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This is a response to Lisa Bloom take on censorship. Enjoy.
Lisa Bloom:
Children under 14 should be barred from access to violent films and video games, online content, and music, period. Right now, kids can download music or shows that celebrate rape and murder, adults can bring toddlers in to R-rated movies depicting people getting shot in the face, and kids can play violent slasher video games online at will, damaging our kids (especially our boys) and perpetuating our thug culture. It’s got to stop. And the way to stop it is by keeping kids away from this stuff. We can do it if we decide we want to do it.
Under our current ridiculously lax movie rating system, “PG-13” means parents are advised that the film may not be appropriate for kids. Yet a ten year old sees the rating as enticing and can legally walk right in. “R” means a kid is supposed to get in only with a parent or “adult guardian” so a twelve year old can entreat his eighteen year old cousin — if the theater is even enforcing the rating to begin with — and in he goes. Most of us are used to attending adult-themed movies with scores of kids seated around us cheering for knife fights and beheadings. Am I the only one squirming and thinking, Why are kids in here?
Germany is considering restricting access to adult-themed films to children under 12, and we too should keep our kids out. According to one study, 2.5 million children aged 10-14 watch R rated movies in America yearly, more than 12% of kids. Some gruesome horror movies, such as Blade, Hollow Man and Bride of Chucky have had child audiences up to eight million.
Can anyone tell me what is gained from ten year olds watching acts of butchery and slaughter (other than million of dollars in profits for the giant media companies that produce these films)? By the time the average American kid starts kindergarten he’s watched eight thousand murders and one hundred thousand acts of on screen violence. Is there anything good about that?
Because here’s what’s lost:
- On screen carnage scares the crap out of normal, emotionally healthy kids, giving them nightmares, confusing and traumatizing them.
- Many studies show that violent images desensitize children, meaning that they lose their natural aversion to mayhem and come to accept people punching and shooting each other as a normal, even “cool” reaction to anger.
- Children who watch R rated movies are more likely to be fight, drink alcohol, do drugs and be promiscuous.
- The United States has 19 times the rate of gun violence of other affluent countries. We have the highest rate of incarceration in the entire world, or in human history.
Kids who listen to today’s rap music suffer from the same problems, becoming more accepting of aggression, bloodshed, and misogyny. As I show in my book Swagger, two out of three of the top-selling rap songs today celebrate violence (especially gun violence and beating up or murdering gay men), rape (including rape of little girls), and illegal drug use. The parental advisories on CD packaging have become meaningless as most music is purchased online.
But it’s up to the parents, you may say. If only all our kids were blessed with moms and dads who carefully monitored their video games, who listened to the lyrics in their music and led thoughtful discussions about them, who shielded them from age-inappropriate gory films. We live in the real world, though, and millions of our kids are watching and listening to this stuff, absorbing the message that manhood equals thugdom, and that shooting your rival is a satisfying solution to conflict.
Movie ratings should ban kids under 14 from entering films with violent scenes. Theaters should be required to check ID and to enforce the ban. Online providers of movies, TV shows, or music with offensive lyrics should require age verification before they make a sale, as porn sites are required to do. Will some wily kids still sneak in to movies, and get past online verifications? Sure. But this would keep many kids away from age-inappropriate violent images, and would be an enormous improvement over the current system.
We don’t let parents decide that it’s okay to let their kids watch pornography. Why not? Because we’ve correctly decided as a culture that sexually explicit films are harmful to children’s development. And sex (ideally) is a normal, healthy human activity. A bazooka to the face is not. Why do we ban our kids from the former but not the latter?
We must take seriously that we live in the most violent culture in the developed world, and stop desensitizing our kids to it. Let’s let them believe that violence is scary and awful for as long as possible. Because it is.
George Sosa:
Evil. It's all about evil. Stop the insanity. Control and the display of control inspires trust. Trust is the willingness you have to work with someone. Naturally most children have NO desire to follow someone into a theater of pain. But to forbid them to do it is a force that has to be counteracted. They feel then that if they don't get to see it then noone should get to. You are correct in restricting evil as long as possible. Children that have seen violence are forever lured, knowing now that it exists. Those that have not seen violence are also the less attractive children in a group because they are so "predictable". Is it any wonder the preacher's daughter tends to fall out of church to marry or get knocked up by a rogue. If society is allowing evil, then we owe it to our children not to "mark" them as different.
Censorship is wrong. Laws are the way. You cannot restrict something and say it's wrong. In logic two wrongs don't make a right. Further, if something is wrong some of the time then the whole idea is wrong. So to restrict violence we as a society have to agree that violence, even watching violence, is wrong.
Sadly, this leaves said group, Utah Mormons for example, very open-minded to having Mexicans move in next door and have their children go to school for free. All the while, allowing their very aggressive Mexican children raised by Mexicans, to outdo the very well-mannered "society" of Mormons that don't believe in violence.
We cannot begin to root out evil until we take over the world. Hmmm. On second thought, it's because there are bad people that good people are so attractive. If we had no bad people, we would get taken over so as a remedy we should restrict our children to non-evil because evil people don't inspire trust and without trust they cannot grow to be a part of higher society. To improve society, we should restrict higher society from evil. Btw depiction of evil is a lesser form of evil so it is still some evil.
I am 44. I have found that the best tool to curbing bad behavior is shame. It's like watching porn or going to bars. You would not admit this to people at work but you are free to do it. So it should be when you watch violent films. Higher society should not watch gore or smut. They should not drink. They should not smoke or even drink coffee. There is nothing that should be more profane to the intellectual center of a nation than impairment. But we are not a society of royals or of catholicism, we are the freedom of choice country and as such we have a duty to allow all things... and then restrict them.
Well it looks like I have finished going around the world in this small speech. It sounds like I am against you and I thought I was, but my argument is for a liberal government that allows all things, this to be able to compete with other nations, but when it comes to children, I agree that complete restriction is appropriate until they reach the age of decision when their decisions are marked by credit bureaus and other forms of "public shame" so that they are shocked and confused and moreover, offended when they are lied to, struck, or even yelled at, and this is a direct result of what they are exposed to growing up.
Evil is the wronging of others. Children should not be capable of this.
People believe that some people are naive to not know what a dirty joke means but truth is they are lucky because these people are more powerful than the ones that know the "secret" meaning behind something dirty. And this is because of the evil. The more evil children are exposed to, the less inspiring they are capable of being and this goes for trustworthiness as well. People with bad reputations are less able to work with others because these "ideas" get talked about and then they get acted upon.
Am I religious yes, I was, and then one day, I wasn't. Heh. Unemployed people can laugh can't they?
Off topic for a moment since you probably aren't even gonna read this but aren't you tired of hearing United States of America? I mean it was not to be called the United States when we were the only democracy but that is not what the world is today. Our name is America and our children should begin to get used to that. North America and and the other "trash" names given to to whatever areas need to be explained and changed because Mexico is not America, Canada is not America, Central America is not America. South America is not America.
WE are Americans and this is America. God bless America.
