How Do Violent Video Games Cause Violence In America

English 1302
6 November 2008 Video Games and Violence in America
Nowadays, it became a statement of good state, on the part of Bible thumpers and those who refer to themselves as “conservatives,” to think of violent video games as such that encourage young people to indulge in anti-social behavior. For instance, the article “Violent Video Games can Increase Aggression”, which is available on the website of American Psychological Association, implies that it is such games that result in more and more young Americans being deprived of understanding of what the concept of social integrity stands for: “Playing violent video games like Doom, Wolfenstein 3D or Mortal Kombat can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings and behavior both in laboratory settings and in actual life”(APA, 2000). However, Video games do not make kids violent because violence is part of human nature and kids experience much more violence in school and near violence is symptomatic of larger cultural problems.
On her essay, Rebecca Hagelin talks about a teenager named Devin Moore who was arrested on suspicion of a theft car after killing two police officers and a 911 dispatcher.
Devin Moore was a huge violent video game player, and Hagelin relates that behavior to the violence Moore was exposed to in the games (Hagelin 116). In her article “Don't Shoot: Why Video Games Really are Linked to Violence,”Amanda Schaffer provides us with the insight on the level of argumentation, utilized by skirts' wearing proponents of tolerance: “It doesn't matter why the kids started playing violent games, or whether they were already more aggressive than their peers; the point is that a year of game-playing likely contributes to making them more aggressive than they were when they started” (Schaffer, 2007). Hagelin and Schaffer are typically among those who claim that exposure to video games violence contributes to violence to increased violence behavior in
real-world.
Apparently, it “doesn't matter” that, thanks to “celebration of diversity” policy, American public schools have been turned into “gagsta joints,” where kids get their first taste of drugs, where they learn that race does matter, despite being subjected to “lessons of tolerance” and where they get to be searched by cops before being allowed to enter the classroom. How could kids not be violent if they were raised in that atmosphere?
Violence is part of human nature. In fact, violence is has already been popular. Before the collapse of Roman Empire, its citizens used to be only preoccupied with indulgence in perverse sex and with attending “Gladiator shows”, which were becoming ever more violent and graphic, while often featuring hundreds of slaves being slaughtered on daily basis, simply to keep degenerate into citizens entertained.
Therefore, the rising popularity of violent video games among young Americans needs to be discussed as simply a reflection of the fact that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” It is a symptom of American society being deprived of its national integrity, rather than the actual diagnosis, which explains what had initiated the process of America slowly turning into a Third World slump. This is the reason why the results of sociological studies that were meant to establish a link between violent video games and the rise of crime rate in this country, can be best referred to as inconclusive. In her article “No Strong Link Seen between Violent Video Games and Aggression”, Andrea Lynn says: “Contrary to popular opinion and the most previous research, the new study found that players' “robust exposure” to a highly violent online game did not cause any substantial real-world aggression” (Lynn, 2005). It is the individual's racial affiliation that defines his or her behavior more than anything else. The Hispanic youth can be forced to play “Bible Crossword” board game, with the access to video games being totally denied to him – yet, he will still be more likely to indulge in violence, compared to the White youth who had been playing “Mortal Kombat” all his life. Therefore, we cannot agree with the point of view that refers to violent video games as the root of all evils in America. People who promote such a point of view simply do not comprehend the essence of socio-political dynamics in this country. Their hostile attitude towards such games simply reveals them as individuals not overburdened with intelligence. It is not simply a coincidence that “sociologists” and “psychologists” whose true calling consists in being housewives, are especially known for their attacks on “video game violence”. After all, it is so much easier to place blame for unsightly realities of living in “multicultural” America, or on video games, rather than on those who truly deserve it – our own “respectable” politicians.

Works cited
1. Hagelin, Rebecca. "Video games violence and our sons." Discovering Arguments : An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Writing. By William Palmer and Dean Memering. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall Higher Education, 2008. 116.
2. Lynn, Andrea “No Strong Link Seen between Violent Video Games and Aggression”. 2005. News Bureau, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 5 Nov. 2008. http://news.illinois.edu/news/05/0809videogames.html
3. Schaffer, Amanda “Don't Shoot: Why Video Games Really are Linked to Violence”. 2007. Slate.Com. 5 Nov. 2008. http://www.slate.com/id/2164065/
4. Violent Video Games can Increase Aggression. 2000. American Psychological Association. 5 Nov. 2008. http://www.apa.org/releases/videogames.html