On the nature of blamestorming and the crusade against violent video games

Of all the games that people play, the blame game is perhaps one of the oldest – it’s almost as old as the human race itself. These days, it seems that violent video games are occupying a top spot on the lists of finger pointers. But are video games the real issue? Or is there something deeper at stake here?

Join us as we take a closer look at how this classic “pastime” relates to human nature. More perspectives follow after the jump.

                                    The Status Quo

You know the feeling: something bad happens, and people blame someone or something for having caused it. These days, one of the things that’s taken a lot of flak is the video game with violent and mature content.

It’s gotten to the point where you have famous personages taking sides on the issue: one one hand, you have Attorney Jack Thompson and noted psychologist Tanya Byron; on the other hand, you have famous author Stephen King and Jane Barnett.

That no longer surprises us, though. What puzzles us is why we have all this finger pointing to begin with. In a recent scientific study, psychologist Jane Barnett disputed the link between exposure to video games and violent behavior. If the long-argued connection now rests on shaky ground, why does the blaming continue?

Human Nature

When you really think about it, humans have been playing the blame game since time immemorial. It’s almost as if there is a strong need to pin responsibility on someone or something other than themselves. That way, people can direct their energies against that thing or person.

Another thing we’ve observed is that  inappropriate behavior has existed even way before video games ever arrived on the scene. A quick study of human history will reveal this to be true.

Ask any parent and he or she will tell you that if you leave any child alone for a while, that child will begin to misbehave before long. People need to be trained to behave appropriately. They don’t need training in order to behave inappropriately, and they certainly don’t need video games to teach them that, either.

That leads us to our first point. The common belief is that people tend to believe things because they see compelling evidence for it. We believe the opposite to be true: people first make the choice to believe something, and then they go out and find evidence which supports their beliefs.

The point is that when Thompson and Byron believe that video games can do no good, they will continue to seek out evidence that supports their belief, despite evidence of the contrary. It’s simply the way human nature works.

The Path of Least Resistance

Video games, in this regard, may be likened to a gun lying on the table. The firearm is amoral – it’s neither good nor bad. What determines whether it’s good or bad is how it’s used. A gun in the hand of Seung Hui-Cho or a gun in the hand of an honest cop makes all the difference.

Our second point is that it’s way, way easier to hold video games responsible for acts of violence than it is to hold ourselves responsible. Oftentimes, people prefer to attribute something outside of themselves because those things are far easier to confront and to deal with.

This is not to say, of course, that we should just let kids play anything they want to play without providing proper guidance first. There are games that require a certain amount of maturity from players. In those cases, parental concern will go a long way in helping younger players distinguish between right and wrong.

It’s a mistake, however, to conclude that kids go around hurting people because they merely saw it in a video game. If that were the case, then everyone who’s played violent video games out there should be serving life sentences, or worse, they should be dead.

Conclusion

This brings us to our final point: video games don’t necessary influence us to do bad things – they’re more reflections of who and what we are. Games are, after all, products of the human imagination.

It is perhaps this last factor that is both the most sobering and the most ironic one. The more people condemn video games for their alleged negative influences, the more these people end up ultimately condemning themselves in the process.

After all, why go through the painful process of admitting that there is something really wrong with human nature when a convenient scapegoat is readily available? Working on improving oneself can be very difficult business, and people tend to shy away from it.

In closing, we leave you with the words of George Bernard Shaw:

People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I donÂ’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they canÂ’t find them, make them.

‘Nuff said.