Freshman Composition 151 Essay #2: "Social Demonizing."

Jonathan Hallock

Freshman Composition 151

Essay #2 Final Draft Rewrite – 2/27/2006

Social Demonizing

Humans have ostracized unfamiliar aspects of their society since the dawn of time. Unfamiliar and misunderstood habits or lifestyles generally have a shadow of doubt and blame cast over them by society in general. The Salem Witch Trials or the communist hunts of the cold war could be used for extreme examples of this part of human nature. Regardless of whether or not the person or persons in question had done anything wrong, they were still persecuted and demonized out of fear and superstition.

People seek scapegoats in more modern and passive ways as well. Music and television for instance have garnered a lot of attention for being thought to bring out violent or otherwise unpleasant behavior in individuals. It is fairly easy to come to the conclusion that entertainment has some influence on a person’s lifestyle while watching a child mimic his favorite Power Rangers episode, or a gothic rocker mimic his favorite band’s make-up and clothing style, but do these forms of entertainment have a direct effect on a person’s negative behavior? Is it not the person’s choice in the end to emulate said negative behavior? Surely, humans are more complex creatures than to have their free will entirely dictated by their entertainment.

Video games for instance have come under fire recently for their content, and they raise a still more complicated debate over bringing out negative behavior, more than anything because video games, unlike other forms of entertainment, are interactive. Modern video games can present a level of almost shocking realism that just wasn’t present in games of the past, and when almost all video games center around some measure of violence, red flags begin to rise.

Doom, for instance, one of the first games to spawn a genre known as the “first person shooter,” has become infamous for being blamed for the columbine school shootings. In Doom, the user sees through the eyes of a lone marine shooting his way through a military base infested by all manner of monsters. One could easily see how this could bring out the killer instinct in someone by forcing him or her to kill to survive. Monsters made of pixels and living breathing human beings are completely separate creatures, however, as even the most frail impressionable minds should be able to understand. The game is violent indeed, but does it advocate or train in any way someone to become a murderer? I, for example, can shoot pixels with uncanny aim and precision. Aiming a gun in real life however is very difficult, and I am to be honest, not very good at it.

Violent games like Doom have been blamed for desensitizing younger players to violence and violent situations, which in effect is true to a point, but no more so than your average horror movie. The first time one kills a monster in a virtual environment, it is either an appalling or a rewarding experience, depending on your point of view, in the same way that a cheap scare in a horror movie is frightening the first time. As time goes on, however, the feelings become less and less vibrant and you do in a sense become desensitized to seeing violence. Does this make you a killer, or a bad person? I myself am a generally shy and passive individual, and as cliché as it may be, I enjoy shooting games and loud music. So far, violent entertainment has not cured me of my quiet nature, and has done little to steer me down the path of habitual violence.

It’s worth noting before I move on that video games with graphic violence are clearly labeled for mature (18+) audiences, and in most places can only be purchased with an ID. Also, I have played many violent games myself, and to this day I still get incredibly nauseas at the sight of blood, and have yet to have the desire to harm anyone because of being desensitized to it.

For some, video games can also carry with them the threat of social atrophy, or more clearly, video games can be so enjoyable and desirable that one will have no desire to engage in anything outside of their virtual realms, video game addiction if you will. Using myself again as an example, when I was in middle and early high school, I very much enjoyed video games, and very much did not enjoy homework. Therefore, I would miss a good deal of schoolwork, partially due to video games, and partially due to my own laziness and procrastination. Do I, however, blame video games for my poor marks in high school due to my missing so much homework? If anything, I blame myself for being lazy, and my parents for not taking them away from me when I brought home an A on my tests and a C on my report card because I never did my homework. I have since high school, however, learned to better control my laziness and addiction to video games, as anyone can with any addiction, given the time and willpower to practice.

Some have also argued that video games tend to detract from the social community of individuals by replacing stimulation they would receive from social interaction with varying levels of virtual interaction in a closed environment. Video games, however, have become much more complicated than they used to be. Games have sprawling online communities of thousands upon thousands of people that play the same game and share the same interests. Video games as complicated as online role playing games are generally built upon large communities of players sharing and helping each other complete objectives, while shooter games as simple as Counterstrike, also have large communities of people sharing strategies to help each other play better competitively. One could argue that instead of detracting from social community, video games have instead added another community, allowing normally shut in and antisocial people to form bonds and friendships with people they would otherwise not meet, perhaps making them less antisocial in the process.

The general point of my essay is that game players are not necessarily bad people. It is human nature to seek a method of blame to avoid accepting responsibility for one’s own shortcomings. Perhaps a person is violent because of being desensitized by a video game, or perhaps they had a bad childhood and were not raised properly and steered away from unacceptable behavior. Psychology is a complicated field because any number of things can cause a person to behave inappropriately, and it really is impossible to lay a blanket of blame over such a wide area. Video games are undergoing the same trial by fire that television underwent before it, and music before that. We as a people need to mature above such practices, and endeavor to understand our problems before we seek to lay blame.