Month: April 2008

Some may see little to compare between the recent launch of a violent video game and the wars in the Middle East. After all, the bloodthirsty slaying and criminal activities indulged by gaming fans around the world, as Grand Theft Auto Four hits the computer scene, are ethereal and unreal. It can surely have little to do with the real world, when blood and guts are only made of pixels.

Or, can it?

Most gamers recoil in horror at any suggestion video games can impact violent crime statistics. Just because it’s fun to kill and torture people in cyberspace doesn’t necessarily make it fun in reality, but how far does it go towards dulling the sensitivities, presenting an aura of thuggery as an okay idea?

No-one knows, because no-one’s done the research. Yet the military has been using video games as training elements for years.^[1] Presumably, they must have some effect in persuading young soldiers to kill?

It’s interesting to note how the top-rankers on Western culture’s scale of antisocial behavior – violence and sex – have evolved in America. Europe, generally, is far more tolerant of sexual activity and soft pornography than its transatlantic neighbor but considers, at least gratuitous violence, as an unacceptable symptom of a sick society. This is not to suggest that French or Italian kids don’t play violent video games, merely that society’s emphasis is different.

While the reason for strict suppression of natural sexual urges in the young is fairly easy to identify in American society (it’s way behind Europe in evolving from its strong Calvinistic indoctrinations) the almost heros-ian treatment of violence as something acceptable and to be encouraged is less easy to comprehend, until one realizes that attitudes towards both sex and violence emanate from the same religious root.

America is not enamored of violence for it’s own sake. The foundations of this love-affair began years ago, in a great American ideal: the triumph of ‘Good’ over ‘Evil’, as preached to the early settlers by fire and brimstone pastors from makeshift pulpits all across the territory, and exported to the Americas, ironically, from Europe.

This ideal helped combat the gun-toting lawlessness of the early American West, and was later oft-immortalized by Hollywood as a representation of good always conquering evil, usually after a bitter struggle. Later, as America advanced towards superpower-ship, the ideal was fermented and poured out to the masses to be drunk as a heady elixir of righteousness and power. America was not just king of the world, but a moral crusader leading the planet to a better future, overlooked and egged-on by a God that had become America’s very own.

Two savage world wars in Europe, and particularly the later one that terrorized civilians throughout the continent, helped cast the yoke of strangulating religion from the masses, most of whom questioned a God that could sit back and allow such suffering. For America, however, they were just foreign wars. It seemed God was good to America, protecting its civilians from the dastardly goings-on across the Atlantic.

Violence, in the pursuit of righteousness, was obviously acceptable to God, and America forged ahead with plans to ensure it stayed that way.

Militarism became just another part of American religion. Like its sidekick, Israel, America was prepared to use violence in almost any form, and to any degree, to further its righteous empire. The British utilized a similar policy some hundred years before, and in the name of the self-same God.

Today, God and US violence walk the same path, holding hands. America is heaven-bent on bringing its God to the Middle East, whether they want it or not, and the death toll is of no importance.

Dead soldiers are heroes; dead Iraqis are collateral damage. A plethora of violent TV shows, movies, video games, assisted by patriotic chants and indoctrinal schooling – all watched over and blessed by the great American God – will help ensure a plentiful supply of suitably programmed ‘heroes’ to swell the ranks prepared to kill, torture, and maim for the cause: the God-given ideal of American ‘Superpower’ righteousness.

Were America to lift its head, albeit briefly, and peruse the path of history, it would note a vast number of other nations gone down that road before. Most are long, long gone. Without exception, they all looked to their God.

It seems when the die are cast, and the bets are lost, the God invested in so heavily takes off to find another host.

All that’s left is a screen that reads: “GAME OVER”.

^{[1] “War games: Military training goes high-tech”, CNN, November 23rd 2001.}

Filed under: God’s video games

Two great current affairs programs aired interesting shows this week. The first, from Frontline, explored the lessons America could learn from other health systems around the world, and compared them to the ailing service provided – for a price – in the US.^[1] The film is delivered by T.R. Reid, described by the Washington Post as:

“….a former chief of The Washington Post’s London, Tokyo and Rocky Mountain bureaus……[who]……also had stints covering Congress, national politics and four presidential elections for the paper. He is the author of eight books — three in Japanese — most recently “The United States of Europe: The New Superpower and the End of American Supremacy.””

Don’t think from this that Reid is biased towards European healthcare systems. The arguments for and against are delivered succinctly and without bias.

Bill Moyers Journal devoted its whole hour-long program to an interview with Jeremiah Wright, the retired pastor whose sound-bites the US media have used to whip up a political frenzy over Barack Obama.^[2] Wright delivered an intelligent and logical assessment, provided an hour of serious intellectual argument, and left one with, if nothing else, a realization of the deadly power of the media to use sound-bites as a means of twisting and distorting facts. Underneath the ‘hellfire and brimstone’ imagery, Wright comes across as a peace-loving and serious Christian whose belief in the message of Jesus Christ is both accurate and unshakable, which is more than can be said for many who have condemned him, while still professing that faith yet holding no allegiance to its true teachings. Anyone lulled by the media into believing this man is just another ignorant religious black hellraiser needs to watch this program.

Both shows are available for viewing online at the links below.

^{[1] “Sick Around The World”, Frontline PBS}

^{[2] “Bill Moyer’s Journal – Rev. Jeremiah Wright Interview”}

Filed under: Great American television

The world seems to be sinking ever deeper into a desperate state. Iraq and Afghanistan are adrift in the doldrums of death and suffering, poorer nations cry out for food, Robert Mugabe rules his evil empire in Zimbabwe beating and imprisoning all who stand in his way, and over all hangs the specter of global warming, nuclear terrorism, and prohibitive oil prices.

There’s no doubt the blame for much of the mess we find ourselves in today, lies with politicians and world leaders, but can we hang it all on them or should we, perhaps, look a little closer to home?

I was reading an article in the Times Online today regarding the situation in Zimbabwe. The piece itself was well written, and factual, and as I came to the end my eyes drifted casually to the “Comments” section, now so prevalent in these online resources since the advent of blogs. I was taken aback by the viciousness and contemptuous hatred of some commentators, not towards the subject matter of the article, but to responses from fellow reviewers.

In fact, the snipes weren’t about Zimbabwe directly, but over whether the US, or Europe, should intervene. Surprisingly, while one Brit slagged off the US and its citizens for lack of action, a Canadian reviled Europe and Europeans in general for also sitting back doing nothing.

It caused me to ponder how frequently I peruse similar “Comments” sections, not in the small personal blogs where such acrimony is thankfully relatively rare, but on the big, institutional, media websites where, sadly, it’s prevalent.

I realized I’d long ago given up browsing these areas just for that reason. Vitriol abounds in the online press, not from its writers but through its readers. The opportunity to “have a go” at another person for daring to express a contrary opinion is, it seems, just too good to miss.

Of course, such interaction isn’t limited to newspaper “Comments” sections. Examples are readily available from almost every aspect of human life. We find it in spectator sport, religious organizations, even in shopping malls, and most of all in the American media, where it’s used as a grotesque form of entertainment. Anyone who’s ever watched Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly lose his cool and verbally assault a guest not in tune with his own opinion, will know exactly what I mean.

I’m not suggesting it’s wrong to address another’s viewpoint when it’s directly opposed to one’s own. The fault occurs when we deride and insult that person, or their country of birth, or some other aspect of their being, simply because they dare to hold an opposing perspective.

After 9/11, George W Bush made a speech to the world in which he denounced three other nations as an “Axis of Evil”. Not one of those three had any involvement in the 9/11 attacks, yet Bush denounced them for holding opposing views to that of the American social system.

Our leaders are quick to try and turn us against those they see as “enemies”, even when those nations have neither the ability nor desire to attack us.

Should we, then, blame our leaders for teaching us to assault those who dare to be different? I think not. Politicians don’t teach us anything. They just mirror our behavior. They have to, or they’d never make it into office.

It is we, the people, who elect them, and we choose those we consider most like ourselves. George W Bush was elected because many considered he was “one of us”, not one of those starchy, distant beings many politicians rapidly become. When George W Bush aroused support for attacking the people of Iraq, 84% of Americans were solidly behind him, and woe betide anyone ‘unpatriotic’ enough to suggest it was a wrong decision. And they stayed there – until matters went badly wrong.

Recently, Barack Obama was personally attacked by the media and his opponents for the crime of ‘elitism’. He dared to tell his perceived truth about the problems facing many small-town Americans. Yet we all suffer from the crime of ‘elitism’ – every one of us. Whenever we make a personal assault, whether verbal or physical, on another human being we are expressing elitism – our own sense of superiority; the feeling we generate that somehow the other person is inferior to ourselves.

Until we lose this need to bolster our own insecurities by making others look small and insignificant, we can hardly expect our politicians to behave in a proper and responsible way.

Or, to put it differently, while we behave like mindless hooligans, we’ll continue to elect mindless hooligans. Not only that, our media will continue to provide us with entertainment fit only for mindless hooligans.

Filed under: Less hate, more tolerance