Not just that... (Fireteam Builder Events)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Thursday, March 26, 2015, 12:23 (3318 days ago) @ General Vagueness
edited by Kermit, Thursday, March 26, 2015, 12:28

People sure talk like it's exclusive to boys.

Some people do, on different sides of different issues.

The same people tend to say things like "violence never solves anything," to which I say, "Yeah, like Nazism."

To be fair, it didn't solve Nazism, that's still around. It did end the Holocaust though.

Indeed. I'd say the anti-Semitic aspects of it are alive and well. That supports my point, though, that evil doesn't take a holiday, and sometimes force or the threat of force is the only way to stop it.

Serious people have long recognized the need for children to grapple with issues of life and death through play (cf. Bruno Bettelheim), and I think it's ignorant to try to whitewash the world and human nature "for the children." To go further, I'd say that there are biological differences, and that there is a strong male impulse to protect the weak, but I realize some might view that as controversial.

Personally, and I would hope this is a common stance, I don't care about the controversy. If you can back up what you say with objective, peer-reviewed data-- and some biological differences have been-- I'll take it very seriously; if not, I won't take it that seriously.

To bring it back on point on a video game site, I think this impulse is behind the popularity of video games among mostly males in the 21st century, relatively safe civilized world. The need to protect and fight violence with violence is behind most video game plots that I've ever played, but to be clear: I'm NOT saying that a female protagonist can't be the protector (some of my favorite games, actually) or that women don't respond to imaginatively (or in reality) filling these roles (ask my buddy Bigarm). Regarding kids (or anyone) committing real murder, I'd submit that on some level there's been repression and the dysfunction can and often does stem from the lack of an outlet for imaginative play in which children are allowed to feel powerful.

There's data that suggests kids that play violent games are less likely to engage in real-world violence on a lethal scale, but I don't think softening a kid's environment will (necessarily) lead to them having a bunch of rage or an urge to break things or just an urge to get out their energy in a forceful way, whatever other emotion that they have to get out because... because they just have to, I guess? I don't think it'll lead to that, and even if it does....

I'd never say it necessarily would or even probably would.

People say they'll have a heart attack if they hold it in, or an aneurysm, or they'll go insane, or they'll lash out and be unable to physically control themselves, but both things that I've read and personal experience tell me even though that feels true, it just doesn't work that way. You know what happens to bottled up emotions? As long as you don't obsess over them, and you don't have some uncommon mental characteristics, they go away. That applies to anger, sadness, envy, happiness, anything. There will be traces still, and someone who is dead-set on something won't let a little thing like time get in their way, regardless of age, but any emotional response can and will go down and mostly go away. The lesson that that can and does happen, and the broader lesson that you are (or can be) in control of your emotions, is an incredibly important thing to have kids learn, independently of how much violence they do or don't see. It's a lesson I wish I could've learned sooner, a lesson I've struggled to teach my younger sister-- and I'll agree that cutting down violence and the perception of it is no substitute for that.

I wish I hadn't used the word "repression" because I feared that word would get emphasis. Basically, my theory is this: engagement in stories and play is crucial to the development of emotional intelligence, which enables us to appropriately repress or rechannel negative emotions. Stories and play exercise our imagination, which in turn strengthen our ability to empathize. The dysfunction I referred to is the lack of empathy, which is common among sociopaths.