The Big Picture: On The Subject Of Violence

[XDravond]

Stop bringing logic in to a stupid conversation... People now days with their "logic" and "intelligence"...

But yes there's always a link if some "bad person" claims it is since they have seen it... And gun control does not solve everything but it is very probable to decrease gun related crime and accidents due to the quite high probability of less guns=less gun related "problems". And yes if you want you can always get guns/drugs/media/food/money/etc...

The day all "violent causing" movies/games/music/media/etc gets banned I would really like to see since that means they would really have to ban some books....

 

[Jacked Assassin]

And yet MB didn't touch upon religion & violece....

If violent books were to be banned I hope that the one with the guy that wants you to cut off your hands & gouge out your eye if they commit sins. Or bring those in front of him to be killed that didn't believe who he said he was. I believe it was called "The New Testament". Or in some cases that part of the bible that can't be rationed off as "But that was the Old Testament".

If anything more violence has been done in the name of religion then in Entertainment. But no one usually points at things like The Holocaust, The Jones Town, What was going on in Waco that caused The Waco Siege, or The Oklahoma City Bombing & goes "see what violence religion causes" then gets a major backing for it.

Kid doing something really bad because the child was inspired by Harry Potter is more likely to get shock then "Though shall not suffer a witch to live".

But even then you do still have your crazies like Ted Kaczynski aka The Unabomber who does violence that isn't inspired by religion or entertainment....

-

And yeah I noticed I didn't point out 9/11. But that would go into a whole different rant to why The 2000's & up suck. And would get more attention from christians trying to look like the less evil. Something IDC about since the lesser evil is still evil.

 

[Azuaron]

And I'm disappointed in you, Bob, for using the term "psychopath" in the same way, no matter how much I think you have a point on every other issue you addressed in this video.
Please stop making people like me out to be naturally born bad guys.

Normally, as a psychologist and as someone suffering from psychological disorders, I get up in arms when people use terms like "schizophrenic" and "schizoid" and "obsessive-compulsive" wrong. But psychopath is not one we can claim has a definitive, clinical definition and nothing else.

"Psychopath" is merely a combination of two Greek words, "psyche" and "pathos", psyche referring to the mind, and pathos referring to suffering, or disorders in general ("pathology" being a medical term for centuries). All "psychopath" really means is "suffering/disorder of the mind".

The man gunned down a bunch of people in a crowded theater. He had a suffering mind. Regardless of what this man may have been specifically diagnosed with, he was a psychopath both by the classical meaning of the word and by the modern connotation of the word.

And using this term to describe this man has nothing to do with whether or not schizophrenics, obsessive-compulsives, the depressed, or even people who have been diagnosed with psychopathy are likely to commit violent acts, or even whether such conditions are something someone is "born with" or "develops".

Similarly, saying that a suicide victim was "depressed" does not mean that all people with depression are likely to be suicide victims (most suicide victims are depressed; most people with depression are not suicide victims).

Anyway, that psychologists/psychiatrists have taken "psychopath" and tried to fit a specific clinical condition to it is really our own fault, and something equivalent to trying to hold back a hurricane with a 2X4. We should have chosen a different word for that diagnosis.

Bob, you used the correct word.

 

[Littaly]

As much as I think it's important to not make any hasty judgments about what is to blame and call for censorship, I think the opposite is equally important. We can't dismiss every accusation of violent entertainment being harmful with "he was a madman, nothing else matters". I hate this discussion because it's always so polarized, it's always people speaking as if something is 100& certain and entirely black or white, which nothing ever is, especially not when it comes to psychology.

My bottom line is the same as everybody else's, we can't go around censoring everything that could possibly cause anyone to commit violent crimes. But that doesn't mean there isn't an issue, or that the discussion of if/how much violent art/media/entertainment influences us as individuals and as a society can be ignored.

 

[6unn3r]

I love you Bob and want to have your babies.

This is the best argument for the case of "Video games are making kids violent" that i have ever seen. I've been playing, (and im sorry but i have to use the quotation marks for this) "violent" games since I was 10. In the 16 years since then i have never used violence against a stranger to the degree that would be described as "violent" and /or "criminal". I should note that i have used violence to defend myself, but thats another matter.

Why might this be you ask?

Because i was raised properly by my parents. They taught me the differnace between right and wrong. Why do i play violent video games? Well its probably because doing somthing like that in real life would get me landed in jail or possibly worse.

Seriously. Blame the parents before you blame the makers of such "violent" media outputs.

Oh and somthing thats been bugging me for a while, here in the UK The Dark Knight Rises is rated 12A, meaning that if you are under 12 you need to be accompanied by an adult over 18, and films classified 12A are not recommended for a child below 12.

Why then during that terrible massace in Colorado was there a baby and a 6 year old inside the theatre? For a film rated PG-13, for which the rules in regard to 12A are fairly similar.

That cant be good parenting...can it?

 

[Katya Topolkaraeva]

However I wouldn't say so much that we like it, perhaps some do. I think we are interested in it, we want to understand why, figure out the reason, when in reality there is very rarely a rational reason.

Perhaps like is the wrong word (though def still the right word for a lot of people) we are interested in it and we are excited by it and we stimulated by it. So while many may not consciously "like" it, i'd say our brains def. like it if that makes sense?

 

[Steve the Pocket]

The point you made about people on both sides thinking they're so obviously right that it's not even worth debating might be the best part of the video. I feel like society is starting to act that way towards just about everything lately. We've lost the ability to take opposing opinions seriously, to the point of straight-up dehumanizing people who disagree with us.

See this is smart.

People ALWAYS blame something other then other people for what happens.
Its never because someone is a sick minded monster, or that they had bad upbringings, or that society did nothing to stop them.

Its always the easy targets: D and D, Manson, Rock and Roll, Video Games, Movies.
Its far easier to blame something else, rather then just saying some people are monsters.

And, in the case of rape, the victims themselves. It's extremely disturbing how many people's first reaction to news of human suffering is basically "Oh goody, an excuse to ban something I don't like!"

 

[BaronIveagh]

Does any one know what could have prevented the Denver incident? GUN CONTROL!!

Sadly, no, that probably wouldn't have done it either. We're looking at someone who spent a lot of time and effort putting this together. I've heard the argument that, 'well, maybe we could have caught him buying illegal weapons'. This argument shows a basic flaw in the understanding of how individuals buy illegal weapons.

Let me spell it out for you: You buy them one part at a time. None of the gun's parts are illegal in and of themselves even in some countries where guns are illegal. It's when you put the part together that it's a crime. For the ones you can't get (machine gun receivers, for example) it's not hard to convert a semi-auto version to full auto with some basic gunsmithing knowledge.

So, ban guns entirely. (The founding fathers roll over in their graves on cue)

Again, not possible. Too many people know how to make guns. All it takes is a decent machine shop, some of the right metals, and a few hours and you've got an HMG. You can't scan people's brains as they enter the country (yet), so someone with the right knowledge will get through (assuming we execute everyone in the US with that knowledge [a little short of 35k people, btw]), and will offer their services to the highest bidder, which, in this case would be organized crime.

So, sadly, yes, the gun nuts do have a point about 'only criminals would have guns'. It's a case of closing the barn door after the horse has already left.

 

[punipunipyo]

Violence video games, Slasher movies, guns/blazing anime, I grew up with them. From the demon killing Doom1 to American slaughtering SpecOP- The Line ; From the shocking moments of Biohazard2 to the surreal pulse pounding QTE hallucinations of Dead Space 2; From the Purple Dino gibbing Bio Menace to the head blowing Fallout3; I've seen/play/watched them all...It did NOT turn me in to a brutal psychopath; no, it's actually been helping me steaming off anger ever since JR High school! For a person who takes TONS of shit everyday, I was still able to up hold the title of MR.Nice guy(single), I owe it all to Violence Video games... Knowing all the violence games I've played, I still freak out when a kid nose bleed, or get a paper cut. I still have hours of play sessions each day, as a full time player, BUT in a few hours I am going to teach the kindergarteners Phonics! with picture/poster/drawing as foundation of class! Insane? let those kids be the judge!~

 

[XDravond]

On the topic of gun control and killing sprees. In Germany all school shootings happened with legally owned and purchased weapons. And Germany has one of the rigid laws in the world. That said I cannot imagine how much more suffering these shootings would have caused if these culprits had access to automatic weapons like machine guns and/or SMGs. And the people in the theater were lucky that the gun of the killer hat a malfunction because otherwise the body count had been much higher.

So no, stricter gun control will not prevent such tragedies but they can limit the number of victims. Thats what America needs to understand.

Also I'm with Bob on this topic but I'm not sure how much impact violent media has on the psyche of such people but I'm pretty sure that there are other factors that have much more affect. For example these shootings happen mostly in countries with strict rules in the society and not in countries were people can express their feelings freely. So this kind of crime appear mostly in Scandinavia, Germany, the US and Japan. And almost every offender has some kind of social disorder and a dysfunctional social life/family.

If I offended any person with my posting I'm sorry in advance.

I can't help but be a bit taken aback by the hypocrisy here. You say in one breath that stricter regulation or bans on guns would help but in the next breath you say that the various types of media don't play a part.

In essence what you are saying that it's fine to give the things you as a law abiding citizen enjoy, legally without hurting anyone, a pass. However, those things that other law abiding citizens enjoy, legally without hurting anyone, those need further scrutiny and regulation.

Sure you can say if he didn't have the guns he wouldn't have been able to kill as many people but then I could just as easily say if he wasn't inspired to do so by the previous Batman movies maybe he wouldn't have killed anyone at all.

The fact of the matter is we would both be playing a game of "what if" and neither of us know for sure if regulation on either of those things would have matter one single iota. I personally am of the belief that you shouldn't restrict the liberties of the vast vast law abiding majority in a blind attempt to possibly have a small chance of dissuading the next lunatic.

Sick people are going to do sick things. If he didn't have guns he would have had access to bombs or the 30+ homemade grenades they found in his house. You want to ban fertilizer and gasoline next?

Benjamin Franklin once said that those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither. This is especially true given the reactions I've seen stemming from the Aurora shootings. If people want to line up to give away their personal rights, liberties, and freedoms in a misguided attempt at safety I say fine let them. However, please leave mine alone I like them just the way they are.

Your fertilizer/gas comparing does not really translate very well since they have some very "peaceful" main purposes but guns have only two "almost peaceful" purposes... (recreation and "pest control")

And if you want to live by Benjamin Franklin's words I truly hope you don't live in a country since you already given up freedom by then....
You get a driver license to be allowed to drive a car(you give up liberty of driving to be safe that you are somewhat safer on the road),
you go to work to get money to be allowed to get food (you give up the liberty to do anything to be safe to get fed),
you (if you live in any half modern country) are under some surveillance so you wont do anything that breaks the law by that you given up privacy and liberty for security....


But gun control is more likely just a part in the solution to start with, best is education and/or banging some sense in to people.
You don't need a guns, you need intelligent people whom understand that since you don't have a gun they don't either....

But why am I arguing it probably wont change anyones mind and "Don't argue whit idiots, they drag you down to their level and beat you whit experience.".... =D

 

[NinjaDC]

Rashly contrived laws like I don't know, randomly attaching a gun ban to a cyber security bill.

http://www.examiner.com/article/democrats-slip-gun-control-into-cybersecurity-bill

Schumer you disgust me, abusing the tragic death of innocents at the hands of a rabid dog to push your political agenda.

 

[Britisheagle]

Very good show, and although it wasn't all happy and about cartoons I did enjoy it. Probably because I agree.

The actions of a mad man can not be predicted. This massacre could have occured at any other big sreening if TDK had not been made, claiming that something else gave them inspiration.

Either way my heart goes out to all those who lost someone close to them in the shooting(s) and that justice is carried out.

 

[NPC]

That was honestly beautiful.

 

[PrototypeC]

OK, but I have to ask this too... can we all stop comparing this pathetic mastermind wannabe to The Joker? The Joker is a fictional character, and a dangerous psychopath, but even he had some sort of plan. He's been silly, dark as hell, the equivalent to Skeletor or No-Heart or a fragile attention-seeking bungler from media to media. Even Breivik had a plan, some ideal (however flawed and selfish) that he wanted to perpetuate through his violent massacre.

The most important reason is, of course, that this idiot WANTS to be compared to a beloved fictional character, even if the character in question is only beloved because they're an interesting villain. In real life he'd be a horror story like Ed Gein but with a smile obsession. He'd get the injection.

In conclusion, fuck this guy. This troll, this newt, this fucking shit-smear on my shoe. I hate him so much it makes me tremble. I'm not going to remember his fucking name, and I want to forget him and his stupid stupidity in a month or so. That's more than he deserves.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Ok. not to be a jerk here... but to put it in perspective... These kinds of media candy shootings REALLY don't tend to happen too often. And the number of people that die from such loony actions is absurdly small compared to the number of people who die from other things such as traffic accidents or cancer or war or what have you. Those are just booring deaths though, and these are fun so we must suck them up like another form of entertainment.

Amen to that. Practically nobody believes the automotive industry is being criminally negligent because of the thousands of people who still die in car accidents every year, or even cares about the millions of cancer deaths caused by the tobacco industry, but 12 people get shot by a guy dressed as a movie character and suddenly it's all "oh noes teh Hollywood needs to stop having bad guyz in their movies!"

It's doubly ridiculous when you remember that the media outlets giving those wackos air time are owned by the same entertainment empires as the film studios. If they thought for a minute they were in any real danger of being censored, they'd return the favor in a heartbeat. Same way they tried to silence the anti-SOPA activists.

 

[templar1138a]

How about gun control? Would making that stronger be a rash emotional response? After all, there's definitely a strong link between legal assault weapons and movie theater massacres.

 

[Signa]

There have been times where I've felt Bob's opinion on something is near-sighted, or just plain stupid. This is NOT one of those times. In fact, this is so entirely not one of those times, that it almost makes up for those other things that I didn't agree with.

Thanks Bob. Spot on.

 

[Azuaron]

And yet MB didn't touch upon religion & violece....

If violent books were to be banned I hope that the one with the guy that wants you to cut off your hands & gouge out your eye if they commit sins. Or bring those in front of him to be killed that didn't believe who he said he was. I believe it was called "The New Testament". Or in some cases that part of the bible that can't be rationed off as "But that was the Old Testament".

Metaphors are metaphoric.

If anything more violence has been done in the name of religion then in Entertainment. But no one usually points at things like The Holocaust, The Jones Town, What was going on in Waco that caused The Waco Siege, or The Oklahoma City Bombing & goes "see what violence religion causes" then gets a major backing for it.

Which largely just extends Bob's point about violent people using anything to justify their actions (like the Beatles).

Kid doing something really bad because the child was inspired by Harry Potter is more likely to get shock then "Though shall not suffer a witch to live".

That quote is not in good translations of the Bible, just the ones that have "modernized" their translation in stupid or propagandic ways. The actual line is, "Do not allow a sorceress to live," (Exodus 22:18 NIV) a sorceress being a specific type of person, one who would fake supernatural powers for the explicit purpose of leading rulers away from God and destroying the kingdom (think of it as treason via the supernatural). This line is actually less shocking than Exodus 22:20 ("Whoever sacrifices to any god other than the Lord must be destroyed.") but even that one specifically referred to Israelites, and not foreigners they weren't exactly big on religious freedom--for themselves).

There are certainly shockingly violent things in the Bible (Joshua 6:21, "They devoted the city to the Lord and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it?men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.") You could at least use the better references and not misquote and misrepresent.

 

[Redd the Sock]

Playing a bit of devil's advocate here Bob since I know you're big on the artistic ingrity thing. When gabrielle Giffords was shot a lot of the uproar was about if some of the more right wing extremism leasd to it. Specificaly if tossing out phrases like "second amendmen solutions" did or needlessly could convince someone unwell in the head to go shooting politicians as part of their constitutional duty.

I'm no fan of censorship, but when one shows little to no concern for how something might [reasonably] be misconstrued, he does invite it. It's not that we should worry about how anyone mihgt at any point get the wrong idea, but sometimes the wrong idea is easier to get to. On aroura for example, taking the complaining about censorship route misses a better point that the Joker is was and never will likely be portrayed as a character one should empathisize with, pity, idolize or immatate, and anyone that does misses the point, and likely has other influences in his life that would make him root for the clown instead of the Bat, while Ra's al Ghul's acts while extreme, weren't without moral justification. Helter Skelter is far removed from something by Enemim in terms of inteneded reactions. Out saturday morning heroes only fought defensively, while wrestling came off as raw anger (and was far easier to immitate).

I know censorship is the easy answer, usualy promoted by groups that have bitched about everything from movies, to TV, to comics, to cartoons, to video games, to every form of music since big band. Still, we do have to be careful what we erroticise and glamorize in everything from our creative works to our brain farts. Yeah, it's hard to understand how someone could come away from a movie thinking "I'll act like the villan" but bets are on there's some anarchist blogs that promoted sonething like this in a non serous tounge and cheek fashion that may now be dealing with someone that took them seriously. I know it doesn't sound fair, but in a world with increasing numbers of people with some mental disorder or another, lack of access to proper medical care, diagnosis or medication, and a lack of will and / or ability to keep mass killing devices out of the hands of nutjobs, it may be necessary.

 

[Azuaron]

...speaking as if something is 100& certain and entirely black or white, which nothing ever is, especially not when it comes to psychology.

Weber's Law [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weber%E2%80%93Fechner_law]. Just sayin'.

(I think it's the only scientific law in psychology. If there are others, I don't know them.)