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GURGLETROUSERS
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
Posts: 2643
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 Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 1:59 pm Post subject: |
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I don't believe it's the case (Mac and Dan) that because most children are able to differentiate between make believe and reality, that they will necessarily act responsibly.
Children, and especially teens, will always push boundaries. They NEED adult guidance and example, with clear lines drawn. As Bard says, allow them to be bombarded night and day with sick and explicitly sexual films, violent videos, and sadistic killing video games all produced and marketed at them by the very ADULTS who should be providing guidance and boundaries, and will quickly see that society accepts and sees such things as a form of reality. The line between real life and fantasy becomes, at best, blurred!
To take but a single (non violent) example of how 'fragile' young minds really are (despite the worldly shows of bravado), consider Anorexia in young and teenage girls. WHY does it happen? Because the adult fashion world, the magazines aimed at the teens, and the media in general elevate airbrushed size zero models as the pinnacle of perfection, and any young girl not matching that ideal is considered wortyhless!
Result; otherwise intelligent but basically insecure young girls fall for it, and starve themselves, sometimes to death, just to meet this imaginary ideal. Are THEY able to differentiate fantasy from reality?
To imagine that ever sicker film and video offereings targeted at impressionable youth will have no effect in desensitising them to sexual exploitation and gratuitous violence (blurring the line between fantasy and reality) is astonishing! |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2013 7:51 pm Post subject: |
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GT--I think I started where you are. But I think it is real life exposure to actual violence--bullying, gunshots in your neighborhood, severe beatings by your parents--that tears down the barriers against violence. It teaches that there is nothing that protects young children from violence except physical might. I think the research shows that, and I think it explains well more than 90% of violence that we see. I found this article particularly thought provoking:
| Quote: | Roots of a Rampage
Katherine S. Newman
December 19, 2012 | This article appeared in the January 7-14, 2013 edition of The Nation.
Heart-wrenching photos of innocent children and grieving adults have dominated the news since the Newtown massacre, as bewildered bystanders across the country ask what could have motivated such a horrific crime. We hardly recognize the country we have become as incidents of this kind—doubly frightening for their randomness—shatter ordinary lives in movie theaters, shopping malls and first-grade classrooms.
As I have learned in my study of rampage shootings, the search for answers about a killer’s motive must include an examination of the social world in which he was embedded. My research team—David Harding (University of Michigan), Cybelle Fox (UC Berkeley), Jal Mehta (Harvard) and Wendy Roth (University of British Columbia)—and I spent several months doing field research in two very small towns, one near Paducah, Kentucky, and one outside Jonesboro, Arkansas, both sites of terrible rampage shootings in the late 1990s. We were on assignment from the National Research Council, which on the instruction of Congress launched a series of case studies designed to answer the question: What leads young men to become killers of their fellow students? What started out as a summer assignment became a two-year odyssey exploring the complexities of high school peer groups; the blocked flow of information that seems to prevent schools from recognizing when trouble is brewing in their midst; and the unrecognized complicity of grown-ups and town boosters in the reinforcement of a pecking order among the young.
Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, the book that emerged from this inquiry, stakes a claim to a sociological interpretation of the tragic phenomena that most Americans understand through a psychological lens, with its focus on individual pathologies and its avoidance of the social context in which these disabilities become deadly. What contextual patterns matter? First, these shootings tend to happen in small towns with no history of background violence, rather than in big cities, which suffer almost every other kind of brutal attack except this one. There has been only one example of a rampage school shooting in an urban setting since 1970. All the others have taken place in rural towns miles from places like New York or Chicago, or in suburbs in the Western states.
What is it about these towns where no one locks their doors that generates these deadly outbursts? We argued the very thing most Americans celebrate about small-town life—close-knit neighbors, friendly families, adults engaged in the schools and churches—become sources of stultifying depression for marginal boys. We interviewed kids who were attending the same high school as their grandparents, in communities where very few left town for college, preferring to stay home and attend the local community college or state institution. For most people, this is a sign of social solidarity. For Michael Carneal, the shooter in a 1997 attack at Heath High School (outside Paducah), that solidarity felt like a life sentence of exclusion.
Everyone in town—not just the high school kids—celebrated the football heroes. What hope was there of social acceptance for a scrawny, short 14-year-old with glasses who liked ideas and books and was no good at sports? Always awkward, Michael found daily experience full of friction. He told jokes to get attention, stole CDs to impress the goths. None of that worked. He stole one of his father’s guns, and the goths told him it wasn’t cool enough; they wanted to see a shotgun. He worked overtime to impress and they turned their backs on him, until the day he started talking about shooting people. Now that was interesting! For the first time, Michael could glimpse a life surrounded by friends. All he had to do was follow through on his promise: to shoot people. All the ambivalence he felt about the act was drowned out by the dread that came from recognizing that those boys would turn their backs on him if he defaulted on this promise to kill. So he lived up to his commitment: three dead, one paralyzed for life and one badly injured.
Lots of people heard Michael say troubling things. School kids heard him threaten to shoot people. His creative writing teacher received a murderous story full of mayhem that used the real names of his classmates. He threw bicycles into a bonfire. His Sunday school teacher heard him say he would resolve moral dilemmas by shooting people. Did anyone ever say anything to his parents, a well-respected lawyer and a homemaker? No. Neighbors didn’t want to upset the family, nor did they believe anything could go seriously wrong in the life of a boy with such admirable parents. So he festered, engulfed in the early symptoms of serious mental disorders. He heard voices in his head, was afraid to walk on the floor in his room, was scared of his own conduct as it spiraled out of control. No one in his family knew he was this troubled: he was just shy, awkward, needed time to grow up. But inside, Michael was coming apart under the pressure of a status system that had no place for him.
It will be a long time before we know whether Adam Lanza was in a similar fix through his adolescence. Early indications, which can always be wrong, suggest a character that was not unlike Carneal, who was smart, awkward, unable to make friendships that lasted and looking for a way to change his public persona. Shooting people is drawn straight from the Hollywood playbook that equates masculinity with violence. Carneal took those cool images to heart. So did the goth group that egged him on. In time, and with far more information than we have now, we may discover that Lanza was in a similar situation.
We have alternatives in American society that would make a difference to a Carneal or a Lanza. We could promote a more diverse set of male images, reinforce that diversity by celebrating the math team as much as the football team, and find ways to help kids who hear rumors to come forward to adults who can intervene. There are near-miss cases where plots were stopped in their tracks because a young person had the courage to do just that.
We will never be able to profile the kind of person who becomes a mass shooter in our schools: they come from stable two-parent households like the Carneals and families that have been through divorce like the Lanzas. They are often very bright boys, but not always. So we cannot generalize or pinpoint young men who have all the necessary conditions when we don’t really know what those conditions are.
Prevention thus depends on encouraging kids to speak up when they hear rumors. And it depends, even more, on our willingness to commit resources to the mental health needs of our young. Finally, keeping guns, especially assault weapons, out of the hands of civilians is essential, overdue by decades. The ambivalent shooter is less likely to act on his darkest fantasies if it’s hard for him to get his hands on the weapons he needs to carry them out.
Katherine S. Newman is the Malcolm Forbes Class of 1941 Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton... |
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MalibuGuru
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GURGLETROUSERS
Joined: 30 Dec 2009
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 6:19 am Post subject: |
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Mac. As we both know teachers never stop arguing about where and how our society has gone wrong, and why the accelerating rise in violence and lack of self control. In our papers just yesterday there was a case of 'shopping trolley rage!' ( A women in a super market deliberately rammed and an old chap, knocked him to the ground, and landed him in hospital with life threatening injuries, just because she was momentarily held up.)
That article is thought provoking and clearly well researched, but I'm sure you will agree that increasingly obvious lack of self control and the resort to violence has many contributing causes which have landed us where we stand today.
Unfortunately, I can offer no solution other than the old joke (a person asking for directions) 'Ah yes, but if I were you, I wouldn't be starting from here!' WHat I can certainly say is a proliferation of guns will be simply pouring petrol onto a raging fire!
Steven. The use of the word tyranny means different things to different cultures. That video is highly misleading. The American production team were selectively quoting to meet a home agenda, while the pro hunting lobby and countryside alliance were themselves latching on to the law and order argument (The Tony Martin case) to justify their ancient right to bear arms solely to hunt. (Foxes in particular.) When they claim government tyranny they do NOT mean that they are being forced to DO things against their will, but that their ancient right to hunt with guns is being taken from them on the spurious grounds that they may represent a threat to society. (Nothing to do with the right to self defence.)
I live in such a rural community, and many friends are farmers and hunting types. They are seething at the way the authorities seem powerless to control the criminals, many of whom are increasingly using guns, and are unable (or unwilling) to enforce law and order. Instead, they demonise and punish the law abiding who simply want to exercise their ancient right to hunt.
It has nothing whatever to do with wishing to introduce a gun culture to our country. That suggestion is ludicrous! |
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DanWeiss
Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Posts: 2296
Location: Connecticut, USA
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 9:02 am Post subject: |
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Gurgletrousers, my interpretation of that research is that online, real-time networked games played with friends isn't the boogyman that people suggest. Clearly, no single methodology can assure no child turns into a murderer. If that was the case, we'd have no debate since murder has been around since the second generation, according to the Genesis account which, as to that point, probably is about as historically true as any contained therein.
Perhaps online gaming can be a helpful way to socialize some kids and, thus, ought not to be demonized or used as a straw man for the NRA. Not all kids will respond the same way to each stimulus. To point to a sole and singular effect of gaming on all kids (the contrapositive of stating that alcohol causes a negative effect on brain development in children) only bolsters the critics of the NRA who allege it will do anything to avoid any method of restricting the tools of violence.
I've played diabolically realistic warfare games on my X-Box as well as fantastically gory games where one might beat a character with a crowbar then slice it in half with a chainsaw, blood and guts everywhere. Are either of these appropriate for 8 yr-olds? Of course not, notwithstanding the child's likely ability to articulate that each is fantasy and not reality, the imagery may be too traumatic for the child to calmly process. Kids and teens do not possess fully-developed brains -that's why adults must help control what kids experience and absorb.
There is a point, like in high school, where most kids are fully capable of processing and dealing with violent games with the most grotesque displays just as most adults do.
In conclusion, I don't believe games will improve the socialization of all kids, and even may damage some kids apart from any first-part games. Yet I also believe that both blaming games for gun violence and using games as a redirection by the NRA to avoid a thoughtful discussion on gun control is irresponsible and just plain stupid. Not that you're engaging in that, but others certainly are.
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
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Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 12:34 pm Post subject: |
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Good post Dan, I agree. GT--I am not arguing that violence in the media or in games is good for children, or adults, I think it is part of the culture that we must change. But that has to be a cultural change, not a government-induced change--if the First Amendment means anything, it means that individuals choose their cultural expressions, not the government. This was hammered home to me with media criticisms of "Pulp Fiction." I thought it was hysterical, and with most of the Coen brothers work, a screamingly funny parody of violence in the American culture. I guess the Faux crowd has trouble with parody.
All of the research that I have seen shows that it is direct exposure to real violence, not fantasy violence, that is the proximate cause to validating violence in children and adults. You might be interested in this article that is a popular discussion of recent research on the development of a pre-school mind that shows children have a clear sense of right and wrong at ages under 1: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Are-Babies-Born-Good-183837741.html
I know that you walked out of the classroom often, shaking your head and thinking to yourself, such and such a child deserves better parents. Hard to fix that one, and a teacher's impact is much less than a parent's. |
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MalibuGuru
Joined: 11 Nov 1993
Posts: 9300
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:05 pm Post subject: |
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| GURGLETROUSERS wrote: | Steven. The use of the word tyranny means different things to different cultures. That video is highly misleading. The American production team were selectively quoting to meet a home agenda, while the pro hunting lobby and countryside alliance were themselves latching on to the law and order argument (The Tony Martin case) to justify their ancient right to bear arms solely to hunt. (Foxes in particular.) When they claim government tyranny they do NOT mean that they are being forced to DO things against their will, but that their ancient right to hunt with guns is being taken from them on the spurious grounds that they may represent a threat to society. (Nothing to do with the right to self defence.)
I live in such a rural community, and many friends are farmers and hunting types. They are seething at the way the authorities seem powerless to control the criminals, many of whom are increasingly using guns, and are unable (or unwilling) to enforce law and order. Instead, they demonise and punish the law abiding who simply want to exercise their ancient right to hunt.
It has nothing whatever to do with wishing to introduce a gun culture to our country. That suggestion is ludicrous! |
I get it GT. However, lawlessness is not only rampant in every country, it often and inevitably happens in government. Once the guns are gone, the govt is our only hope. I do not trust government to do the right thing.
I've been robbed at gun point 3 times. As a young guy in a bank. As the robber left, I gave chase through the parking lot and to my car that just happened to have a rifle packed in the back. I pulled it out and aimed it at the purp. As I did the bank manager grabbed it out of my hands and went crazy. He was right. What was I thinking? I was only 19. However as a 50 year old with no criminal record, I'd react like the bank manager. Maturity should have something to do with firepower IMO.
The robber was killed later that afternoon anyway by police....
Hey lefty's, you used to distrust the police. You used to call them pigs. Now you love them? Why do you trust in govt to protect you? Hitler began by taking the guns away. What if the Jews had M-1 carbines when the Gestapo showed up? Maybe no ww2? |
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mac
Joined: 07 Mar 1999
Posts: 17747
Location: Berkeley, California
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:10 pm Post subject: |
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| Bard--I still distrust elements of the police--like most things in our society they are a mixed bag. But I trust even less those who can't or won't read what is posted. Nobody is talking about taking away your guns. (Iso's maybe, because he would fail a mental stability test.) But we are talking about registering them, requiring background checks, and limiting battlefield weapon availability. And laughing mightily at the fantasies of you gun nuts that think you are going to overthrow the government--and ignoring the tens of thousands killed each year in the servicre of that fantasy. |
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keycocker
Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:33 pm Post subject: |
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My friend from Wyoming is aghast at he number of people in the Bitter Root Valley who own an arsenal for the express purpose of fighting it out in an armed struggle against be police and military. She says many of them are looking forward happily to begin the shooting.
These folks make anyone here feel safer?
Ground zero for defending ourselves from the Government.
Once Iso and the Talk guys convince everyone that Obama is a commie terrorist who admitted to hating America and planning to destroy it, it will be those folks patriotic duty to kill anyone in Obamas hated uniforms like soldiers and firefighters.
These folks make you feel safer?
Assault rifles, pistols, I prefer fighting the gov. at the ballot box. |
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keycocker
Joined: 10 Jul 2005
Posts: 3598
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| Posted: Fri Jan 04, 2013 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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As to Jewish people , many fled. Among those who stayed in the Warsaw Ghetto for example , many had carbines. The Nazis slaughtered them for it.
The unarmed escaped. If any group in America takes up arms against the military and police, they will meet the same fate.
Check Ruby Ridge. |
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