153: The Anatomy of Violence

Robert B. Marks

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The Anatomy of Violence

"Despite the heated rhetoric from both sides of the debate about violent games, it's a truth not generally recognized or discussed. To some degree, we can blame Jack Thompson and his ilk - the moment he starts talking about games as 'murder simulators,' the field polarizes, and any useful discussion is lost. Indeed, the mere suggestion itself is unbelievable, and who can blame the public or the average gamer for being suspicious when so much of the debate has been fear mongering?

"But it's a well-documented fact; and to know why, you have to understand a discovery that was made more than half a century ago."

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L.B. Jeffries

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Very, very well done. It's a tightrope topic and you made it.

My only question is the issue of whether shooting with a controller (pressing X, etc) is the same thing as shooting a gun. Since we're now saying games condition us to pull the trigger in violent situations, doesn't a game controller still inhibit that literal connection?
 

Dom Camus

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L.B. Jeffries said:
My only question is the issue of whether shooting with a controller (pressing X, etc) is the same thing as shooting a gun.
So the Wii is a murder simulator, but not the Playstation? ;-)
 

Robert B. Marks

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L.B. Jeffries: Thank you!

To answer your question, there is a difference between the ability to do something and actual skill in doing it. What Grossman says is that there has to be a transition session, where somebody who has the conditioning picks up a gun and fires it. That transfers the skills over from the controller to the firearm.

That being said, I think that without this transition period one is still likely to be conditioned to be able to use deadly force - it just doesn't make one GOOD at it. (Along the lines of "How do I turn off the safety?", for example.) During my research (which is about my great grandfather's experience in the Great War - he was in the Imperial Russian cavalry) one of my friends in the Canadian military was kind enough to let me fire a rifle. After years of playing games like Counterstrike, Medal of Honor, etc., the good news was that I could hit the broad side of a barn - the bad news was that I could barely hit the broad side of a barn. So, the transition where you take out an actual gun and fire it is important in regards to defending yourself with skill, but it's the conditioning that gives you the mental capacity for deadly force.

At least, that's how I understand it. Your mileage may vary.
 

InsoFox

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Nicely handled. I think it would be naive not to recognise that what people spend a long time doing affects how their mind works.

I do have to wonder whether because the targets in military training have become more realistic, this means that games are having the same effect. After all, the people in military training are well aware that they are being trained to effectively kill. Their goal, whether conscripted or not, can only be to become an effective killer. So it's no surprise that the better correlation between what they see on a target range and what they do on a battlefield, the more effective they are. More often than not, a gamer's goals are a lot more benign. They're trying to get to the end of the level, or trying to find the key, or even 'just messing around'.

I don't know the significance of this, or whether I've even explained the difference very well (I suspect not). EDIT: The simpler way I could have put it, I suppose, is that we cannot simply assume that the primary variable affecting 'killing effectiveness' is what images we have been desensitised to. The context in which those images are seen/interacted with may also have a large effect. The context of being in a military training camp is a very different one to that of being in your home looking at your TV.

Anyway the only thing I really wanted to put out there is that I don't think the shift in the argument from military training dummies to computer games is not necessarily an automatically valid one, and that there are too many variables involved to automatically assume that that 90% statistic can be simply transferred from the one thing to the other.
 

zeekthegeek

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I really don't believe the fight-or-flight instincts can be counteracted by shooting imaginary CG images. There is no danger, neither to you nor your targets, and I've never felt an actual fear of 'oh my god that guy is going to shoot me' while playing even the most detailed games. If it came to a real situation, I can guarantee you one hundred percent that I would choose Flight without even thinking about it.
 

jackthompson

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This is Jack Thompson. Col. Grossman and I are dear friends, and we agree on all of this science in every detail. The writer has foolishly believed everything written about me to the contrary. If he weren't so lazy, he would have picked up the phone and called me at 305-666-4366 to ask me what I really believe and what I have really said, rather than take a cheap shot at me officially endorsed by Take-Two.

There are a number of errors here, not the least of which is the fact that Cho of Virginia Tech was a chronic player of CounterStrike Half-Life in high school. That was documented by the Washington Post. We know, based upon science not upon industry spin, that the effects of such violent game play are long-term, not short term. Read the postings in the last day or two at GamePolitics, and you will see corroboration that Cho was a computer game addict.

Next time, if you're going to do what purports to be a fact-based assessment, get your facts straight. Jack Thompson, Attorney
 

beemoh

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...so somebody writes an article, on a games website of all things, that agrees with Jack Thompson in part, and JT himself- if it is him- whinges that it doesn't agree with every word he says, throws insults at the writer and claims there's a big anti-him conspiracy. Odd.
 

InsoFox

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It's also funny how there doesn't seem to be much discussion of how good this science is. With even a cursory glance I can see at least a few points that I'd have serious questions about.
 

bananaphone

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Hi Jack Thompson, Attorney. I'm not sure where you got your definition of the word 'fact' from, but I'm pretty certain it doesn't mean 'shit I just invented to support my own deranged opinions'.

"Virginia Tech gunman Seung Hui Cho did not play any video games with violent or war-related themes, according to Virginia governor Tim Kaine's final report on the killings in April."

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=1231&blogid=4
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/08/31/virginia_tech_no_link_to_violent_games_/1
http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2007/04/23/virginia-tech-killer-played-no-games

Now I'm no fancy city lawyer, but I'd have thought they would teach you the basics at attorney school. Or did your qualification come through the mail after you sent off a cheque?
 

Crusnik

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Apr 16, 2008
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Jack Thompson, both of you, LOL.

Cho did not play Counter-Strike, a fact that was widely testified after the shootings at Virginia Tech.

As for Columbine, I don't really remember many of the details as I was rather young.

Also, there is far more to military training than just learning to shoot at human shaped targets. If you've ever seen Full Metal Jacket or Jarhead, you get a pretty good idea of what Basic Training is like. They not only have to get people used to shooting at other people, but also take away their mental blocks in higher order logic. Remorse is a powerful motivator. Even if someone were to kill they're first target easily enough, if they aren't trained properly, they won't kill the next target due to remorse. All these guys who go about killing multiple people on sprees already have something broken inside of them.

I just looked at some period articles about the Columbine shooting. There is also the point that after the fact, video games were merely an afterthought to movies, TV, and music. It is only more recently that the Columbine tragedy has been used as an example of what video games can "do" to kids.

Anyway, excellent article. I remember hearing about this book earlier and someone citing it as a source that supports the idea that games actually train kids. Total crap article. This one is quite good.


I have in the past stood in a line and yelled "I PLAY VIOLENT VIDEO GAMES!!" in an effort to shorten the line. It's only worked once, and I got to have a nice chat with a security guard. Thankfully he was a GTA fan.
 

Robert B. Marks

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"This is Jack Thompson. Col. Grossman and I are dear friends, and we agree on all of this science in every detail. The writer has foolishly believed everything written about me to the contrary. If he weren't so lazy, he would have picked up the phone and called me at 305-666-4366 to ask me what I really believe and what I have really said, rather than take a cheap shot at me officially endorsed by Take-Two."

Well, I am honored to get a comment from you - it means that my words are being read by the people who need to read them. However, this piece was not about you - it was about the ramifications of the science. You're mentioned in a single line, and that line is about the polarization of the discussion, which not only is a very real issue, but also one that I have observed on numerous occasions.

The problem is this - when anybody crusades against anything, they take an extreme viewpoint. The more attention they are able to receive, the more the field polarizes. When it comes to psychological conditioning, it is there, and it needs to be discussed and understood.

What has happened in the discussion so far is that all we have really seen are extremes. One side says that violent first person shooters are responsible for murders like Virginia Tech and Columbine - which isn't really true. The other side says that they have no impact whatsoever - which also isn't really true. The truth is in the middle.

Both Columbine and Virginia Tech were pre-meditated mass murders. The killers planned them in advance and executed them. The pyschological conditioning from first person shooters (and if I was incorrect about Cho not playing Counterstrike, I apologize - my information hadn't covered high school, and I had some sources that said he really only played minesweeper in university) certainly made the killers more able to commit their crimes. But, they didn't cause the killers to plan them. Blaming the conditioning is just like blaming the guns - for most of understanding how these crimes happened, we have to take a close look at the people.

Now, there are two issues that I really think need to be explored when it comes to this conditioning, and neither one can be so long as the field is polarized. The first is in regards to excessive force in self defense - how likely is this? The second is the possible benefits - if you have a generation of people trained to be able to use lethal force in self defense, how do you turn that into a safer society? Certainly, the potential for a generation of "sheepdogs," as Grossman calls police and soldiers, has now been made possible.

We need to face these issues - I don't think there's any doubt about that. I personally think we can use this to make our society a safer, better place, too. But, in order to do all of this, and truly understand the ramifications of the science, we need a middle ground in which to explore things. And there the extremism is very problematic.

Best regards,

Robert B. Marks
 

Yanarix

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I disagree with the statistics presented, how would we know how many truly fired their weapons? it is quite possible responders simply gave the answer that is expected of them. perhaps after the shockingly low fire rates were published after ww2, military training was modified to discourage people from behaving in that way (not firing and especially not admitting to not firing), beyond just trying out different targets?
 

InsoFox

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Yanarix said:
perhaps after the shockingly low fire rates were published after ww2, military training was modified to discourage people from behaving in that way, beyond just trying out different targets?
This all feeds into the 'too many variables at work' thing. I don't doubt that the change in targets had some impact on effectiveness but I do doubt that was the sole factor - they surely must have made many other changes to military training too. And I do doubt that we can *simply* translate from the way it affects someone's psyche in a military training camp to the way it does in someone's lounge. Context is extremely important.

Hmm - especially in science, in fact. In a truly scientific enquiry, each situation would have to be as similar as possible. In this situation, each time a different war has been involved, with different fighting conditions and different enemies, in a different era with differences in their weaponry and training methods that go beyond just what targets were used. To compare the statistics when there are so many variables changing each time is extremely UNscientific. It's true that there have been other studies that have been of a more scientific nature, but I have looked at these, and generally the methods employed have been so abstracted from what they are actually trying to find out (how games affect violent behavior) that they're at best merely 'interesting' and mostly inconclusive.
 

Doomspoon

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I understand Yanarix's point there. Also in reference to the OP's article, I've not read the book he references but rather 'On Killing' by the same author. From your article alone it seems the content is much the same. Further to the increase in 'firers' the increase in those actually aiming for the target didn't increase as much if I recall correctly?

I play a fair few FPS titles online. I also suffer mental health disorders, incidentally it was my PTSD that led me to read Grossman's book in the first place. I also train in kung fu, this in itself is arguably more valid training for injuring and possibly killing people. The latter is socially acceptable on the grounds that it's a healthy activity that gets me out of my bedroom.

It's been mentioned numerous times before but why are video games often the first scapegoat? At least Grossman references other media in his books. I'd cite America's 'Viagra culture' and gun laws as the first area of investigation.

edit: Insofox, it was touched on in the article but the training regime did a lot to dehumanize both the individuals being trained and their targets. We all remember Gunnery Sergeant Hartmann's lines from Full Metal Jacket, his pet names for his men? Also all the terms for America's enemies at the time serve this purpose: Charlie, Zipperhead, Gook, Slope, Towelhead, Camel-jockey etc. It all serves to help the "them and us" mentality.
 

Yanarix

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Well its no mystery that the old media is going after the new media, just as tv devoured radio, the internet/video games will destroy television... and movies... and sporting events: afterall why sit complacently watching a hero, when you can be the hero?
 

Doomspoon

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In the 80's, British TV news tried citing Rambo as the cause of Michael Ryan's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ryan_%28mass_murderer%29] killing Spree. The media needs to brand someone as guilty, easier to target the entertainment corporations rather than the failure of local health departments and authorities.
 

InsoFox

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I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me or not, doomspoon. But what I was saying was not that the training had no impact. It clearly has impact, but I just wanted to mention that there are a lot of more complex issues involve than the way the targets look which will affect the statistics cited in the article. And that trying to then take that one set of stats and apply it to a different situation - someone playing games in their living room, for fun - complicates it all even further.

Hope that clarifies.