Violent entertainment and it's effects

by sabastious 32 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  sabastious

  The Watchtower has always talked about violence in entertainment. It is one of the Watchtower's historical hot topics.

  And for good reason too. Virtual violent entertainment is a very new phenomenon in our world. I am facinated by the subject because the answers to true studies on violent entertainment will shape all our futures.

  Whenever the Watchtower would talk about violent entertainment I would always feel let down by the end of the article. Such weak basic arguments, no raw philosophy or rhetoric. The only rhetoric I ever heard in the page of the Watchtower was "is X befitting for a TRUE Christian?" Sure it's rhetoric by definition, but common it's just a blatent guilt trip.

  Witness mind: "am I a TRUE Christian? Well dog gone it, I know I want to be, so I should make sure I avoid(or embrace) X."

  Talk about missing the mark. They just use the interesting topic of violent video games to guilt their members while ignoring the golden subject in front of them.

  The question is:

  Do violent video games in society effect future generations?

  What a question huh? Problem is the answer to that question requires time to pass. I don't think we have enough experience, as a species, with this new social "norm" to come to any concrete conclusions.

  BUT

  We can speculate.

  -Sab
• 

  PSacramento

  I have always enjoyed violent movies.

  I loved the Lone wolf and cub series and old school samurai movies ( very bloody and gory).

  I loved Ninja Assasin and love kung fu / MA themed movies.

  Do I strike you as a violent or dangerous person?

  HUH !!?|
  
  DO I MOTHER FUCKER !?!?!?!?!?!!

  Sorry for the profanity, I thought it would be funny.
• 

  Snoozy

  A pet peeve of mine..we do enjoy it sometimes but it can deaden our senses to violence I think. Not a good thing.

  Snoozy
• 

  PSacramento

  I think that violent entertainment can accelerate or make worse an existing problem.

  Along the lines of porn making worse a sexual problem that is already there.

  People don't become violent because they play a violent sport or watch violent movies or games, BUT people that are predisposed to violence and don't have a built-in "control box" can have any issues they have made worse by them.

  I don't think the Dalai Lama would want to go out and bust a cap in some ones ass after playing Grand Theft Auto.

  Of course, people with violent attitudes are attracted to violent forms of entertainement, for some it is a venue of release but for others it can insite a desire to do more.
• 

  sabastious

  See, both of you are addressing short term effects (mainly) of violent entertainment.

  You are focusing on what it makes YOU do and how it makes YOU feel. Which is good information for yourselves as individuals, but not so useful for speculation on the more widespread implications.

  -Sab
• 

  thetrueone

  The only rhetoric I ever heard in the page of the Watchtower was "is X befitting for a TRUE Christian?"

  This is the mantra that gets played out continually by the WTS on just about every topic of discussion or evaluation.

  Then again encouraging people to commit suicide by refusing a blood transfusion is befitting a True Christian under their

  self expressed ideology.

  No the leaders of the WTS are not trained in human psychological behavior patterns but I would have to lean a little bit in their opinion

  since it has been documented and acknowledged that certain people, and this goes as well for children, when constantly immersed

  in violence whether its real or in a video game, will construct violent behavior patterns themselves.

  A good example of this is the Columbine High School massacre, where a group of students who were deemed social outcasts within the school

  itself are constantly involved with playing a video game where they are role-playing as assassins inside of buildings and as usual they come out as appraised

  winners for killing ( shooting ) as many people as possible in a set time frame. Unfortunately they took this fantasized winning label with them right into reality,

  the school where they were attending, the place where they were socially perceived to be degraded losers.

  There have been similar situations that have occurred following this particular one as well.
• 

  jay88

  See, both of you are addressing short term effects (mainly) of violent entertainment.

  You are focusing on what it makes YOU do and how it makes YOU feel. Which is good information for yourselves as individuals, but not so useful for speculation on the more widespread implications.

  -Sab

  >>>>>>>>>>>

  I heard a comment at the KH, that makes some sense----obvious there is more details involved that I don't know about,......

  She said that soldier used simulations for training, I thought that is true----just look at pilots, people in motor sports, IT, etc,.......
• 

  DagothUr

  Violent entertainment existed in all societies, in all times. With the increase in population came the mass-distribution, that is all. However, I assume that kids in ancient and medieval times were not exposed as much as kids nowadays, yet the human society has always been violent in a constant quantity.
• 

  Meeting Junkie No More

  Great question!

  I am one of the ones that absolutely DEPLORE violent entertainment of any sort, and especially for children. I was thinking of this issue just today, and 100% believe that all the pundits that say that violent entertainment does not beget violence are so way off the mark. Whoever pays them to make those findings must be thrilled that your average joe buys into their rhetoric. I do not.

  I do watch the news, which is sometimes filled with violence, and get family flack for that, but that is reporting. I get no thrill or joy out of it - it just keeps me informed as to what is actually occuring. ENTERTAINMENT that is violent just galls me, as does sport hunting. I agree wholeheartedly that this is a new phenomenon. I'm one of the ones that pine for the movies of yesteryear that didn't glorify violence the way modern ones do, and that basically showed more people of honour and character.

  I know I will be vilified by others for my comments above, so let the bashing begin! Just my 2c.
• 

  miseryloveselders

  What a question huh? Problem is the answer to that question requires time to pass.

  I believe enough time has passed and the answer is already evident. I also believe the violence we see today is a fitting illustration of the question of whether or not life imitates art, or art imitating life. It actually goes both ways. For instance if you look at the military, they've patterned some of their training off of popular video games such as Doom, and Wolfenstein. At the same time, you look at the creators of those video games, and arguably we could state they're influenced by the era that they grew up in when Communists and Fascists where the boogie men of this country. Wolfenstein has Nazi fetish female soldiers, and during the seventies Naziploitation flicks were all the rage such as Ilsa She Wolf of the SS. GI Joe is an American icon, and its influenced many of young boy to have early aspirations of joining the armed forces. The creators of those video games grew up in that culture. So the entertainment they produce is a reflection of their influences. The very institutions that influenced them such as the military, aspects of patriotism are now imitating the very baby they gave birth to.

  I'll give you a personal example. I can't divulge too much of where I grew up, but we'll just say its on the northern east coast. I've got relatives on the West Coast. I visited them one summer, and spent a few weeks. Thats the first time I was exposed to gangbanging. I had never heard of Crips and Bloods, and Surenos, none of that stuff. I didn't even know racist white dudes gangbanged the same way blacks and Latinos bang. The year that I went out there, was the same year I started high school. This is only two years after the movie "Colors" was in theaters with Sean Penn and Robert Duvall playing cops dealing with the LA gang problem. The year I started high school, we had Crips and Bloods, which are still in this city till this day. I heard at one point that it spread to our city by a couple real Crips from LA who were spreading their drug market. How true that is, I don't know. I personally believe it was the movie Colors, and the rap music that was popular at the time. Even if there was a couple legitimate Crips who organized it here, one cannot deny the influence popular entertainment had on us as youths. Now here's the real flipside to it!! Crips and Bloods, Surenos, and other West Coast based gangs existed before rap music and the movie Colors made it all entertaining. Gangbangers were killing each other while listening to Rick James and Barry White! So at that point you can't blame rap music for what was happening in Southern California during the late 70s and 80s. But again, it goes both ways with art, life, and what and who is doing the mockery.