Friday, September 5, 2014
Hasta La Vista Homer
As Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger used arguments similar to Plato's in The Republic to restrict the use of violent video games for minors. Even though the law was eventually ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, is such a law morally justified? Examining ONE of Plato's arguments. Can a case be made to prohibit video games? Or is the argument flawed or not applicable to video games? Is the argument more valid as video game technology improves and the simulation of reality more seamless? Is there any form of entertainment that should be kept out of a teenager's hands (or minds)?
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Plato puts a large emphasis on educating the young, stating that "the most important stage of any enterprise is the beginning. You see, that's when most of its formation takes place, and it absorbs every impression that anyone wants to stamp upon it" (71). Because of this notion, he wishes to stamp the young in his morally superior vision in order for them to grow up into morally sound men. The most morally just way to educate young people according to Plato is to have a very fixed curriculum that exposes them to all of the favorable aspects of life while omitting any reference to darker, less appealing parts.
ReplyDeletePlato begins the definition of his ideal curriculum by proclaiming what is to be omitted, and his first targeted topic is the children’s exposure to violence through stories. By beginning with violence, and adamantly asserting that "no young person is to hear stories which suggest that were he to commit the vilest of crimes he wouldn't be doing anything out of the ordinary" (72), Plato makes it evident that violence is one of the most harmful aspects of life children can experience, and that they have no place learning about it—especially not in detail—when they are so young and easily swayed. The same concern for the quality of the upbringing of the young held by Plato is shared by former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. His 2005 bill, which was eventually deemed unconstitutional, banned any video games that “depict serious injury to human beings in a manner that is especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel.” Schwarzenegger shares Plato’s belief that children, even as old as teenagers, are very impressionable, and that they need to be given proper—specifically, non-violent—impressions. Although Schwarzenegger’s bill was deemed unconstitutional, it’s concurrence with the ideas of Plato make it a moral law, and the parallels are so similar between the two cases that Schwarzenegger is justified in his moral reasoning that video games should be banned, or at minimum restricted. In the modern setting, the excessive violence that is so detrimental to the proper growth of children is present in many video games, as opposed to the violence in the Homeric epics of Plato’s time. This increased visualization of violence in modern times bolsters Schwarzenegger’s defense of censorship, as children experience violence with a greater sense of reality. As technology advances even further, the moral opposition to the presence of violence in these types of social norms will continue to grow.
In my opinion, moral correctness and the actual correct way to handle this situation are two different paths. While the moral reasoning of both Plato and Schwarzenegger is sound, they each either overlook details or make assumptions. Both men base their entire belief system on the idea that children are so impressionable that if they are exposed to violence they will, without fail, become violent and immoral; this assumption is a great exaggeration. Schwarzenegger took the extremity of his cause even further. Even though his intentions were benevolent, the bill violated the First Amendment. In the end, it is difficult to determine what force should prevail; an inner moral compass or the many factors that determine a decision, like statistics, laws, and customs. And given that this debate has continued for over two thousand years, the answer may still be out of reach.
Should forms of entertainment such as video games be censored, in Brave New World fashion, in order to preserve the innocence of youth and prevent children from potentially acquiring destructive behavior? According to the reasoning Plato presents through the mouthpiece of Socrates in Republic, his magnum opus regarding morality and moral conduct, such censorship should not only be practiced for its benefits of discouraging traits in children that would be detrimental to society but also because it would be morally justified! While in the United States today this practice would be in direct violation of the First Amendment and thus is illegal, Plato makes a valid point when he reasons that children are quite impressionable and hence the materials which they read should be inspected. His argument concerning representational roleplaying is especially applicable to today's controversy concerning violent video games. Socrates begins this argument by declaring that "it is unreasonable, then, to expect a single individual to work at one of the commendable pursuits and at the same time play lots of parts and be good at representation" (395a). In other words, Socrates remains consistent with his previously stated assertion that an individual can only truly succeed if they perform one occupation and as such finds it impossible to imagine a person being capable of having an honest, morally upright character and "faking" other, perhaps not as morally upright, characters. Over time, thus, a person could morph from a moral individual to he whom he was pretending to portray. Thus, it makes sense to me to expect a child to pick up foul language and behavior from the character whom they portray in violent, realistic video games; if they are invested in and like the game, surely their easily impressionable minds will desire copying their character's behavior in an attempt to make the real world more like the game world which they covet so greatly! (1/2)
ReplyDeleteHowever, the key word to this argument, I propose, is realistic. I find it rather difficult, and even impossible, to believe that a child would connect on the same level with a cartoonish, unrealistic, or animalistic character that they would a human character who is a similar age to them; in other words, if the game is less realistic (or more specifically, if the child is less similar to the character), the child might be able to form a distinction between the gaming world and the real world, and understand that the actions of characters in their cartoonish video games should not be emulated. I can support this claim by drawing on personal experience: in my younger and more vulnerable years, two of my favorite video games were Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus and Pokemon: Ruby Edition. The first game, in broad terms, required that the player develop pickpocketing and thieving habits, and the second called for the player to train monsters to fight the monsters of other trainers in order to win fame and glory. Both games require that the player perform fairly immoral actions, however, I found myself desirous of imitating only one of these game's characters: Pokemon. While the character in Pokemon was a young female similar to myself, the character in Sly Cooper was a raccoon. It makes sense, then, that I would connect to and wish to simulate the actions of a character who reminded me of myself rather than those of a figure who wasn't even the same species as me! This notion supports my argument that small children are less likely to want to imitate characters to whom they cannot relate. Further, according to my theory, in order to prevent small children from picking up bad habits in video games, I suggest that game developers limits themselves to inserting characters to which kids can't relate into their games, or we, as a society, ban video games with characters that are too relatable.
ReplyDeleteIn conclusion, Plato's argument that children will slowly become those who they pretend to be is valid and provides compelling evidence against allowing kids to play violent video games; a simple way of addressing this issue without banning all violent video games, but while still acknowledging the validity in Plato's statements, I think, would be to insert less-relatable characters into games targeted for both kids and teenagers. (2/2)
In Plato's perfect society there would be absolutely no room violent video games, unless they were training simulators for auxiliaries. Plato strongly makes case against the use of the poet Homer in the education of children, so he would surely object to a even more immersive experience of virtual immorality. Plato's argument against the hero's of homers works applies well to video games that depict immoral acts "if the young men of our community hear this kind of thing and take it seriously, rather than regarding it as despicable and absurd, they're hardly going to regard such behavior as despicable in human beings like themselves and feel remorse when they also find themselves saying or doing these similar things"388d. Plato's claim that listening to heroes do eccentric and immoral things can accidentally be perceived wrongly by the audience, and that if the wrong person heard this they may think their actions are justified if they replicate the actions. In Plato's mind this would surely hold up to video games, where he would say if the wrong person has carried out an action before in a violent game, he would feel less remorse if he did the same in the real world. This argument becomes more and more relevant with advancement with immersion technology, bringing up the question of how many people will not be able to draw a line between virtual and reality. If only a very small number of people cannot tell the difference should the masses of gamers who can separate their lives from fantasies be restricted? When the distinction between real and virtual closes the number of people who cannot tell the difference will surely increase, but most likely the vast majority will be able to safely play video games. The main case that can be made from Plato's perspective is that some people may justify immoral actions that they see, and act out, so they should not be given to easily impressionable people, like minors.
ReplyDelete"...the most important stage of any enterprise is the beginning," Plato notes, "especially when something young and sensitive is involved" (71). Due to this claim that Plato begins to explain, there is no reason why his point of view shouldn't be considered in the argument over violent video games. Plato's claim, easilly, makes for a timeless case against violent video games in the hands of young people. His claim discusses the nature of young people. Not only is the mind fragile in the beginning, but he goes on to say that, "that's when most of the formation takes place... it absorbs every impression that anyone wants to stamp on it" (71). From this, it is important to give it the proper focus and guidence to grow, because according to Plato, the young mind is vulnerable to accept almost anything as true or false, right or wrong. This claim presents a clear agreement with the case in prohibiting video games because in bringing up the nature of young people, it provides the same factual reasoning that Governor Schwarzenegger did. Young people are vulnerable to absoring any kind of message. Violent videos games send (obviously) negative messages. I think most would agree that violence is negative. I think Plato would also agree and find it morally acceptable and preferable to prohibit use of this young audience on the grounds of them being in a growing stage of life. Furthermore, Plato's claim is timeless because the factual nature of young people doesn't change: he presented concerns then that were demonstrated now by the events that the Govornor addressed by drafting this law. The gaming market will, however, change. And the things, right or wrong, we might make available to young people will as well. What won't change is that young people will always be vulnerable to any negative messages sent their way, and more notably vulnerable to accept those as truth.
ReplyDeleteTommy I completely agree with you,
ReplyDeleteThe argument that is made by Plato in The Republic is that the children should only be taught stories that have good influences on the youth to prevent them from learning about false and immoral ideas. He begins by claiming that the education of children at a young age is essential, because they absorb the information that they are told. Plato claims that if the youth listen to stories that are written by Homer that portray “a distorted image of the nature of the gods and heroes” (72) they will believe in these different behaviors of the Gods. Some of the habits that Homer promotes, such as lying, cowardice, disrespect, and etc., will be mimicked by the children and result in a community of immoral people.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the former governor of California, tried to pass a bill in 2005 that banned the use of violent video games for minors, "We have a responsibility to our kids and our communities to protect against the effects of games that depict ultraviolent actions, just as we already do with movies” (Schwarzenegger). Video games are dangerous to today’s youth; it provides the kids with a horrible model on how to correctly act. Certain video games promote education and some are less dangerous and should be approved. The real situation is in violent video games, such as call of duty, halo, and grand theft auto. These video games promote immoral actions of murder, theft, prostitution, and etc., which corrupt the minds of the kids. As each day goes by the video game technology becomes more life-like. There are even extreme cases, where kids play enough video games that they believe they are actually a part of the video games and go out and try to murder other people. I understand this is an extreme example, but it exemplifies the affect that video games can make on a child.
I believe that the law proposed by Arnold Schwarzenegger is morally justified and should have been passed by congress, because of the affects that video games have on children. Some people argue that most children will resort to violence by watching video games, but I believe that if the benefits of banning video games outweigh the disadvantages.
Plato argues that we ought to restrict what young people are exposed to. He believes that what young people are exposed to is most important because young is "when most of its formation takes place, and it absorbs every impression that anyone wants to stamp upon it" (377b). Therefore, since young people are particularly malleable, they should not "hear stories which suggest that were he to commit the vilest of crimes...he wouldn't be doing anything out of the ordinary" (378b). Plato concludes that poetry is unfit for the curriculum in education.
ReplyDeleteMore recently, Arnold Schwarzenegger uses similar arguments to make a case to restrict violent video games. Presumably the arguments against poetry would be more applicable to video games. From this it would seem that a law restricting video games would beneficial to society.
However, there are several reasons why such a law would not be morally correct or unnecessary. First, it seems unlikely that simply being exposed to violent video games would shape a young person's personality. Simply because violence is in a video game does not necessarily mean that the a young person will get the idea that violence is good. For example, in Harry Potter, Voldemort frequently kills people. However, people are not given the idea that killing is good because Harry may influence how they conceive of violence too.
Secondly, there are more important influences on people's lives. Role models for example are more easy for young people to connect to and will influence their behavior more than video games would. If we accept that we should actively try to positively influence children, then it would follow that we should regulate people's role models too. For young people, their initial role model will most likely be their parents. However, regulating people's parents seem eerily close to eugenics and sterilization as we would be somewhat arbitrarily determining that certain people are unfit to be parents. Therefore, it would seem that the government should not be the ones trying to determine how children should be raised.
Going by Plato’s argument, it is clear that he advocates not only the censorship of books and legends to the general population, but also the mere idea of violence to the developing children. This idea, echoed by many who have likely never even heard of Plato’s teachings, that violence and dishonorable actions portrayed by individuals (or even simulations) in media will somehow transfer into the psyche of the observing children, is not a baseless accusation. In fact stories come up every now and then of teenagers who commit horrible crimes after being exposed to violence back up these claims even further, but can it be so generalized as to say that every child reacts this way? Can any reaction or effect be used as a blanket statement for an entire demographic?
ReplyDeleteConsider this example: If a psychotic child doesn’t get his ice-cream, and his reaction is to stab his siblings with a metal fork, I have no problem saying that this person should indeed be forced to use plastic silverware until the internal problem is dealt with, (or forever if this is deemed necessary). So the child is dealt with, but should I also be forced to use safety-forks because of his mental breakdown? Now certainly, it would be unwise to allow the children to make self-assessing decisions for themselves, and for this reason I can only agree with proposed laws that prohibit the sale and distribution of violent games and movies to an underage population, but once the parent or legal guardian has purchased the product, it is not the job of others to determine whether their children are able to deal with the imagery, and certainly not the job of others to enforce their respective opinions. It is not the job of my neighbors, regardless of their status in the political hierarchy, to tell my family to give our children plastic forks, nor is it their job to march through the front door and take away the metal silverware handed to me by my parents. Plato’s authoritarian views obviously conflict with any statement that suggests any shred of freedom to the general population, and in the case of a society whose ideas and political systems are already in place that allow the ruling minority to have complete control over every aspect of the citizens’ lives, it would only make sense to disallow the distribution or viewing of potentially harmful material to children. In a country not based off of meddling in every detail of the population’s lives, perhaps a country like the United States, there must be a limit to this indefinite control, and I believe it is not out of line to suggest this limit stops before this particular law can invade the homes of the people it attempts to protect.
So what is the right thing to do? Don’t sell the harmful material to children, because although not all children could be harmed by it, no children can be trusted to be introspective to enough of a degree to realize the object’s harm and restrain themselves willingly. Once that object, video-game, or movie has been sold to the parent, their judgment of their child will and should remain the single aspect that decides the child’s exposure to the material, excluding perhaps a warning label (Like those that already exist). This is, of course, unless our idea of a perfect society matches up with Plato, and we want to willfully hand over privacy, freedoms, and free-thinking for the seemingly effective tradeoff known as “think of the children!”
- Dima Estrin
If you look at it from Plato's argument, the idea of video games being exposed to children or young adults would be frowned upon because it almost gives these kids a false view of the world. Video games such s Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, Mortal Combat depict graphic violence some of which that actually happen in our world today. Especially Call of Duty which is shooting game based on our army today. Having the latest technology gun and explosive wise, it gives children the idea of being able to kill or be killed not only without facing a consequence, but simply just respawning and just continuing their life like nothing happened. And with GTA (Grand Theft Auto) not only does it give the gamer a violent gameplay, but also opens up the idea of drug usage and sex to minors. With no repercussion, the user is able to do all of these things. And because as a kid our brains our still developing and creating their own idea of what is moral or not, having our children play these games caused them to create a fix and imaginary world where you could do anything you please violent, sexually, or etc. and not face any sort of consequence for it. In conclusion, exposing minors to violent games can almost manipulate this generation into a world with no rules and no punishments. What do you get with those two ideas? Utter destruction
ReplyDeleteAccording to Socrates, a case can be made that the violent and harsh video games that teenagers play should be overruled and banned. Socrates says that we should not teach younger generations the bad or immoral things in life, which include defiance against God, violence, theft, and deceit. He uses the literary works of Homer as an example to further illustrate why most forms of entertainment should be discarded. In many of Homer’s works, Homer disguises the immoral things that happen in his stories as things that could be perceived as moral, such as a shape-shifting God. He says that the Gods are already the best that they can be, and shape-shifting to anything other than another God, which many of the Gods do in Homer’s stories, is a way of degrading the Gods and depicting them inaccurately of something less than what they are. Socrates says this ruse is detrimental to the younger kids of society because the children will learn from this and will be taught this mindset and way of life.
ReplyDeleteAs modern day technology improves, so do video games, movies, and other forms of entertainment such as these. Socrates may say that the violent progression of video games makes the argument more valid because the more graphic an image is; the worse it would be for the mind of that child. Because Socrates would argue that video games are unhealthy for a child’s mind, it can also be presumed that Socrates would disagree with any form of entertainment or teachings that would allow students to learn immoral things and actions.