Behaviorism

I don't normally read HuffPo (liberal rag that it is) and I don't agree with the authors' assertion that "we need more gun control," but this article by two Marine officers makes a valid point about violent video games and behavioral conditioning:

"Humans have a natural aversion to killing one another. It is a survival mechanism of the species. For example, General S.L.A Marshall's history of World War II showed that less than 20 percent of American soldiers fired on the enemy in combat. By Vietnam, that rate reached 95 percent. Our Marines in Afghanistan approached 100 percent.

"What changed? Not biology or physiology. It was the psychology of how we trained.

"After WWII, the Army found that even in war humans don't want to kill each other. Their solution to this problem was psychological conditioning designed to lower the natural aversion to killing.

"The military started using human-shaped paper targets (similar to the silhouettes you can find today in shooting ranges across the United States), which later improved with technology. Human-shaped paper targets were replaced with human-shaped electronic targets that fell down when hit, simulating a dead enemy. The idea was to link reward centers in the brain to accuracy and the sight of a human falling down.

"Many years later, the way we trained our Marines was even more advanced: we used real guns, equipped with paint bullets. We fought each other -- living, thinking, breathing enemies -- the ultimate in realism. Killing the "enemy" was fulfilling.

"All of this has drastically lowered our resistance to killing when necessary, and yet even after all of our exposure to violence, we aren't unhinged psychopaths. Marines are ethical warriors, because an equally important aspect of our training is to learn about restraint. This comes through discussions, through readings, through heartfelt and emotional talks about what it means to kill someone. It all ties back to our core values of Honor, Courage and Commitment.

"Here's the problem: children in America don't get that second set of lessons. They only get the first.

"Consider some of the themes from Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series: kill the cops, have sex with prostitutes, deal drugs and don't worry about consequences. And what's the big deal -- it's "just a game," right? At least, that was the argument we gave our parents a few years ago."

Look, nobody's saying we should ban video games, even ultra-violent ones. I play some of them myself. But I'm a middle-aged adult with many years of real-life experience through which to filter that entertainment. A video game is not going to substantially alter my personality at this point in my life, but behavioral conditioning of young minds is quite real, even when it's unintentional. My wife deals with it every day as an assistant principle in public schools, both in the negative and the positive aspects. One cannot simply dismiss -- as many teenaged (and some older) video gamers are wont to do -- the reality of how the human mind develops.

Pornography, for example, is regulated largely to avoid the objectification of women, (according to the vaunted Kinsey Reports, the number of women who received stimulation from visual pornography is measurable in single-digit percentiles of the total child-bearing population; porn is very much a "male thing"). A young, hormone-addled male brain viewing pornography before society has had the chance to instill the restrictions and patterns of thought necessary for civilization (e.g., rape is bad; marriage is good) is a recipe for creating a sexual sociopath.

Likewise with violence. If a young mind which lacks the emotional padding provided by adult experience and which has not yet come to understand the consequences of anti-social behavior is exposed to a steady stream of entertainment hyper-saturated with violence, the result is both predictable and non-constructive. It is also quite avoidable.

I don't think regulation is the answer; it's too easily circumvented by online purchasing and other, nearly untraceable methods of acquisition. In the end, only the parents of the child can regulate what that child does and experiences. If you really want to let your 14 year-old son play Grand Theft Auto, fine; buy it for him. What is needed is a way to create a social taboo around violent games, something that rears up and slaps the parent on the forehead and makes them take charge, because that teenager or pre-teen is not capable of making an informed decision on his own; that's the essence of being a parent. For example, if that same 14 year-old said he wanted to watch a XXX-rated movie with his friends on Friday night, what would be your response as a parent? Exactly.

Common sense approaches to modify behavior and decision-making processes are what is needed here, not bans or more regulation. The same, by the way, is true when applied to firearms.

Observe. Consider. Decide. React. Leaving out any of those steps -- especially the two in the middle, as many politicians and soccer moms are prone to doing -- will never yield good results.