Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Hasta La Vista Plato
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 there any form of entertainment that should be kept out of a teenager's hands (or minds)?
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Although Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ban on violent video games was deemed unconstitutional, Plato’s argument regarding representational narrative proves that the ban is morally justified. Representational narrative means that the reader steps into the story and plays the role of one of the characters, whether they are regarded as good or bad. In the Republic, Plato’s worry is that if his ideal community’s youth plays the role of bad people in the narratives, they will be exposed to negative influences and therefore become tainted with impurity and undesirable values. He believes that a person can do only one job successfully and that in order to become a good guardian, the youth should only represent, “people who are courageous, self-disciplined, just, and generous”(91). If they do this, they supposedly will have hardly any negative values and become the ideal leaders of the community.
ReplyDeletePlato’s opinions coincide with violent video games perfectly. Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and Postal are all examples of video games that involve crime and violence. In all these video games, the player controls the criminal’s body and is virtually committing murder, robbing a bank, or stealing a car through a television screen. What makes that enjoyable to the younger generation? By buying their children these games, parents are sending them a message that this behavior is not completely discouraged. Much like the representational narratives, the video games expose the children to undesired values. If the guardians give the young children the representational narratives with terrible characters, it sends the message that it is acceptable to act immorally. If the gamers find a thrill from playing these games, what’s to say they won’t have a blast killing someone on the street or robbing a bank in reality? With the exception of a few cases, most of the players won’t commit murder. However, it is likely that they have a temper and the willingness or instinct to hit someone.
Video games are more influential than representational narratives because not only are they visual, but the children are controlling the actions in the game and becoming addicted to doing it. NBC reports that, “Researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine say that brain scans of kids who played a violent video game showed an increase in emotional arousal – and a corresponding decrease of activity in brain areas involved in self-control, inhibition and attention.” If violent video games are banned from the youth, the crimes will seem foreign and unappealing to them as they grow older.
A feasible solution would be to put an age restriction on the video games. Once the player is old enough to know right from wrong, the game’s possibility of affecting the character decreases because they can separate virtual reality from every day morals. Parents should play a role in restricting children to play the controversial games until a certain age. The games might not cause a murder, but it could instill negative values into the kids. It is unrealistic in today’s society to completely ban the games, so the parents and the government should work together to provide the children with the appropriate materials for a moral upbringing.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16099971/ns/technology_and_science-games/t/does-game-violence-make-teens-aggressive/
I agree with Claudia's argument, but would like to expound on it slightly with my own opinions. Firstly, not only do I feel that Plato's argument against the poets is applicable to this situation, but it is actually even more applicable than the situation in which Plato first described. This is due to the (unquestioningly) immoral actions of the video games (theft, murder in cold blood, etc.) being far more heinously immoral than the acts of the poetic heroes of Plato's day (mourning deceased friends, conflicting with the gods and such). Furthermore, as Claudia emphasized, these games do more than simply set these actions up as examples, they allow the player to virtually control a person, making the conscious choice to carry out these actions. Furthermore, the player sees these actions done and (in most cases) sees their character get away with these crimes without any kind of punishment or retribution, which further positively enforces these actions into the player’s minds.
ReplyDeleteWithout question, there needs to be age restrictions on these materials. There currently is such a system: games rated as “Mature” or “Adult Only” as most of the games in question are, can only be purchased by persons over the age of seventeen. However, a survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that among all the boys aged 12-17 that it surveyed, half reported their favorite game to be rated “M” or “A-O.” This demonstrates that this current system is not effective, most likely due to parents not taking the ratings, or the games in general, seriously enough.
As Claudia said earlier, a complete ban of these games in our modern society that so sacred regards free speech and expression (and rightly so) is highly infeasible. Instead, what I feel we need is a more strictly enforced rating system, accompanied by more thorough education of parents. Perhaps Plato’s vision of censoring poor influences from reaching all young people in a community on a large scale can be supplanted by individual families preventing their children from receiving them.
I I agree with Mark and Claudia that perhaps plato’s method of strict upbringing is ideal, but I could neither see it being practicable nor plausible today. Plato describes raising the guardians in a meticulously controlled environment, however in today’s era of technology (the internet), I think it would be incredibly difficult.
ReplyDeleteI would instead like to raise a point of discussion for later thought, that being whether it is morally good to completely raise a child in such an indoctrinated state such as Plato envisions for the guardians. Plato’s censoring education molds nearly every part of the child as if they were being produced in a factory, and spits them out all the same. Sure this is okay for the greater good of the community, but is this morally acceptable to shape guardians out of children just so they can be cogs that fit perfectly with the rest of society? Plato describes stifling all media that contradict ideal beliefs of truth (p. 72), God (p. 77), manhood (p. 81), poets and poetry (p.86) and Plato even goes as far as to dictate how poetry is told in terms of rhythm with the guardian (p. 94). In my personal opinion, this does not seem morally correct because the child guardian does not have the opportunity to make choices on his own and become a unique individual. He is treated in a very utilitarian manner, and is born into his community playing a role that he cannot quit. I would not say this is moral behaviour/thought, but the opposite.