Is our Culture making killers?

[Darth Lars]

So do you feel our culture and fascination for violence has any resposibility for the few individuals that do school massacres? Why are they happening now?

I think that it is not the violence in itself, but the values that are connected with the use of violence.
What I think is dangerous is when a movie or TV-shows gives a portrait of one or more "heroes" who are entitled to use violence against "bad guys", and do it repeatedly. You see tv-shows about police men (or people in similar duty) who kills multiple "bad guys" in each episode as a matter of routine and not as a an extraordinary circumstance, as it should be.
Over time, this has influenced society: both ordinary people, real police men, and also criminals who I think now expect a greated risk of being subjected to violence than they have before.
I am thinking in long time-spans here, of 50 years or more. If you asked a kid 50 years ago what a police man's duty is, he would answer "catch criminals". If you ask a kid today about what a police man does he would answer "kill bad guys".
Another aspect is fear. Seeing violence happen to people can create a fear of the same thing happening to you, and I think that that can also lead to more violence.

This is not just an American problem, but I think that it emanates from the USA, because of the US dominance in the world market of media.
People who write violent scripts these days want to create an emotional response in the viewer, they want to create excitement, suspense. The problem is that people have become more jaded to seeing violence, both in movies, tv-shows and increasingly, in documentary tv-shows, news and in real life, so the script writes have to ramp it up to achieve the same effect as they would have had to 50 years ago.

To reiterate: belief in entitlement. The belief in entitlement is the key behind practically all crime. The criminal thinks "I deserve to do/steal/get this".
If Paris Hilton on TV can cause there to be more teenage girls who want to be spoiled idiots, then so can the portrayal of the use of violence cause people to believe that they would be entitled to use violence.

 

[jlee562]

So they were put in jail before they could become violent.

lollol

The cognitive dissonance here is so ridiculously overwhelming. You absolutely refuse to accept anything that doesn't conform to your preconceived notions.

Applied Economics; 5/15/2000, Vol. 32 Issue 6, p681-688

The belief that illegal drug use causes violent crime is widely held by the public in the United States and other countries. The results presented here, however, indicate that the relationship between the psychopharmacological/ economic compulsion effects of illegal drug use and violent crime, may be weaker than assumed. Although many drug users may commit violent acts, it may not necessarily be the results of drug use itself. From these findings it appears that drug-related violent crime is more likely the result of systemic factors caused by drug prohibition and increased drug enforcement.

Specifically as it relates to marijuana, which is the most commonly used illicit substance in the U.S., the idea that pot smokers are going to become violent criminals if they keep smoking pot is patently absurd. Marijuana is demonstrably less harmful to both the user and others than alcohol or nicotine.


Drug and Alcohol Dependence
Volume 112, Issues 1–2, 1 November 2010, Pages 117–125

Prior research suggests that it is unlikely that a single model can account for the drug–crime relationship among all drug and crime types. Overall, while others have shown that the association between marijuana and crime is not as strong as that of crime and heroin or cocaine (Bennett et al., 2008), we find in particular that the association of adolescent marijuana use and later crime impacts non-violent crimes and does not solely operate through education, escalation to cocaine or heroin, or developing a drug problem. Programs aimed at the prevention of heavy marijuana use among adolescents are clearly necessary considering the durable relationship with crime and the major toll crime takes on a nation. Additionally, our results suggest that criminal justice system policies that incarcerate marijuana users may have little impact on reducing violent crime, and therefore, adolescent marijuana prevention efforts may only impact the perpetration of violence if they address the shared risk factors for drug use and crime. Efforts that directly target violence prevention instead of general drug and delinquency programs seem warranted. Finally, because dropping out of high school partially mediates some associations of heavy adolescent marijuana use and crime, GED programs targeted at adolescent marijuana using dropouts may have an impact on crime, especially those who come into contact with the criminal justice system.

In short, there are associations and correlations between drug use and crime, but the idea that drug use can be used as a predictor to violent crime, is false. And the idea that locking up drug users prevents violent crime is pretty absurd when the most frequently used illicit substance is marijuana and use of other illicit drugs has been dropping or remained steady.

 

[jlee562]

I think that it is not the violence in itself, but the values that are connected with the use of violence.
What I think is dangerous is when a movie or TV-shows gives a portrait of one or more "heroes" who are entitled to use violence against "bad guys", and do it repeatedly. You see tv-shows about police men (or people in similar duty) who kills multiple "bad guys" in each episode as a matter of routine and not as a an extraordinary circumstance, as it should be.
Over time, this has influenced society: both ordinary people, real police men, and also criminals who I think now expect a greated risk of being subjected to violence than they have before.
I am thinking in long time-spans here, of 50 years or more. If you asked a kid 50 years ago what a police man's duty is, he would answer "catch criminals". If you ask a kid today about what a police man does he would answer "kill bad guys".
Another aspect is fear. Seeing violence happen to people can create a fear of the same thing happening to you, and I think that that can also lead to more violence.

This is not just an American problem, but I think that it emanates from the USA, because of the US dominance in the world market of media.
People who write violent scripts these days want to create an emotional response in the viewer, they want to create excitement, suspense. The problem is that people have become more jaded to seeing violence, both in movies, tv-shows and increasingly, in documentary tv-shows, news and in real life, so the script writes have to ramp it up to achieve the same effect as they would have had to 50 years ago.

To reiterate: belief in entitlement. The belief in entitlement is the key behind practically all crime. The criminal thinks "I deserve to do/steal/get this".
If Paris Hilton on TV can cause there to be more teenage girls who want to be spoiled idiots, then so can the portrayal of the use of violence cause people to believe that they would be entitled to use violence.

:thumbsup

Good post.

Jack Bauer is often cited as an example of what you talk about in the first post, particularly with regards to torture and "ticking time bomb scenarios." Even though most intelligence professionals will tell you that torture doesn't really give useful evidence and is not effective as an interrogation tool, it makes for exciting TV. And the "ticking time bomb" scenario is something 24 did par excellence.

And yes, media can influence perceptions. An oft told anecdote is that upon his arrival at the White House, Pres. Reagan asked to see where the "war room" was, and was disappointed to find out that it didn't actually exist, he was convinced it must have and he cited "Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb" as to why.

 

[Kerr Avon]

The cognitive dissonance here is so ridiculously overwhelming. You absolutely refuse to accept anything that doesn't conform to your preconceived notions.

I didn't say the drugs CAUSED them to become violent, simply that drug users who are put in jail didn't have the opportunity to become violent. Reading comprehension, try it son. It even states in your quote there that drug users may act out in violence. The fact is though, get someone strung out enough, who needs a fix, and it's entirely possible they will then commit a violent crime, any crime necessary, to get the funds to feed the fix. Try reading your own quote:

Although many drug users may commit violent acts, it may not necessarily be the results of drug use itself. From these findings it appears that drug-related violent crime is more likely the result of systemic factors caused by drug prohibition and increased drug enforcement.

And your'e the one who brought pot into this, not me.

 

[jlee562]

I didn't say the drugs CAUSED them to become violent, simply that drug users who are put in jail didn't have the opportunity to become violent. Reading comprehension, try it son. It even states in your quote there that drug users may act out in violence. The fact is though, get someone strung out enough, who needs a fix, and it's entirely possible they will then commit a violent crime, any crime necessary, to get the funds to feed the fix. Try reading your own quote:

Kerr, you took a post where I said "Now, I'm not making any judgment here. You all are smart enough to decide what kind of content you want to view and you don't need me to tell you," and then turned around and told me to start a petition to ban violence.

You are in NO position to chide anyone on reading comprehension.

Yes, it does state that drug users may act out in violence. A point I reiterated below the quote. I'm not denying a correlation between crime and drug use. What I am saying, is that you are wrong to assert that the lowered crime rate was as a result of drug users being locked up in prison "before they could become violent." That is an a priori assumption, that drug uses will become violent. While that is certainly true for some drug users, it is definitely not true for all drug users and the evidence suggests that it is not true for a MAJORITY of drug users.

And your'e the one who brought pot into this, not me.

You're right, I did. Because it directly relates to the point you tried to make about incarceration rates. Incarceration rates have ballooned since the "war on drugs" started. And given that marijuana has the highest conviction rate for drug crimes, it makes sense to discuss it, as it relates to your assertions regarding violent crime and drug use.

 

[Sluis Van Shipyards]

And your background in social science is what again....?

Seriously? :lol

 

[jlee562]

Seriously? :lol

Yeah, seriously. Your agument was seriously deficient. And I demonstrated exactly why you were wrong. Smileys don't change that.

That you are unwilling or unable to post a cogent rebuttal speaks for itself.

 

[Zuiun]

You seem intent on wanting to label these people as something other than normal human beings. You simply cannot do that.

No. I am specifically *NOT* wanting to identify these people as "abnormal" in the sense that a psychopath or sociopath is.

If they are suffering from severe clinical depression, sure that's an abnormal condition, but it's a treatable one. When we dismiss these people as being "psychos" or "cowards," we diminish the importance of the mental illnesses they may be suffering from. We are trying to compartmentalize them away from the rest of us because that makes it easier to swallow.

The fact is, anyone can become depressed. The severity varies from person to person and situation to situation, but the mistake is in believing that someone who walks into a theater and shoots people either was born with "bad wiring" or is a "coward" or some other dismissive label just perpetuates the reasons why these things are almost never predicted and prevented BEFORE they happen.

No one wants to think that depression can be dangerous.

 

[Montagar]

Since this thread has strayed off into other issues that have nothing to do with whether or not movies/TV/video games create a more violent society, there is no need to keep it going.