Letters to the Editor
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Let's blame the videogames
I'd like to see this author's evidence for most of the things she says, but particularly her assertion that fantasy games are somehow correlated with violent or dissociative behavior. The kids I know who play fantasy games are some of the brightest, most ambitious kids I know. Frankly, I'm considerably more worried about the perfectly "normal" kids who go out and get drunk and stoned every weekend. One perfectly normal kid at my old high school, well-loved by his parents and the community, just got arraigned for rape, and he's worried that he's going to have to wear an ankle monitor on his honors choir trip to Seattle. The poor dear. Maybe if he'd spent more time playing harmless videogames rather than assaulting girls, he wouldn't be in such a predicament.
All the evidence I've ever seen points to the fact that videogames actually improve kids' reasoning skills, coordination, and problem-solving abilities. I've even seen some studies that show that kids who play violent videogames tend to be better-adjusted than those who don't. I've never seen a single study that actually demonstrates the widely-touted lie that videogames make kids violent. For that matter, it's a broad misconception that "kids" are the ones doing most of the gaming. Most of the serious gamers I know are well-adjusted adults with jobs and families.
So I'd like to see this woman's evidence.
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You left out Al Qaeda
Summary:
A hack writer combines all of the threats that are routinely paraded in panicky local TV news -- gangs, violence, drugs, out-of-control youth, the perversities of the welfare state, weird subcultures, D&D, and the internet -- into one super boogieman of the sort that is guaranteed to both frighten and intrigue the single largest demographic of news consumers, namely anxious retirees. In turn, a seemingly semi-comatose journalist "interviews" her by simply accepting a string of bizarre assertions at face value and asking questions of the "Oh, really, tell me more" variety, giving Denfield free rein to deliver her whole package of kooky scaremongering in a mere (and mercifully brief) two pages.
Most ridiculous moment:
You might at first think it's the reference to Dungeons and Dragons, but that's so clearly overreaching, so over the top, but also so uninspired and pro forma, that it actually introduces an unintended element of pathos into the whole affair. You find yourself wondering, "What happened to this person, this Rene Denfeld? How did she reach this point? Is she like a blissfully unselfconscious comedian, whose act consists entirely of a groan-inducing willingness to do anything for a laugh? Or is she more like the stalker who refuses to break up with you and will say or do anything to get your new phone number?" Only somber reflection can follow this train of thought. No, the real high point comes when Denfeld, at Olen's urging, tries to introduce the internet into her cast of folk devils; this, mind you, in a magazine that exists solely in website form. I imagine that's why you more commonly find this sort of thing in a publication like Reader's Digest, which is associated less with the menacingly novel realm of cyberspace and more with the reassuringly prosaic ones of the supermarket checkout line and your grandma's mailbox, arenas of life safe from the likes of Neo and Gambit with their drugs and smiley chains and the internet that directs their shadowy doings.
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Prevention and Cure
Before my main point: I really don't think it's fair to slam Denfeld for mentioning D&D.
She is NOT blaming role playing games for homelessness. She made an observation about how these "lost boys" label themselves.
So . . . what's to be done?
This is one of those cases where the free market can't do a damn thing. We can't compassion our way out of it either. Boot camps or "tough love" won't help.
Prevention would mean identifying and intervening in the screwed-up families that kids flee to become homeless. This means taking on drug abuse, sexual abuse, poverty, screwed-up schools and what can only be called incompetent parenting.
Treatment would mean changing the habits and values of people who, while still young, have passed the point where these things can easily be changed.
I don't think our society is up to any of this. I don't think we have the will or the skill to pull it off.
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ummm...Dungeon's and Dragon's?
Who plays that anymore? Five years ago, the street kids in Berkeley played Vampire. They've probably moved on from even that by now, and I'm pretty sure that D&D went out with my childhood in the 1980's. So, uh, I have some serious doubts about the amount of actual "research" that went into this article.
I don't doubt that a lot of these kids can be dangerous, but a lot of them are nice and idealistic too. In my experience, in the SF Bay Area, you have a better chance of finding a vegan (or freegan) Communist amongst the gutter punks than anyone truly mean or evil.
Perhaps things have changed in the last 7 years. But this article doesn't push my opinion in any way.
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Let's lay up on D&D
I happen to be a 40+ year old Dungeons and Dragons playing soccer mom who lives in the burbs. So there. The game itself is no more or less evil than any other pastime. Yes, I play Dungeons and Dragons and I like to read fantasy novels. I'm also happily married, I own a house, have a job, pay my taxes, fund my 401K, raise my kids, mow my lawn, pick up after my dog, and I am in every way a model citizen. I've been to a renaissance fair or two, and I even once wore a costume. I have yet to hoard weapons or take a broadsword to the postman.
It would be nice if the writer could separate violent behavior (which is indeed frightening) and an inability to separate fantasy from reality, from an entire genre of books, games, and movies.
This piece is interesting, but the writer suffers from sloppy thinking.
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It is very much fair...
to blame Denfeld for her utterly credulous and vacuous reporting, in particular the D&D reference. If you feel compelled to defend her, recall the wording of the line in question: "A lot of young people are taking this fascination and acceptance of fantasy play with them into street culture...they will get engaged in elaborate, real-time fantasy games as part of this culture." Look at the construction--young people taking their RPG personas into the street; their RPG personas prepare them well for street culture, Denfeld is essentially saying.
She is not saying "many young people on the street also enjoy role playing games"--I'd have given Denfeld the benefit of the doubt in that case. I would think in the latter case, she would have meant to point out a characteristic of street culture rather than attack same (it's like pointing out that many prison inmates enjoy playing board games--in that construction, there's nothing that suggests that playing board games makes you more likely to become a prisoner. It suggests that being in prison is boring). But Denfeld is not saying this at all, and it is by no means the only fault of her logic.
Denfeld's most egregious error is to minimize the danger that real gangs pose. If someone's coming up behind me on a dark street at night with malicious intent, I don't give a damn what social circumstances got them there--they present a threat regardless. The only problem is, it's much more likely to be a gang member than a street child by simple mathematics; the focus of law enforcement should reflect this fact.
Couldn't Salon find a better interviewer than Olen? She subscribes to the Barbara Walters-"Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play"-style of interview, and as a result Denfeld gets away with making all kinds of ridiculous assertions that don't have to be explained or justified.
You know what I heard on the radio the other day? I heard a BBC interviewer actually challenge a guest to justify the point he was making. It was great. It was journalism.