Subject:
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Children and Violence
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 29 Sep 2001 15:09:47 GMT
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Viewed:
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156 times
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Hey Y'all:
I was just sitting here contemplating my navel when I began to think about
violence and its causes. We have certainly been given a few jolts these
past years and it doesn't seem to be getting any better. We have children
shooting children, terrorists all over the world (even here now), wars and
rumours of war, etc. I am tempted to simply ask, "Why?" but that's probably
the wrong question.
In the discussion surrounding the recall of the Alpha Team Ogel set, there
has been an undercurrent conversation about what is good and acceptable
entertainment for children. At the heart of that conversation are the
laudable goals of creating happy, well-adjusted children. I just wonder if
a highly controlled environment is the way to best achieve that goal.
Has anyone else read "Running Wild" by the brilliant author J.G. Ballard?
In that novel Ballard explores violence and mayhem as a kind of reasonable,
or at least understandable, response to a very controlled environment.
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Ballard's ruminations about the distorting powers of the mass media were an
inspiration for his latest book, a novella called ''Running Wild.'' One
event that got him started was the serial killings perpetrated by one
Michael Ryan in the English village of Hungerford in 1987, with a body count
of 16, including the killer's own mother. Ballard notes that the media
dwelled on Michael Ryan's isolation, his knowledge of weaponry, his
obsession with survival skills, his identification with Rambo. For Ballard,
the event conjured up the liberal family - a family, perhaps, like the one
he himself grew up in, with ''kindly, humane, intelligent parents'' (his
father, as it happens, was a Wellsian), who ''solve problems through
sensible discussion, without displays of unseemly emotion.''
Imagining an extreme version of such a family, in a protected environment
such as the private developments of the affluent, complete with private
security forces, that are cropping up in the English suburbs these days,
Ballard began thinking of the need for rebellion that adolescents in such a
milieu would experience. ''Kids need emotional roughage in their lives,'' he
says. ''Even in well-rounded families there are elements of competition and
exploitation.'' The underclass is so containable these days, so isolated,
that ''blacks in the ghettoes, Arabs in bidonvilles, they're not the ones to
fear. Their rebellion is expected. It's the inexplicable rebellion from
within that's impossible to predict.'' He cites the Baader-Meinhof gang in
Germany, one of whose principal members, Gudrun Ensslin, was the daughter of
a liberal, socially-conscious clergyman.
-- LUC SANTE from Tales From the Dark Side (at
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/12/specials/ballard-profile.html)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So I am not at all sure about greater controls and censorship being the
answer. These kids of the Baader-Meinhoff, or even of the various high
school shootings around the United States, are probably not REALLY bad
children. Somehow they developed a need to act out inappropriately -- and I
happen to equate that problem with not having learned appropriate
expressions of anger, and violence (yes, there are appropriate expressions
of violence).
I was fairly atheletic as a kid but not a "joiner", so consequently I spent
a little time in most every sport and I learned to take out natural
frustrations with competitive play on the field or even in activities of
personal excellence like gymnastics or weight-training (you wouldn't suspect
any of this by looking at me today, BTW). Other kids need to find other
modes of expression. Perhaps such kids might write creatively and exorcise
their internal conflicts thusly, others may wish to role-play with D&D,
still others might choose lego as a means of expressing volatile emotions.
Everyone needs an outlet -- even if it's just a game of Sonic the Hedgehog
or Doom on a video game console.
When we take away the normal expression of high spirits we allow people to
become bottled up and thereby marginalize their feelings and behavior. As a
society, what do we expect when we do not show by healthy example how others
can express ALL of their feelings appropriately? Whatever a person's
personal eccentricities might be, they need to understand that they are
still part of the whole group and that in most cases the whole will value
what they have to contribute. Everyone needs to be allowed to express
themselves in their own way and sometimes it's violently! If we can allow
Shakespeare his Macbeth, can't we give the children of today their slasher
flicks?
In allowing children to view a slasher flick are we doing the kids harm, or
granting them a socially acceptable vent for their collective anxieties? I
say the latter. [You can easily see how I might expand this argument to
include other media, toys, and etc.]
Other thoughts?
-- Hop-Frog (the two-fisted light-gunslinger)
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Children and Violence
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| (...) I don't think that it is. The more controls in place on children, the less practice they have at operating without controls. (...) I agree with him (though probably go farther). When I get into these discussions, a few of which have been here, (...) (23 years ago, 30-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: Children and Violence
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| (...) [...] (...) All I can say, Richard, is don't count on answering this question easily. The debate is over 2,000 years old. In Plato's _Republic_, it is stated that only "wholesome" entertainment should be permitted in the ideal society. (...) (23 years ago, 30-Sep-01, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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