Hasta La Vista Homer
As Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger used arguments similar to Plato's in The Republic to restrict the use of violent video games for minors. Even though the law was eventually ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court, is such a law morally justified? Examining ONE of Plato's arguments. Can a case be made to prohibit video games? Or is the argument flawed or not applicable to video games? Is the argument more valid as video game technology improves and the simulation of reality more seamless? Is there any form of entertainment that should be kept out of a teenager's hands (or minds)?
The comparison between former California Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s video-game argument, and Plato’s views on censoring the contents of Homer’s epic tales is an interesting one. Although Governor Schwarzenegger’s proposed law was ruled unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court and never passed, I believe that it is not the government’s place to prohibit the sale of certain video games with profane language and violent content. I am a proponent of not banning the sale of certain video games to individuals under the age of eighteen, not because I am particularly in support young children viewing violent animation, but because I do not think it is the government's place to enforce such a restriction that, if enforced, individuals would not follow. Had this law been passed, youths would wish to acquire a particular violent video game, even more than before the age-restriction, simply because, for them, it would be the unattainable. These children would hire their older siblings and other adult figures to purchase this certain inaccessible video game, similarly to how many minors today acquire alcohol and drugs. While violent video games have far less of a detrimental effect on youths in comparison to alcohol and drugs, I believe the video game banning argument is frivolous. I too am a believer that nature will usually win in the nature versus nurture debate. I do believe that violent video games have had the occasional detrimental effect on a minor, leading that individual down a path to violent adulthood; I also believe that individual was destined to be an aggressive adult, with or without having played a violent video game as a child, because of his or her nature. I believe that violent adults are not violent because of the violent video games they played as children, but because they have violence in their DNA, regardless of their fondness of Grand Theft Auto.
ReplyDeleteFormer Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger restricted violent video games for minors. Although it was eventually overturned by the supreme court, it still sparked an ever continuing debate: whether or not to censor violent and mature content. Arnold was not the first to argue for censorship; thousands of years ago, Plato used similar arguments to push for Homer's poems to be censored. I believe that although Plato has made some good arguments, his overall stance is still flawed. One of Plato's arguments is that god is perfect, and can do no wrong. However, Homer's poems clearly show the gods doing bad things, and making mistakes. It then follows that Homer is teaching falsehood, and since it is falsehood, it should be banned. Plato made a logical argument up till the last part of it where he says that falsehood should be banned. Just because something is false, doesn't mean that it should be banned. In some instances, it is better to tell a lie, such as when someone would rather not hear the truth, or lying to stop a murderer. It is also better to lie to a young child asking "where do babies come from" to avoid spoiling his or her mind. Speaking or teaching the truth is not always the best course of action, Plato argues that Homer should be censored because falsehood should not be taught. Therefore Plato's stance is flawed.
ReplyDeleteThe argument against videogames can be related to Plato’s argument about how Homer should not be taught to children. In a lot of Homer’s books, the heroes/gods people should be looking up to are shown doing bad things. As a result, this may influence children to act differently and try to act like the gods and heroes in the stories performing bad actions. According to Plato, if schools allow their children to be reading these stories, the minds of the children may be changed and taught to do the bad things the gods and heroes do in the stories. This argument is related to videogames because of how there are a lot of violent videogames where you go around stealing, shooting people, and killing people. And because of these games, it may change the way children think and maybe even change what they think is right and wrong similarly to Homer’s stories. I feel like videogames can definitely have an impact on teenager’s minds to an extent. I feel like the more mature and older you are, the less it will affect your mind. If you’re younger, then yeah violent videogames that depict shooting, killing, and stealing may affect what you see as right and wrong and may cause you to make some bad decisions. But if you are older, you have lived longer and had more time to mature so you can better make decisions when it comes to choosing between right and wrong. I feel that part of an adolescent’s idea of right and wrong is based on what their parents teach them. If they’re parents do a good job at teaching their child about what’s right and wrong, then these videogames would probably not have much of an impact. But if an adolescent is not taught well about what’s right and wrong and is constantly playing these violent videogames, they may end up making a mistake later down the road.
ReplyDeleteWhen looking at the differences between the governator and Plato, we are able to see that their ideologies are not far off from one another. For example, Plato argues that if one starts to act in the same mindset as another person for long enough, then that one will start to incorporate character traits into their daily behavior. This same argument can be applies to the type of video games that people are playing today. Evolving form the primitive game play, such as Tetris and Snake, we are able to see that this ideology of restricting game play will not prove to be useful; however, if we are to use games today, such as GTA 5 and COD (Call of Duty), we can see there there is a distinct different in the level of gameplay at stake. I believe that this is because of the reality embedded in the game. For Snake and Tetris, it is very unlikely that people will mimic games where you either stack thing perfectly or eat food and grow long, mostly because of the impossibility behind these claim. However, if we use the reality of COD, I believe that people will want to copy these actions, because of the potential that we have to recreate these exact same scenes in real life. Even if COD is not realistic enough, we still have GTA. With GTA, this is even more virtual realistic because of the human limitation in the game. What I mean by this is that anything that happen in GTA, can be recreated in real life. Therefore, if someone gets mad in real life, they are able to recreate what they see in these games. Now, whether or not people will proceed with these types of actions depends on their rationality. If a person is more rational, then they will have a better sense of what his/her consequences will be if they follow through with their actions, while an irrational person will do the first thing that they think will benefit them. Take the influence of alcohol for instance, if someone is intoxicated, they are more likely to do something irrational, compared to a completely sober individual. Not if we take this logic and apply it to games, if an irrational person plays these ‘virtual reality’ type games, then they will start to see that they are able to get what they desire in the games, thus resulting in them incorporating some scenes from the game in real life. Therefore, I believe that there are layers to this argument, where we should restrict irrational individuals from playing these violent games.
ReplyDeleteI believe the argument brought up by by Governor Schwarzenegger is valid in some situations. The argument the governator proposes is that some video games should be censored by the government because they are too violent for children . He believes the violent acts promoted by the games can possibly influence children and make them mirror such acts. Arnold's argument parallels Plato's point he makes when trying to censor Homer's poems. Plato believed Homer's poems and stories promoted distasteful lifestyles and violent acts which could be detrimental to children. Plato writes, "I am afraid that we shall find that poets and storytellers are in error in matters of the greatest human importance...We must forbid them to say this sort of thing, and require their poems and stories to have quite the opposite moral" (84). I believe children can be influenced by violent video games but I do not think they should to completely banned. I believe that children should be educated by their parents and communities to have a strong sense of what is right and wrong to be able to navigate such games. Children should be able to have fun playing these games, but they must know in the back of their minds, what they are doing is wrong. If/when the technology improves and video games become so close to reality I believe they should be censored for children completely. In the future video games will be Indistinguishable from real life, thus children will not know what is a game and what is real life, and they might mistake one for the other.
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