Re: media violence report in Science

From: Steve Drew (srdrew_1@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Apr 14 2002 - 22:19:59 BST

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    Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2002 22:19:59 +0100
    Subject: Re: media violence report in Science
    From: Steve Drew <srdrew_1@hotmail.com>
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    Hi Wade

    > Date: Sat, 13 Apr 2002 16:08:22 -0400
    > From: "Wade T.Smith" <wade_smith@harvard.edu>
    > Subject: Re: media violence report in Science
    >
    > On Saturday, April 13, 2002, at 03:48 , Lawrence DeBivort wrote:
    >
    >> It makes me wonder what impact living amidst inescapable real daily
    >> violence
    >> has on Palestinians and Israelis. Thoughts, anyone?
    >
    > Media violence has always been a red herring of the politically useless
    > liberal set and the intellectually challenged social science set and
    > always will be.
    >
    > The people living amidst violence smell real blood and see real bullets.
    > They answer in kind, or they answer in flight, or they answer in fear,
    > because they are human and they feel.
    >
    > There is no preparation for violent motive or action from media images
    > and never has been, nor has there ever been any needed for man to kill
    > his neighbor or his kin or his enemy.
    >
    > Pushing off the relentless capacity for evil upon an image is sheer
    > idiocy.
    >
    > - - Wade

    I haven't actually seen you put forward an argument about why the viewing of
    violent images on tv etc doesn't lead to violence. To denigrate an approach
    without supplying a counter argument as to why it is false is neither
    helpful to the debate nor very good science. ~At the least you could have
    put it as IMO.

    Up until quite recently societies have been quite violent on a day to day
    basis. In the late 19C and 20C the advent of law and order has generally
    made living a lot safer, and people are not exposed to violence. With the
    advent of the visual image you could be introducing children to a
    predisposed propensity to violence that ocurs in the presence of certain
    stimuli.

    Remember that in films, shoot 'em up games etc the victims and protagonists
    turn up again. Either the game gets replayed or the actors make another
    film.

    Also, the military is quite good at conditioning people to do amazingly
    dangerous things. If soldiers can be conditioned why are children immune?

    Come on Wade you can do better. If it is BS, then why? :-)

    Regards

    Steve

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