A telling question.

About two weeks ago, Ainan, 12, asked a question I have never heard asked before.

The question popped into the air before me, utterly unannounced.

“Does violence cause video games?”, he asked, with an amused glitter in his eye.

I laughed. I had to – for I at once understood the truth of his question. Video games are violent and are suspected to cause children to be violent...but why are video games violent in the first place? As Ainan had noted...because they are based on real world violence. So, in a sense, Ainan is right: violence causes video games. If our world were not violent, video games would not be violent too: they are a reflection of the world we have made, together, they are a distillation of our times.

The funniest thing about this question is that it points to a self-evident truth...whereas the other question, more commonly asked of “Do video games cause violence?”, is not self-evident and is much prone to controversy, argument and difference of opinion.

I like Ainan’s view of the situation. In his view, real world violence gives rise to video games which are violent, which gives rise to real world violence, which gives rise to video games which are violent – which gives rise to real world violence...and so on ad infinitum. One feeds the other...they are two sides of the same phenomenon.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

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