Liberal Lunacy 7: Violent Video Games

I am not sure if it is fair or not to associate anti-video game violence to liberals. Because there are many conservatives that are angry over the content of video games. It seems that conservative mostly rail against the sexuality and promiscuity and "moral decline" of video games. Conservatives who are against Grand Theft Auto games are against them because of drugs, sexuality, and breaking the law (such as robbing games, driving over innocent people, or killing police officers). Conservatives main problem with a game like Grand Theft Auto is that they claim it teaches children crime i.e. "the moral decline of our civilization", violence is not their complaint in a game like this, since these very same people end up buying their children Halo for Christmas.

It is true that you can find people both on the left and the right who hate video games. Being anti-video games is both a liberal and a conservative position. But it depends on what the video game is about. If the video game is very sexual then you can be assured the conservatives will rail against these games by saying, "these games are teaching our daughters to be promiscuous". Liberals do not have such a big deal with these games. Violence in video games seems to be mostly a liberal complaint. Indeed, if you consider the UK the main objection to the video games there is their violence, not sexuality. The controversial games of the US, which are noted for sexuality, are not controversial in the UK, but the controversial games of the UK, which are noted for violence, are much less controversial in the US. The UK is rather liberal and the only games that seem to bother them are violent games, not sexual games.

Furthermore, you have lots of people on the left who are blaming Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, along with some other right-wingers, for the promotion of violence that lead to the Arizona shooting. If these liberals say something like this then you would expect them to have the same reaction to violent video games. After all Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are nowhere as "violent" as violent video games, so if you blame Palin or Beck, then it is only reasonable to conclude that you would blame violent video games too for the promotion of violence.

There are also liberal politicians who are against violent video games. Hillary Clinton, that fascist, is very strongly anti-games. One of her platform positions was speaking out against violent video games. Joe Lieberman had his legal fight with Mortal Kombat, he wanted the state to be involved in the control of video games, but the most he was able to get was to pass a rating system on video games. Bloomberg has said some of his own very negative views of violent video games. I tried to find some conservative politicians who have similar views but I was not able to. I am sure they exist. But I would figure that most conservatives are against video games for their sexuality not violence.

Since this post focuses only on the violence that video games glorify I consider to be fair and reasonable to associate this post with liberals. The goal to control the violence in video games is mainly a liberal policy.

The standard argument against violent video games has been this. Violence in video games influences violence in children who play these games. These games bring out the violent character within children and it makes them more violent. We do not want to teach our children such violence. Especially when it is about torture and cruelty. Therefore, the state needs to intervene with games, control their content, before they can be sold to children.

This is once again the "what about the children?!" argument that never gets old. Anytime you want to control something just mention the children. But let us suppose that this argument is true. Let us suppose that it really is true that violent video games make people more violent. I do not believe in that, and the rest of my post will be addressing this fallacy, but for now I will assume that this is true. Okay, violent video games influence violence in people. So what? There is speech that offends people too much, do you get rid of this speech? If your words cause people to commit suicide or protest, does that speech now get all of the sudden banned? Not if you support free speech. There is very violent and offensive art. Does the artist now deserve to be censored because you fear the art? I consider video games (some of them) to be forms of art themselves. These video games allow you to express yourself as you play them. Must the art of video games now be censored because you do not approve of the content? Will you censor the artist? There are people who will object and say that video games are not art. Who said? You said. Maybe they are not art to you. They are art to others, because for others video games can be very beautiful, or very terrifying, and it enables people to express themselves through playing the game. Will you now make the state the single authority that can decide what is art and what is not? And what about novels that feature violence? Must those works of art be censored also because you do not approve? There is definitely one book that promotes violence, the Torah, the Bible, or the Quran. Hardly anyone ever mentions to ban those. It would seem to be consistent that if you are anti-violent games that you would also be in favor of censoring or heavily controlling the Bible. So even assuming that video games lead to violence I do not care. This argument fails to be a convincing argument at all.

Now let us ask whether or not it is really true that violent video games influence violence in people. Does this not remind you of something the conservatives complain about? This sounds so familiar. What about the argument that today's movies influence teenagers to be sexually active? What about the Bill O'Reillys of the world who go after MTV and claim it teaches children to be sexual? If you are able to see why the argument that TV and movies influence teenagers to be sexual is non-sense then perhaps you can see why the argument that video games influence violence is non-sense also.

The fallacy is confusing the cause for the effect. Someone like Bill O'Reilly will tell us that sexual movies and MTV (cause) makes teenagers have sex more often (effect). Therefore, Bill O'Reilly goes after sexual movies and MTV because he puts the blame on them.

But really it is the other way around. The question that needs to be asked is why does sexuality sell? Why are there hardly any movies or television programs that teach about modesty (not that I think modesty should be taught, fuck modesty, long live promiscuity)? When was the last movie you seen where everyone was dressed in modest clothes? You hardly ever see it. But why? Clearly, because sex sells. But why does it sell?

Why does sex well but modesty does not sell? To understand this you need to understand the workings of the market. The market supplies the demand of the people. If people demand modest movies with no violence and no vulgarity then that is what the movie market will supply. But if people demand movies with sexual themes then that is what the market will supply. The market does not influence anything. The market does not control the people. The people control the market. The desires of the people control what the market supplies.

It is rather the other way around. Teenagers like sex, they like hot looking boy and girls, and special effects. Since that is what they like, the market shifts into those demands. Teenagers do not need to learn sex from movies or television or anywhere else. Sex is innately evolved into people. People are nothing but sexual machines. Especially teenagers. Teens are obsessed about sex. How many times does a teenage boy masturbate in a single day, like 5 times? As opposed to a male adult who would do it like once or one time per two days.

Teenagers are sexual by their natures so they like MTV, they like movies with sexual themes. It is therefore foolish to blame businesses who supply the teenagers with sexuality. Those businesses simply reflect the desires and natures of teenagers.

Violent video games are exactly the same way. It is true that people are not violent nor murderous by nature. But people are cruel creatures. Cruelty and torture run through the blood of most people. People often do not act on cruelty because we usually consider that to be wrong. But cruelty is something part of us as a species. Sometimes the news talks about "inhuman cruelty". Have you ever seen the methods of execution and torture that people have invented over history? People are quite creative and obsessed with cruelty. Cruelty is very much a human passion. There is nothing inhuman about excessive cruelty.

Video game developers simply appeal to the interests of the gamers. Gamers have absolutely no interest in running around in the street and giving out money to homeless people. That will never sell. Video games need to appeal to human desires. The deepest human desires are cruelty and sexuality. That is why so many games are sexual games and so many games are violent games. Violence sells.

Anyone who blames video game developers are also confusing the cause for the effect. The cause is the cruel and sexual natures of people. The effect therefore is the creation of video games that reflect the deepest desires of all people: cruelty and sexuality. Video games are nothing but a reflection of what the human species are.

It is funny to watch people's reactions to video games that illustrate just how irrational they were and motivated by fear. You can read this about the history of violent video games. It is really funny that Death Race from 1976 caused more controversy than any other game. By today's standards Death Race would probably get a PG rating for its terrible graphics. But back in those days it lead to enormous protests. The standard games today that nobody complains about are millions of times more violent and cruel than what you seen in Death Race.

Parents who are against video games need a scapegoat. If their little son, Johnny, get depressed, angry, does badly at school, they need someone to blame. These parents do not want to acknowledge that their irresponsibly parently made Johnny turned out this way. So they need a scapegoat. They need someone to blame for ruining their Johnny. Just like a "family values" group these parents against video games target games so they can shift their responsibility on someone else. Either video games like GTA or MTV, whatever, as long as it is not them. Parents have the greatest influence over their children than anything else in the world, it is about time parents started to accept the responsibility of their actions towards their children.

One final note, you know what really causes violence and makes people fight with one another? Not video games, no violent sports games, but something else that most people think is the most virtuous pursuit in the world. Politics. Politics is the most decision and violent of all activities people engage in. How many violent political protests were there? How many violent revolutions were there? How many political assassinations were at least attempted? How much anger results from politics? A lot. Politics is the ultimate form of violence. Way more violent than any video game ever made. It would seem consistent for anyone who objects to video games to support a complete and total ban on all politics.