Violence in Media

The idea of living in a world without violence sounds appealing but it's unlikely that this is going to happen. Men are violent by nature. Human history proved it over and over - there's never been a society without violence.

Now, you remember the romans and their arena games where gladiators used to fight, sometimes kill each other. There were some good reasons to have those games back then. It was benefitial for the overall society - keeping the population occupied, allowing them to vent violent impulses in a rather controlled environment, teaching roman values like strength/courage, training/discipline, firmness, endurance, contempt of death, love of glory, and the desire to win. It were these traits that allowed the roman society to play such a dominating role in the world.

Now I feel that nowadays violence in media saves a similar purpose. We are violent by nature. What we gotta do is find a way to channel these violent impulses in a harmless way not supress them. It's never good to supress your feelings. Games are just perfect for that. Interactive media like videogames, or team sports, or martial arts. It's violent to a certain degree but in a save context.

Banning some things from our daily live and dealing with it in a more abstract way like media and games is a good thing. Games nowadays have just the same potential as gladiator games for the romans. With the added bonus that in a virtual simulation, book or film no one is ever really hurt.

So in my opinion virtual violence is not a bad thing at all! It should be indulged freely by people that got the skills to deal with it in a constructive way. That means I do agree that some games/films/books are inapropriate for some audiences especially minors. But that's about all I do concede in that matter!