Yesterday’s tragic events in DC – near somewhere I go on a weekly basis where people I know and care about work – once again have people in the US considering the problems of violence in our society, its causes, and its solutions. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that this has not only produced the usual gun control debate, but yet again brought up the argument that violent videogames were some part of the cause of Alexis’s actions, as Stephen Daly notes in a Gameranx piece today.
Daly remarks that the Telegraph reported Alexis was “obsessed with violent video games” and “carried a .45 handgun ‘everywhere he went.'” The Telegraph piece also says that “The darker side to Alexis’s character saw him playing violent ‘zombie’ video games in his room, sometimes from 12.30pm until 4.30am.”
What is particularly infuriating about the Telegraph‘s take on this is that they spend a considerable amount of time contrasting Alexis’s playing of violent videogames with his dedication to Buddhism, suggesting that this is a bizarre paradox. What they don’t spend enough time on is the fact that Alexis seemed paranoid – he carried a gun everywhere out of fear that someone would steal his belongings, even into restaurants and his workplace. But instead of pulling out the idea – put forth by someone he knew – that he was traumatized by 9/11 and may have been suffering from PTSD, the author (Nick Allen) instead gives the piece this title: “Aaron Alexis: Washington navy yard gunman ‘obsessed with violent video games.'”
I’ve talked about this before. At length. And in the Christian Science Monitor. The scientific evidence just doesn’t bear out what fear and ignorance want to repeatedly claim: playing violent videogames doesn’t make us more violent. It doesn’t even really make us more aggressive beyond the extreme short-term, in which case its level of elevation is akin to that of a sports fan (possibly less), an athlete, or someone playing Risk around a table (which produces a lot of aggression, let me tell you).
But we’re not banning sports or board games. We aren’t even talking about it (even though sports fans can be and often are much more violent as a demographic than videogame players, as the horrific incident involving the referee in Brazil tragically shows). We are, for some reason that still escapes me, talking about how violent videogames (might) cause shootings.
As a society, we are violent. We are aggressive. It’s built into our genetics by the evolutionary flight-or-fight response, which triggers adrenaline and causes us to become hostile or fearful (or both). We react negatively to stressors and become less likely – as in one psychology experiment – to pick up someone else’s dropped pencil. But the failure to pick up a pencil in a post-Call of Duty period of cool-down does not equate on any level to homicide.
Games do not kill people. Weapons kill people. People kill people. Games provide an escapist outlet. Yes, violent people and disturbed people play videogames. So do pacifists, academics, moms, dads, college students, doctors, lawyers, psychologists, writers, filmmakers, ministers, and millions more. Violent and disturbed people also breathe air, drink water, and eat french fries. Yes, violent and disturbed people will be drawn to violent videogames, but to suggest that the games make them violent is to fail to understand the causal relationship at work.
If we’re going to talk about what caused Alexis to do what he did, we shouldn’t be talking about videogames any more than we’re talking about television, books, or movies (and we’re not). We should be talking about PTSD. We should be talking about the stigma in our society against seeking psychological help (especially among men). We should be talking about how this country under-serves its veterans. We should be talking about the ease with which an individual can carry a loaded weapon into public places. We should be talking about what we can do as a society to support our veterans, our victims, and each other. We should be talking about change, not blame.