The Vicious Cycle of Scapegoatism

My Freshmen submission for the Mill will center on Scapegoatism in our tech driven society. That's right, "scapegoatism." You can look it up. It's true, although I make it a point to automatically discount anything I read on the internets as inherent BS. I suppose that means this blog is BS, and thus I, myself, am BS by association. Well, I can accept that on the condition that I also am totally awesome or "TA." The aforementioned being obvious, let it be known that I am both TA and BS or "TABS" which is also the name of my cat.

But I digress. Where was I...oh, right: Scapegoatism. I'm still not sure this is a word, but it accurately describes the reaction of many people toward new technologies.

What it boils down to is simple. Since Aristotle (or one of those old dudes) stated the world was round, fresh ideas and technologies have been frowned upon by society as the great corruptor of youth and the source of all evil. It seems human nature to link correlation with causation, or in layman’s terms, "Guns don't kill people, (Insert New Things Here) kill people."

Complex solutions cause headaches. It's difficult to point a finger at more than one thing at a time. Try it, you'll end up looking like a Sith lord shooting force lightning, which is cool, but might scare your girlfriend. People want one target to direct their blame and anger at because it's easy, and people are lazy.

Over the years, scapegoatism has reared its ugly head at Hula-Hoops, dancing, rock n' roll, Marilyn Manson, TV, movies, and most recently video games. Looking back at Elvis Pressley, most people find the outrage over his lude dancing ridiculous. Parents thought swiveling hips were corrupting their children into sex maniacs, when in reality, kids have always been sex maniacs. It's called puberty folks. For every ill in society there needs to be somewhere to cast blame, because to cast blame at the true culprit, society itself, would be painful (read: really trippy).

There's been a rash of news stories focusing on violence in video games. Recently in the UK, Dr. Tanya Byron released a study commissioned by the British government to investigate the link between violence and video games. Thankfully, rather than jumping on the anti-video game bandwagon, the good doctor sensibly advises parents to get involved in and better understand their children’s interests. She also points out that parents underutilize the rating system on the cover of every game box, and the parental controls installed in every console and then get upset when they find their children playing mature rated games. The actual report can be found here. It’s not too long and the cover is just priceless.

Also from the UK, an unnamed national newspaper has put out a request for readers to submit personal stories describing how video games turned them to a life of crime. This is muckraking in the most negative context of the word. Story here via Wired.

Regardless of the myriad studies (for example) showing no concrete, long-term link between games and murderous tendencies in gamers (the average age of which is 33) The crooked news gatherers of the world seemed to feel a biased skewing of the results would make for better ratings. This video from Fox News is actually pretty old, but still gets my blood boiling. The “psychology specialist” Cooper Lawrence continually cuts off respected game journalist Geoff Keighley, who happens to be the only one in the clip who has actually played the game in question. It’s a shining example of how video games are intentionally misrepresented.

Brian Ashcraft of Kotaku.com had a great write up on another news segment from our friends at Fox. They explore the link between the recent NIU shootings and violent games. Fox News references supposed “School Shooting Expert” Jack Thompson. I won’t get started on Jack Thompson (I wouldn't want to get Jack Thom'd, aka sued.)

So, what is the solution? Unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot gamers can do. Eventually the generations that fear video games will die slowly in their sleep, at which point the video game generation will take power. Chances are we’ll turn around and immediately point the finger at whatever crazy whappin’ tappin’ new-fangled contraptions those youngins pull out of their whacky do-dad laced pantaloons (pantaloons will be the new style, as well as frilly shirts and eye patches.)

History repeats itself, this we know. Hopefully at some point this broken record changes its tune. Mixed metaphors aside, what to take from this is simple: As you get older, the world around you is going to change. You can choose to rally against this tide as Jack Thompson types do, or you can embrace ebb and flow of changing technology and go places you may never have dreamed possible.