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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
David W
Published Letters: 358 Editor's Choice: 46
As a Brit, I hope to God Bush and co. get a bloody nose in this election. I know it's none of my business, but actually it is my business because what Bush and the neo-cons get up to has global repercussions and grim ones at that.
It does seem strange to me that so many apparently sane Americans could vote for Bush, but, from what little I've seen of the American mainstream media and the strange parallel universe it inhabits (Fox News!!), could this be a factor?
You're not the only ones who want the real America back.
I find it worrying that so many people don't see any problem with games like this. No, they aren't the cause of violence but for those kids maybe more inclined to violence (through parental, environmental factors, etc) there is at least a risk that they can help fan the flames.
I just do not accept that playing hours and hours of games where the killing and general mayhem is all just for 'fun' does not affect some kids. Sure, most kids come out of this unscathed and, no, you can't hide the real world from your kids, but that's the point, it isn't the real world, and they will absorb this, to varying extents, as part of their experience of 'life'. But this is not real life: you don't feel the pain or experience the consequences of this violence. That's true of TV and film as well, of course, but video games generally constitute a longer and more concentrated dose for many kids.
I'm a software developer by trade and therefore tempramentally inclined to admire the imagination and technical ingenuity that goes into these games (I've played a lot of them) but I am concerned at the effects they can have on (some) kids.
Many of these letters point out that video games do not cause violence; kids can tell the difference between virtual and real situations; it's parents who are mainly responsible for their kids' attitudes; etc, etc. In short, blaming video games for the ills of society is nonsense.
I agree with most of this but I think violent video games have a case to answer. It's not that playing a game like this will make a kid rush out and beat somebody up, but that there is, over time, an erosion of empathy. I just do not believe that endless hours of consequence-free death and violence do not blunt some kids' capacity for empathy and understanding towards people who are experiencing the real thing.
I know of no studies that support (or reject) this view but we are all products of our experiences and if a major chunk of our formative years is spent in a virtual world of violence and mayhem, then every bone in my body tells me that this has consequences.
Why is it "unsettling" that France could elect a female head of state before the US? And why is this considered "a cultural phenomenon I don't understand"?
Was it also unsettling when Britain elected Margaret Thatcher or Germany Angela Merkel or the election of various other female senior ministers throughout Europe and elsewhere?
What's unsettling for me is why Americans should find this unsettling. Maybe this says something about Americans' understanding of the rest of the world and their place in it.
The US is not the only player in the Iraq war yet the Iraq Study Group contains no non-Americans: no representatives from Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East and no representatives from America's allies. (There was a representation from Tony Blair, but he's one of the guilty parties in Iraq.)
The Iraq mess was caused by the US blundering in with a 'we know best' attitude and totally ignoring anything it didn't want to hear.
I'm sure Baker and co will be more realistic than the neocons but it does worry me that the unilateralism message doesn't seem to have sunk in yet.
and honestly written. Gary Kamiya describes a world I recognise. I know it's cliched, but in much of the wealthy West we've lost sight of the pleasures to be had in simple things in our relentless forward rush to... where?
I don't know what we can do about it, or even if we should do anything. But we should at least accept that other societies can make different, but just as valid, choices to our own. Good examples, France and Italy, are quoted by Kamiya. These are thoroughly modern and developed Western societies but with some different emphases, such as the importance of good food enjoyed at leisure.
So the least we should do is repudiate the scorn and contempt the Cheneys and Rumsfelds of this world express towards societies, such as the perfidious 'Old Europe', that like to do things a bit differently.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
