This is a response I wrote elsewhere in response to the common objection you see when raising the issue of media violence–in this case in particular case of Jerod Loughner–that violent media plainly does not MAKE people go out and commit murders. No, in general, it doesn’t, although this does happen. Every decade several murders can be attributed directly to media, such as the “Dexter” killing in Indiana, in which one brother strangled his other brother, so he could “be like Dexter”.
More generally, though, it amounts to social malnutrition. As I have stated often, violent media decreases empathy, increases pessimissm, and increases lifelong rates of depression. It alters worldviews.
Anyway, here is what I wrote:
In his case, what I think we are looking at is a “Perfect Storm” of negative factors. There are thousands of kids like him around the country, who will never shoot anyone. He made the decision, and needs to face the consequnces, clearly. “Society” can never be measured in any way other than the aggregate of movement that is initiated on a personal, individual level.
At the same time, we do all live with other people, and it is worth asking the question from time to time if our common “culture”–the frequency upon which we send and receive–is beneficial.
One of the most common analytical errors is failing to see what COULD have been. People are always ready to point to cause and effect in things that DID happen. FDR was elected, the Depression eventually ended, ergo he facilitated it. That sort of thing.
Yet this is always imconplete. With regard to this question, we can ask if the media we consume makes us as mentally healthy–as happy, as functional as social begins–as possible. It is not a question of banning books or movies or films. It is a question of asking what is HEALTHY, and trying to teach people about it.
I would draw an exact parallel with nutrition. The solution to people eating Twinkies daily is not to ban them. It is to teach them that they cause net energy drains, unnecessary weight gain, and less strength than that person would otherwise possess.
The media you consume is food for your mind. It affects it. Americans consume some $86 billion in anti-depressants annually. Clinical studies have been done showing enormous increases in rates of depression in the last century. Monopolar depression was almost unknown bck then, absent some major tragedy.
Clearly, many factors play into this, some possibly diet related. But the evidence is clear that watching a lot of violence TENDS to increase rates of depression. It does not do it every time, with every person. It does not induce clinical depression in a linear way.
What it does do is affect your worldview. You see all the time the worst of what people are capable of. You become less trusting and emotionally open. You tend to fear more violence than actually happens. You tend to be more likely to imagine violent solutions to problems than negotiated ones. I personally think this effect is quite clear in our society today.
Loughner was a loser. He couldn’t get a date, had probably never been with a woman, couldn’t get a job, got kicked out of school, and in the end had scared away all of the friends he had. Bad tends to feed bad, and worse tends to go to worse. Many people like him kill themselves. Had he done that, we never would have heard about him. A few people would have gone to his funeral, then he would have been forgotten by all but his family. You may not know this, but there are many dozens of suicides in every State every year. The media does not report them since it has been found that reports of suicides tend to spark MORE suicides, the so-called copycat effect.
As things stand, what he seems to have done is chosen to stoke the hatred and resentment that the self pity that often marks failure causes in weak minds. He fed it with music, like that song by Drowning Pool. And in the end, he walked up to a very attractive young woman, his Representative, and put a bullet in her head. Then he shot and killed her assistant at the same point blank range, a 9 year old girl, an elderly man, and 3 little old ladies.
Clinically, I would describe this as evil.
When I speak of psychosis, I am referring to an acute psychosis, of the sort that makes speed freaks do absolutely incomprehensible things after being up for three days. They commit the most horrific crimes imaginable. When they come down, though, they are psychologically normal, relatively speaking.
I believe we need to be concerned with the sub-acute manifestations of the same evil we see all around us: the glorification of violence, the demonization of enemies, and the desensitization–the drain of empathy and compassion–that all this leads to.
What you put in your head has an effect. I have no doubt of this. It may be subtle, but is nonetheless as real as the effect of a Twinkie. Not eveyone who eats Twinkies is fat, but that does not make them healthy.