When a mass shooting occurs, Republican politicians blame mental illness or video games. Placing the blame on video games makes use of an argument that dates back at least to Plato. In the Republic, Plato argues that exposure to art can have a corrupting effect, making people more likely to engage in bad behavior. While Plato focused mainly on the corrupting influence of tragedy (which could cause people to fall victim to inappropriate sadness) he also discussed the corrupting influence of fictional violence. As he saw it, exposure to fictional violence could incline people to real violence. Plato’s solution to the threat was to ban such art from his ideal city.
This argument has some appeal. People are influenced by experiences and repeated exposure to fictional violence could affect how a person feels and thinks. Exposure to non-fiction, such as hateful speech, writings and tweets could influence a person in negative ways. The critical question is whether the influence of video games can be a causal factor in violence, especially a mass shooting.
Determining whether video games are a causal factor in mass shootings involves assessing causation in a population. The challenge is showing whether there would be more mass shootings in a population if everyone played video games than if no one did. If there is a statistically significant difference, then video games can would have a causal influence on violent behavior. So, let us consider this matter.
If video games were a statistically significant causal factor for mass shootings, then we would expect to see the number of mass shootings varying with the number of video game players in a country. While the United States is a leader in both video game revenues and mass shootings, other countries also have large populations of gamers, yet do not have a corresponding level of mass shootings. As such, video games would not seem to be a significant causal factor in mass shootings.
This does not prove that video games are not a factor at all. Perhaps video games combined with other factors do cause mass shootings. So, we need to look at the differences between the United States and other countries to see what factors combine with video games to cause mass shootings. Now, If video games play a causal role in mass shootings, the question is the extent to which they have this effect.
About 67% of Americans play video games of one form or another. But the concern is not with video games but with violent video games like Call of Duty and Fortnite. While most Americans do not play these games, millions of Americans do. The overwhelming majority of people who play violent video games never become mass shooters. As such, if violent video games do have causal influence, it must be extremely limited, otherwise mass shootings would be more common.
Some politicians have tried to make use of the method of difference to argue that video games are causing mass shootings. This method involves comparing cases in which an effect has occurred to similar cases in which the effect did not occur and finding a plausible difference that could be the cause. This method is a good one but must be used with care to avoid falling into error. The gist of the argument made by these politicians is to conclude that violent video games cause mass shootings because mass shootings increased when violent video games were created. Because of the difference between before and after, video games are taken to be a causal factor.
While it is true that the number of mass shootings correlates with the number of violent video games available (both have increased over the years), correlation is not causation. After all, the number of tech startups has also increased, yet it would be absurd to conclude that they are causing mass shootings. To simply assert that since mass shootings increased as more violent video games appeared would be to commit the cum hoc fallacy, that because two things correlate, there must be a causal connection. This does not entail that violent video games do not play a role, but more is needed than mere correlation. As argued above, there seems to be no significant causal connection between violent video games and mass shootings; they merely happen to correlate as do many other things.
While blaming video games has political value, it does nothing to address the problem of mass shooting since there seems to be no meaningful causal connection between real violence and video games.
A lightbulb (?), lit up, for me. So, are mass shootings a matter/question of reason, excuse, or whatever other driver there may be that I cannot name? It seems to me we are getting crowded into limited space. Doesn’t that follow as infuence on our behavior? Sure. There are many others…
My family, friends and others, in Canada, do not seem plagued by acts of aggression. Gun violence is rare. It is difficult to own a gun, a priori. And, many square miles of living space provide opportunities for the intrepid. Also, as is obvious, there are fewer people for deranged folks to fire upon, if they have, or can have, firearms. All in all, odds of surviving gun fire, in Canada are better than in the USA. One cannot rely on chance, no. But, chance may be better, when there are fewer to be affected by it. hmmmmm. Do we live longer on inference than consequence? That depends. We do have a better CHANCE, if, and only if, our interential skills keep us away from consequences. Deep shit, right? No, elemental pragmatism. James and Rorty knew…
I think there is a whole lot more underlying mass shootings than violent videogames (VVGs). The Fan covers much of this in comments offered. Like Plato, people choose an impetus (like art) they have some predisposition against, and then, with or without evidence and facts, they assert that the impetus they have chosen as the root of the problem. I am relatively certain that VVGs have an unsettling effect on people. It would not be so surprising for them to cause hostility in some game players who have aggressive tendencies in the first place. If one considers the timbre and pace of society; the emphasis on competition and success; a pressure cooker kind of world, then it seems clear we have created conditions that can unleash violence and disaster. Gun control does not seem to help much. People, including criminals, can get guns—one way or another. So, roughly put, *we have seen the enemy, and he is us*—Pogo. Or, *if you don’t like the way things are going, wait a minute*—origin, unknown.
Oh, and the bullying story par excellence, which of course you know already, but always worth repeating. Someone kicked Socrates in the backside, and he just kept walking as if nothing occurred. Someone else exclaimed: ‘Why, Socrates! This man just kicked you, and you didn’t even lift a finger!’. And Socrates: ‘And do you think that when a donkey kicks me, I behave any differently?’.
I love Socrates.
PS. another thing, I think there is at play: how some people, just cannot stand to see other people being happier than they are. I just cannot avoid imagining one of these mass shooters being miserable and wretched for whatever reason (often stupid ones, like being rejected by women, etc, or even being bullied, if thinking that this can happen only to oneself), walking around and seeing people chatting to each other and smiling or whatever, and at least – believing – that others are happy, and this being the reason to want all these other people dead.
Most of us saw the ridiculous ramblings of these mass shooters, they seemed butthurt children. If only they had taken more time to think about how common these experiences are, and especially, how others go through much bitter ones. When I feel angry at someone I remember from my past, I immediately visualize one of the pictures of the Holocaust I have seen.
Suddenly, my anger evaporates. This gigantic, horrific abuse, seems to cause everything else I experienced, to shrink into almost insignificance.
But no, to blame videogames, they might as well blame the gun instead of the shooter.
”Let us never be the cause of sorrow of another human being!” – Bertrand Russell
I believe one is already predisposed to being good, neutral or bad, though of course we are far more complicated than that.
At most, the violent videogame will exacerbate the predisposition to violence, which has to already be there. But to blame videogames, once again, is the conclusion of simpletons, who try to find very simple answers to things that aren’t simple at all.
Take being bullied. I was bullied too, as many of us have been. The fact is, these aren’t uncommon experiences at all. They are common. Can you be in this world and not find some rotten people? But if anything, it’s bullying that could cause one to feel a mountain of hatred for others, not a videogame, because the latter doesn’t have a fraction of the emotional charge that being bullied can have. Being shot in a videogame is children’s play compared to being bullied in real life. I was bullied many times when I was a kid, once I literally wanted to kill two guys whom I pursued at the beach, they started to flee as soon as they saw me being red in the face and screaming like a wild animal for the anger.
They separated, and that moment of indecision made me lose them both. I know I would have killed them, given the chance. I totally lost it. And I was bullied again, yet I never entertained the idea of harming random people, let alone killing them. The perpetrators, yes, sure, and sometimes I did get my revenge, but I didn’t kill anyone, I damaged their property.
Oh my, I am glad I left that stupid town, it was a bad place.
We might also put it this way: the person with violent tendencies, will find, one way or another, things that will stimulate and exacerbate that tendency.
I remember once playing Morrowind after my experience with Final Fantasy. In Morrowind I killed an old woman to rob her of her treasure, or whatever it was, that she had hidden. It felt wrong, I disliked the experience, so I reloaded the previous save and left the old woman alone.
Am I good? I don’t know, that subject deserves a far longer debate, as I am sure you agree. I think my primary reason was that I wanted to wash away the feeling of a dirty conscience, but also I felt sorry for the old woman. But the latter reason was secondary. Still, better being ‘selfish not bad’ than being bad.
I have heard the audiobook by Sue Klebold, whom I greatly admire. A harrowing story, of course. Nah, it takes a lot, lot more to kill people you don’t even know, and even devastate your own parents, brothers and sisters, in the process. And then, kill yourself, while being in the prime of your life and before you learned anything really useful. It’s not just bad, but absolutely, diabolically stupid. There’s no excuse for such an atrociously stupid action. It takes mountains of hatred for anyone, except yourself.
”The definition of a coward is simply this: being someone who harms someone, or anything, weaker than yourself.”. (from a samurai book, don’t remember which one as I have several. Perhaps the Hagakure. Of course, having a weapon immediately makes the other person weaker.).
If I think about it, I could have harmed someone or other, many times, I mean people who would have deserved a good lesson, not killing. Killing is so diabolically stupid. I imagine Seneca saying: ‘How dumb. Why committing the most atrocious crime? In the end, soon enough both you and the person you wish dead, will end up sharing the same place, as we all will. Death will do the work you want to do, just leave it alone.’.
If only people would understand how equal we all are: we all end up in a graveyard. Why being so rotten to others, even though they are rotten themselves? In the end, it would be a shame for us to turn as bad as they are.
”Don’t feel harmed, and you haven’t been.”. – Marcus Aurelius