You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life - Albert Camus

Kein Gewehr Zuruckgelassen

by Hal_10000

Germany’s reaction to the recent school shooting—tougher gun laws—didn’t surprise me.  But this story makes me think they’re trying to win some kind of gold medal in European Wussiness.

Like gamers around the world, Germans love their shoot-’em-ups. Sure, video gaming isn’t quite the industry in Germany that it is in the U.S. (or some other parts of Europe), but it’s still an enormous market for the industry.

Those days are quite likely to come to a screeching halt in a matter of weeks, as Germany is well on its way to banning all “violent video games,” defined (via translation) as games “where the main part is to realistically play the killing of people or other cruel or inhuman acts of violence against humans or manlike characters.”

...

The move isn’t just one politician banging a shoe on the podium in outrage. All 16 German states have already agreed on the move and are set on implementing it—and soon. The only real hurdle remaining is pushing the law through German parliament, and that could happen before the end of the summer.

Pure panic.  How much evidence is there that violent games cause violence?  Not much, actually.  The Germans would probably achieve an equivalent reduction in their (already low) level of violence by banning lederhosen.  Fat drunken men in leather shorts certainly brings out my violent side.

I could rehash my argument on the violent entertainment question.  But instead, I’ll just take the lazy writer’s out and quote myself.

I believe that human beings are a violent species. We have to be. We are carnivores who have come to dominate the planet. The quest of civilization is not to end those violent urges, but to channel them into less destructive paths. Hence, the pretend violence of movies or video games, I believe, is a good thing. It satisfies our violent urge without doing any real harm.

People who think that violent entertainment is new need to get some historical perspective (in fact, everyone needs to get some historical perspective about just about everything — but that’s another post).

Two thousand years ago, entertainment consisted of tossing Christians to lions. Real people, real lions, real screams, real blood, real suffering. And the Romans considered it good for children to watch — it built character.

Five hundred years ago, the Spanish were torturing heretics as entertainment. Real people, real hot irons, real screams, real blood, real suffering. And they considered it good for children to watch and see the fruits of blasphemy. Around that time, cat-burning was popular in France. This consisted of lowering a bound cat over flames and laughing and feasting as it screamed. The medieval world and parts of the modern world are replete with similar examples.

A hundred years ago in this country, we performed executions in public. It was considered good entertainment if the noose failed to snap their neck and the condemned kicked and struggled while slowly choking over hours or days. It was considered good for children to go and see the fruits of criminality.

In light of this bloody history, I just can’t get worked up over two guys firing blanks at each other on TV or some kid blowing away pixels on a video screen.

I would add that many parts of the world—Sudan, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan—somehow find ways to wreck unspeakable violence in real life without any prompting from Doom.  I would make that point, but it would be too pedantic even for me.

The game-grabbers are certainly aware of all this—at least on some level.  The problem is that the push to restrict violent video games and movies had nothing to do with real violence—which is currently very low in Western countries.  It’s about control.  It’s about keeping track of what we say, do, watch or enjoy and making sure it conforms to their warped view of what human beings should be like.  They can not possibly accept that we are what we are—a flawed and troublesome product of evolution that is trying its best to muddle through the universe.

Comments

Posted by HARLEY on 06/17/09 at 04:46 PM from

VERY GOOD HAL!..  well said.

Posted by on 06/17/09 at 04:48 PM from

Enforcement of this will be comic tragedy.  Since you can download most games or just smuggle in and copy CDs or DVDs, this will be wonderfully successful.  I can’t wait for the first 14 year old kids to be criminally prosecuted for playing a video game. 

Of course, the EU nannies love limiting everything.  Look for the some in the EU to promote this for every country in Europe.

Posted by on 06/17/09 at 04:51 PM from

Germans were alot more violent, and genocidal, before violent video games and under stricter gun laws. 

Clearly violent video games have suppressed the germans natural urge to kill and conquer and as such should be encouraged.

Posted by on 06/17/09 at 06:00 PM from

There have been several studies that have looked at the “link” between violent video games and violent behavior.  The result was always the same - there isn’t one.

Posted by HARLEY on 06/17/09 at 06:26 PM from

Recently the state of Illinois has been running radio comercials that mantion a study that corolates bad teen drving with video racing games....

Posted by Miguelito on 06/17/09 at 06:30 PM from

Germans were alot more violent, and genocidal, before violent video games and under stricter gun laws.

Clearly violent video games have suppressed the germans natural urge to kill and conquer and as such should be encouraged.

Sorry.. can’t resist:

Brian: Yeah, I got a question. In your pamphlet, there’s a huge gap between 1939 and 1945.
Tour Guide: NOTHING HAPPENED! EVERYONE WENT ON VACATION!
Brian: But isn’t that when Germany invaded Poland?
Tour Guide: DIDN’T INVADE--INVITED! THERE WAS PUNCH UND EVERYTHING! ASK POLAND!

Posted by on 06/17/09 at 06:49 PM from

Not to deter from any deeper point you’re trying to make, but I should add that the linked article is grossly misleading. The state culture ministries agreed as part of an informal conference that they think it’s a good idea.

There will be no ban, and certainly not any time soon (they busy enough right now trying to censor the internet).

Posted by dakrat on 06/17/09 at 07:06 PM from

I think the real problem is the nostalgia.  People think that back when they were kids and allowed to run around the town on buses subways that there weren’t as many perverts trying to abduct and kill children.  There were, you just didn’t here about it so much through cable news and shit.  Seriously, I work with mothers who don’t let their 15 year old children go to the mall by themselves because they think a pervert is waiting behind every bush to abduct their child.

It’s fucking ridiculous.  They have this nostaglia for some time that didn’t exist.  In fact the further back we go the less protection the children have.

Posted by Hal_10000 on 06/17/09 at 08:53 PM from

Point taken, max.

Posted by InsipiD on 06/18/09 at 02:55 AM from

Between this one and the post that follows, I want to shut myself away from the news and play Wolfenstein 3D.

FWIW, Germany banned that one, too.

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