| Aren't video games representing violence?
If this is true, they are ideas, rather than actual violence. Surely you are then prohibiting an idea (the representation of violence). The subtext is that violence is bad (something I agree with, but that's unimportant). The important point is that you have made a decision that something is 'bad' and then want to try and limit this in a society. What makes 'violence is bad' different from any other possible idea I could portray?
Let me give a real example. I believe, very strongly, that one of the biggest problems we face in society is that popular entertainment has provided an unrealistic representation of how human relationships work (the fairytale romance). This is very bad for society, because it creates unrealistic expectations of what we expect from the various relationships we engage in (romantic relationships, family relationships, friendships, professional relationships and so on). This means that people are continually disappointed by their real relationships, producing a variety of social problems (I should add that society is defined in terms of social relationships; so this is literally undermining the fabric of society). The effects are quite real, very serious and extremly damaging to society. Therefore, we should start to censor the media to ensure that they provide a realistic representation of human relationships.
1. How is this (and hundreds of other possible scenarios I could describe) different from what you are proposing?
2. What effects would you expect to see from censoring violence?
3. How does one decide on a cut-off -- when is something worthy of censoring and when is it not? |