[Xugumad]

Just as a minor counterpoint:
(potential flamebait as well, not intended as one)

Most of us who post here are 'enlightened' in our beliefs that evil is not created by art and cultural influences.

Playing violent games does not equal killing.

Playing 'dark' RPGs doesn't cause real suffering.

Watching and listening to violent and 'dark' films, shows, and music doesn't turn cause violence and evil.

The Internet and 'chat rooms' have done nothing to 'turn kids hearts black', unlike George W. Bush claimed.

The two main Columbine killers were clinically insane, and the fact that they were exposed to and cherished most if not all of the above was just circumstantial. Other school shootings were done by kids who never listened to KMFDM or Marilyn Manson.

Media isn't at fault. Conservative and religious nutjobs who want to ban all that's not in their narrow and reactionary 'family values' interests are just playing to their bigoted target audience, voters and financial contributors.

Right?

Maybe.

I don't live in the US for most of the year; I've seen naked people on TV and in other media fairly regularly since I was a pre-teen. The puritan prudishness underlying in mainstream US sensitivies is fairly alien to me. As I used to be ridiculously interested in film-making, I've also been exposed to pretty much anything ever committed to celluloid, and as part of my teenage life (late 80s, early 90s) was somewhat boring, I've sampled most of what the US and Europe have produced in the TV and music business. I've played violent and non-violent video and computer games. I'm usually as shocked as most Europeans at the reactionary and censorious tone that the conservative and religious right in the US takes in regards to non-Christian faith and media that 'corrupts the children'... oh, the precious children.

Yet...

there's something wrong with claiming that the music and movies had nothing to do with, for instance, the Columbine school shootings. Mental instability is just a cause; you can be a violent psychopath and go through life quite happily without ever being set off. Sometimes, just the right amount of stimuli is needed; sometimes, schizophrenia requires a catalyst; sometimes, you need to see before you can do.

One of the Columbine killers wrote in his diary how they were going to execute people in the cafetaria, just "like in Doom or Duke" (I'm paraphrasing here)

Sure, some of the information on how to build bombs (most of which didn't explode in Columbine) can be found on the net, available with greater speed and ease than ever before.

A weak mind can be easily influenced by powerful lyrics and imagery in music and film. Books have persuaded people to kill in the name of <insert here> for eons; today's books provide the same stimulus, amplified a thousand times by the speed of the net, the special effects of ILM, the aural impact of surround sound, and the lyrical depth custom-tailored to its under-educated, attention-deprived, thrill-a-minute teenage target audience.

Information overload. Shallow, yet effective. Repeat the same information twenty times, on twenty channels, and it becomes fact. It wasn't? Too late.
Shout into the microphone. Hate. Love. Rhythm. Who cares - it's the mood it needs to evoke - nobody gives a damn about the message, as long as it gets your hypothalamus to start giving instructions to pump out the right type of hormones; it's a success - people react. Most of them. Some don't react the right way, but that's nobody's fault, right?
Bigger. better. Flashier. Faster. Realism on your flatscreen, in 32bit colour at 1600x1200, ideally. 60 frames per second, baby, 300,000 polygons redrawn again and again, texture-mapped, mip-mapped, anti-aliased. Not enough, of course. Dozens of them on the shelves, of course. You either manage to tickle the gamer's inherently addictive personality by exploiting sociologically well-established weak personality traits in addictive personalities (see also MUDs, MMORPGs), or you trick them into believing that they can prove *some kind* of superiority to their supposed peers. (Q(1|2|3), CS, et al) If that doesn't work, single-player must shock, must excite, must be *cool* at all cost. Independently targetable hit-zones on enemy bodies that get wounded realistically, bigger guns, bigger enemies, faster effects, better explosions, slow-motion blood spraying from enemies' heads in bullet time as the music hammers into your brain that you've done it, you've become a demi-God, fulfilled your destiny, lived out the dream.

Music, films, and games are all fishing for an ever-decreasing attention span. The forbidden fruit - knowledge - is accessible to anyone with a computer and a phone line.

There are more than 270 million people living in the US. Some of them will be weak-minded, plain old insane, clinically deranged. They are surrounded by a media cacophony of sensations, all intended to grab their attention and *hold it*, at any cost, whilst public opinion and political trends fluctuate in a bigoted maelstrom of free speech and reactionary bile. Guns don't kill. Free Speech doesn't kill. Nothing kills. If anything is inconvenient, sue. You have a God-given right to comfort and safety.

Yes. The media has contributed to the killings. Anyone with a basic understanding of how the human mind works can figure this out. 'Early profiling' of 'potential trouble-makers', as the educational system is attempting will most likely cause a lot more trouble than solve any issues.

We can't solve it. All we can do is to keep an eye on our children, and make sure that they're only subjected to positive stimuli, for as long as it's feasible. I intend to show my kids 'bad' films, get them to listen to 'dark' music, and spend a lot of time showing them a lot of the trash on the 'net. Once they've seen it, the forbidden fruit is a lot less tempting. And once it's been explained, it's not forbidden or mysterious anymore.

The older I get, the more pro-everything I seem to think as well. Do whatever you want in your house, as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. Please don't take any *extremely* addictive, death-inducing substances, either, since you'll have to resort to crime to finance your habit. Apart from that, as long as nobody else gets hurt or woken up by the noise, it's your business.

Just something to think about.

X.


PS: The WP is a decent paper. They reported the 'deviant' cultural issues with the suspected killers mostly because a lot of people are blaming such issues, and they have to point out that side of the story. The WP is usually quite liberal in their outlook. They wouldn't dream of actually editorializing that wiccan lifestyles, goth metal, or heavy internet usage cause murders; they do list the facts, though. If the actual medical condition and drug-taking history of the attackers was relegated to the back pages, though, it's sad that they chose a somewhat more sensationalist approach.