July 31, 2004

The Games We Play...

I was listening to the radio, All Things Considered, driving home from the supermarket. There was a report on video games. The chap chatting was bemoaning how violent the games had become and how much more he enjoyed a good biblical game. The game that he cited was Grand Theft Auto. I will grant you that this is a particularly violent game. The person being interviewed had a valid point: the game is about mayhem and violence and it does tend to make a hero out of those that would employ senseless violence for their own greedy aims. The standard question of values and violence was raised.

Later, I was at MM’s home her son, M, enjoys GTA and I have watched him playing this and other games where mayhem and violence are considered the norm. I have found myself spellbound by the games, almost like somebody witnessing a train-wreck or some other horrific activity and feeling powerless either to stop it or to stop watching. I am just not certain that the bible is a safe haven from violence. A short digression is noteworthy here: I have always been amazed at people that say that all of the violence is in the Old Testament. Have they never read the gospels or the apocalypse?

I think that we are by nature prone to violence and mayhem. It is part of our psyches. We live to compete, to be the best, to be the survivor. But simply because something is in our psyche does not mean that it needs to be part of our lives. We can overcome our base urges and become something that is beyond what we are. The lowest common denominator of human experience is not all that we can be. It is where we begin.

I still dislike violence. Maybe it has to do with the amount of violence that I experienced as a child. I grew up in fear for my life. Whether this fear was well grounded or not, it was very real to me. I was constantly humiliated by my parents and peers. There was no real safe ground for me. I never quite grasped why the very people that were supposed to love and nurture me felt is so necessary to beat me down, either emotionally or physically.

I became angry at M today when he was mouthing off. He had an attitude all evening and wanted me to join in his cause. The truth is simple: forced to make a choice between M and his mother, MM, I will side with his mother. But I would rather not be put in a position of having to make a choice. We went to pick him up from a swim-party. He had used profanity with his mother when she did no answer her cell-phone quickly enough to suite him. That is simply not done. When, finally, we found the house where he was his tone was well beyond my liking. I directed him to watch his tone and he repeated the offense. I made it clear through both my tone and use of decibels that this was not acceptable to me.

While I felt that I was justified in my anger, I wonder if it was the best and most effective way to communicate my displeasure with a disrespectful child. I wonder what has become of courtesy and respect. I refuse to watch MM being treated in a way that is simply not acceptable.

There are those that would contend that my response was violent because I did not calmly request more appropriate behavior. True, I demanded it in no uncertain terms. Violence? I do not doubt that M felt attacked. I tend to think that he has been mollycoddled and has an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Sadly, this is true for much of his generation. I used to think that we Baby-Boomers were the massive ego-maniacs; maybe it is just my age, but I wonder why behavior that would be considered merely civil in the past is becoming so passé.

It would be too easy to blame it on the games we play: Grand Theft Auto is to blame. But who made those games and who purchased them? We did. I think that the solution is in modeling peace, respect, and justice and all the while not accepting less for ourselves or others. Yes, we are a violent species and are not afraid to destroy whatever we find disagreeable, if not literally than spiritually or psychologically. This is the base instinct that we all possess.

Are we not yet ready to overcome this predilection?