JUSTICE INITIATIVE

Addressing Violence in America
February 18, 2018 
Violent video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive and engrossing, and they sometimes even require
that the person playing identify with the aggressor.
(National Center for Health Research)
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The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally
and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. 
(Martin Luther King) 

Given the shock of the February 14 school killing in Florida by the 19 year old Nikolas Cruz at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, my thoughts were immediately directed toward our youth culture in America and the impact of contemporary technology, as in video games, for one, leading to violence. But the culture of violence is also compounded, of course, by the predominance and availability of guns and assault rifles that I know many around the country will wisely address. So I will instead, in this article, focus on video games and other American trends since WWII.

And further, we don't yet have all the history of this young 17 year old Nikolas Cruz, still, he clearly has had his own personal challenges, as in losing his adoptive parents and having been the persistent and troubled loner. 

But the question is also, what was the culture in America he was exposed to as a youth, which in most instances is fairly universal and, unfortunately, often alienating and also violent.
   
We humans beings historically don't want to kill

Historically, Americans have not wanted to kill another human being. But this has been true world-wide. Apparently ever since Roman times, those in the military have not wanted to kill, particularly when they see the 'human' face of the opponent (Gray 2017). It takes serious training to change what could be described as a 'compassionate' sentiment of not wanting to kill.  

"The average and healthy individual," Marshall contended in his postwar book 
Men Against Fire , "has such an inner and usually unrealized resistance towards killing a fellow man that he will not of his own volition take life if it is possible to turn away from that responsibility...At the vital point he becomes a conscientious objector." (Scientific American)
    
In World War II, it was found that less than 20% of the Americans were willing to kill. This upset the powers that be in the military and government overall. So they changed the way training took place in the military by, for one, using the aggressive and repetitive Pavlov classical conditioning methodology, as in kill-kill-kill, in the training. So with this training, by the Korean War in the 1950s, 55% of the American military were willing to kill. By the Vietnam War 90% to 95% were willing to kill, but it required pharmaceuticals to make sure the military actually killed. Vietnam was, in fact, referred to as the first pharmaceutical war ( Grossman).

Impact of military training on civilian life

I admit I have also wondered what this military training after WWII has meant for the American society overall with having individuals in the military being trained this way to become killers, who ultimately become a part of the domestic society. Do they add to an acceptance of violence in the culture? The answer to this is "yes". Training for war is one thing, but adjusting to domestic life after this training and experience in the "war" field is quite another, and this also includes the sentiment from this violent training being transferred to the domestic society. 

After the military training of advancing killing started in America, within a short amount of time the assault and imprisonment rate in America increased exponentially in which potential killers were in jail . Dave Grossman, the army psychologist who wrote the book " On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society" notes that:

What is the root cause of the epidemic of violence in our society? An application of the lessons of combat killing may have much to teach us about constraint and control of peacetime violence. Are the same processes of the military used so effectively to enable killing in our adolescent, draftee soldiers in Vietnam being indiscriminately applied to the civilian population of our society?

The three major psychological processes at work in enabling violence are classical conditioning (a la Pavlov's dog), operant conditioning, operant conditioning a la B.F. Skinner's rats), and the observation and imitation of vicarious role models in social learning.


Total incarceration in the United States by year (Wikipedia) 

The draft ended after the Vietnam War in 1973 and the military became voluntary so the military no longer had access to a vast selection of America's youth for this training.  But then it was fairly clear, to me at least, that people in charge in America wanted to make sure there was a pool of potential violent males, in particular, to fight in their increasingly violent military initiatives and growing military might. Having video games, for one, being available to youth was a way of fulfilling the desires of the powers in America to have American youth desensitized and prepared for war.

Here is some narrative military use of video games from The Conversation in 2017:

Violent video games have become embedded within American culture over the past several decades and   especially since 9/11. First-person shooters, in particular,   have become increasingly popular.  
These games - in which players are positioned behind a gun - have turned a generation of kids into digital warriors who fight terrorists and battle alien invaders. Many play first-person shooters for pure, innocent enjoyment. Some like achieving objectives and being a part of a team. And, for others, it simply feels good to eliminate an enemy - especially someone who's trying to harm them.
For the U.S. military, the rise of first-person shooters has been a welcome development. In recent years, the military has encouraged many of its soldiers to partake in the thrill of violent video games as a way to continue combat training, even when not on active duty. (In fact, using games to teach military tactics has been a longstanding practice in the U.S. military: Before video games, troops were encouraged to play military-themed board games.) 
The games allow soldiers to take their combat roles home with them and blur their on-duty responsibilities with their off-duty, noncombat routines and lives.
Eisenhower had warned us of the "military industrial complex" and his concerns were well placed.

The impact of video games on our youth  

While arcade video games had been around for some time, the technology kept changing. By the 1990s, as the arcades were decreasing, the games for home computers became the trend yet there were concerns about this because of the  controversial 'violent nature' of these games such as "Mortal Kombat, Night Trap, and Doom, leading to the formation of the Interactive Digital Software Association and their rating games by signing them their ESRB ratings since 1994."  (Wikipedia)     

According to some, the video games are teaching repetitive violent aggression and often, with these games, the youth " identify with the aggressor". The video games have therefore had the effect of training many of our youth to develop a combative mindset basically without concern for the other. There has, actually, been considerable research on the topic. Here is a brief account of this impact from a 2010 report from the National Center for Health Research: 

Playing violent video games can increase aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior in real life, according to two new studies.  Violent video games may be more harmful than violent television and movies because they are interactive and engrossing, and they sometimes even require that the person playing identify with the aggressor.  
Grossman continues by analyzing the impact of technology on youth compared to military training and actions in the field of war which is something we all need to consider.

In a reverse Clockwork Orange classical conditioning process, adolescents in movie theaters across the nation, and watching television at home, are seeing the deathbed, horrible suffering and killing of human beings, and they are learning to associate this killing and suffering with entertainment, pleasure, their favorite soft drink, their favorite candy bar...

Operant conditioning firing ranges with pop-up targets and immediate feedback, just like those used to train soldiers in modern armies are found in the interactive video games that our children play today. But whereas the adolescent Vietnam vet had stimulus discrimination built in to ensure that he only fired under authority, the adolescents who play these video games have no such safeguard built into their conditioning....

Today a similar process of systematic desensitization, conditioning and vicarious learning is unleashing an epidemic, a virus of violence in America. ( Grossman)

Grossman states, then, that for the military there are some constraints on killing requiring only killing under authoritative directives. But this is not so for youth who become desensitized with the video games in which they are usually alone looking at and playing these games and, therefore, there are no authorities in the room insisting on some controlling directives.

Suggestions to prevent the impact of video games

While the Harvard Medical School offers varied findings on the impact of video games, still they provide some suggestions of what parents can to do prevent the potential impact of the these games.

What parents can do
Parents can protect their children from potential harm from video games by following a few common sense strategies - particularly if they are concerned that their children might be vulnerable to the effects of violent content. These simple precautions may help:
  • Check the ESRB rating to better understand what type of content a video game has.
  • Play video games with children to better understand the content, and how children react.
  • Place video consoles and computers in common areas of the home, rather than in children's bedrooms.
  • Set limits on the amount of time youths can play these games. The AAP recommends two hours or less of total screen time per day, including television, computers, and video games.
  • Encourage participation in sports or school activities in which youths can interact with peers in person rather than online.
Video games share much in common with other pursuits that are enjoyable and rewarding, but may become hazardous in certain contexts. Parents can best protect their children by remaining engaged with them and providing limits and guidance as necessary. (Harvard Medical School 2010)
Summary

Needed changes in the availability of weapons is a major factor to alter all tragic mass killings yet every time these massacres occur the Congress and the White House fail to act on gun control. This is unconscionable!

It is also true, however, that most of our youth and Americans, generally, have been living in a culture prone toward learning about and/or being exposed to violence in any number of ways as mentioned. This can and does desensitize as well as alienate our youth. It can also impede what could or should be a process for all of us the learn about being respectful and compassionate toward the other, regardless of wherever in the world others might live.

The video games and movie culture has to change.

Perhaps, as in the repetitive way that the military trains with kill, kill, kill, we can instead develop some kind of repetitive training that focuses on kindness, compassion and justice. Yes, I know what many of you are thinking about that suggestion, as in, it would be wishful thinking on my part and I am sure you are correct but it is something I think we need to explore.
As the Axial sages centuries ago taught us, it is "the 'act' of compassion" that is significant in an era of violence, or any era for that matter.  All of us, I think, need to explore ways we can alter our culture, otherwise the violence and the killing of our children and others is likely to continue.

The British scholar Karen Armstrong describes of the essential message from the Axial Age in her 2006 book "The Great Transformation: the Beginnings of our Religious Traditions" she notes the Axial sages stressed the importance of compassion. In the violent age in which they lived, the sages recognized the importance of controlling conflict and aggression through compassion. She says, it was the central message of the most profound spiritual leaders from about 900 to 200 BCE - the likes of Confucius, the Buddha, Socrates, Jeremiah, Mencius and others. Later Jesus ("love your enemies") and the Prophet Muhammad offered the same message. The great Rabbi Hillel said the ultimate message of the Torah was the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you) and everything else was commentary.

Armstrong also said that the Axial sages insisted that "saying" you were compassionate was inconsequential - it was the "act" of compassion that was significant. The importance of compassion was obviously magnified in a time of strife. It was, in fact, compassion outside ones own group that was also essential and of significance.

Social behavior has to be learned, however. Armstrong said the Buddhists recognized that humans have to cultivate being compassionate, particularly for those outside their group.

In the 20th century, it was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who noted that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Along that line, I am inclined to think that violence anywhere is a threat to a peaceful life anywhere.

And regarding new technologies and sitting in front of a computer video game with our youth learning how to be violent, there are better things we can do with our time, and our youth's time and that is learning to love and be respectful of other human beings.

I will close with an excerpt from Dr. King's Nobel Prize speech in 1964 in Sweden where he mentions technological changes that, in today's world, would include video games.
This evening I would like to use this lofty and historic platform to discuss what appears to me to be the most pressing problem confronting mankind today. Modern man has brought this whole world to an awe-inspiring threshold of the future. He has reached new and astonishing peaks of scientific success. He has produced machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. He has built gigantic bridges to span the seas and gargantuan buildings to kiss the skies. His airplanes and spaceships have dwarfed distance, placed time in chains, and carved highways through the stratosphere. This is a dazzling picture of modern man's scientific and technological progress.
Yet, in spite of these spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. (Martin Luther King)