noggin and the remarkably silly scene showing the excavation in a thoroughly improbably manner of a fully-articulated, completely intact (even the tail!) dromaeosaurid.
The point being that something like "True Lies" isn't a primer on fighting global terrorism any more than playing "Dungeons and Dragons" makes one adept at swordplay, or
"DOOM" is realistic training for urban combat. I'd like to see anyone with "2% health" sprint across a room and jump across a chasm, dispatching bad guys all the way. The gap between real and fiction is still large, although technology may someday close it to make reality and fantasy indistinguishable, à la the "jacking in" of Gibson's "cyberpunk" novels. Perhaps, should this come to pass, then I will see more of a moral dilemma in such entertainment. I have seen real violence, not much, but some. Pixelated pseudo-blood of made-up aliens lacks shocking power for me. It isn't real. A teenage girl dead in a pool of her own blood after being ejected through the rear window of a Camero that hit a bridge abutment is all too real for me. War Department films only recently released of Marines on Iwo Jima in full color playing with the dismembered body parts of dead Japanese, smiling cheerfully, is disturbing to me. An autopsy of a guy killed by a knife wound to the liver just about made me pass out (cracking the chest cavity got to me). It's not nice having your bath interrupted by shotgun blasts and the neighbor's car exploding. But computer games?
Miss Demeanors, I would ask that you try to interest your cousins parents in reviewing a
firearms safety program like the NRA's "Eddie Eagle" program with their children. It
apparently isn't judgmental on firearms while being effective. I saw a rather surprising
report on television (Dateline, I think) once that exposed kids to a deactivated handgun
right after a public school demonstration on "firearms avoidance". One kid told the others
to stay away, and went to get the teacher. The kid cited the "stop, don't touch, tell an
adult" credo from the "Eddie" video he had seen privately. Several of the parents watching the tape said they told their children guns were bad, probably like they told them cigarettes, alcohol, and more illicit drugs are bad. We clearly know you can just say that something's bad, and they'll never touch the stuff, right? However, these were younger children than your cousins. If these materials seem too childish for early or pre-teens, I would suggest you look into hunter safety program that may be offered for nominal fees by your state. These programs have good firearms safety messages, and may offer live fire experiences as well, keeping the attention of older kids.
Notes on gaming...
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<LI>rabbit assassin: Yeah, Tiberian Sun is out. Westwood sent me a card and Best Buy had
an ad for it in the paper here. Unfortunately [sniff, sob], my ancient computer won't run
it...or any other new game, for that matter.
<LI>Coinneach: And here I was thinking I was the only one who played DN3D without taking out non-combatants. Anyone remember the opening sequence that had Duke shooting a smiley-face in his target on the range? Impressive for a guy whose weapons have no sights!
</UL>
[Grr...keep getting messed up lines with "cut-and-paste"]
[This message has been edited more than once by RepublicThunderbolt (edited August 31, 1999).]
[This message has been edited by RepublicThunderbolt (edited August 31, 1999).]