From: alain@elevia.uniforum.qc.ca (W.A.Simon)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,can.general
Subject: About hard choices (LONG)
Date: 3 Oct 92 22:48:37 GMT

During the past few weeks I have been approached by a number of
people who asked for my signature on a petition that was
circulated in order to combat violence.  I wanted to sign.
I ended up not doing it.

Out of consideration, for the many people I respect who agreed to
sign, I feel there is a need for a protest of my own, against simple
solutions to complex problems.

Such solutions are dangerous because they are wide ranging, with
no builtin limitations, no checks and balances; in other words,
we don't know where they stop.  They are even more dangerous in
that they address the symptoms, not the causes, thereby fooling
us into an illusion of security; when the problem strikes again,
another symptom will get "cured" and another restriction will be
placed on our choices.  I propose we address the causes instead. 
But it will require an effort, not an easy sweep under the carpet
of "let's forbid this".

As a protest against violence I find the petition very moving: 
a girl whose sister was raped and murdered started on a private
campaign to stamp out violence.  It is a cry from the heart and I
could never reproach her for what she thinks she is doing. 
However, what she is actually doing turns out to be very
damaging.  The many people who sign the petition compound the
error by giving it some measure of legitimity.

The advocated solution is the simple abolition of violence from
television.  Having had more than a taste of television violence
myself I can only say that I would not mourn it.  Who needs it? I
don't, but I don't have to watch it.  I can turn it off and I can
even choose not to watch TV entirely.  I would however object
vigorously if someone made this decision for me.

However, I find some cathartic value in a rerun of Conan, or
Dirty Harry after a bad day at the office.  If you ban my stupid
(but violent) Road Runner cartoons, what stops me from banning
your ridiculous (but violent) hockey games and other such
gladiator sports?

So my first objection is about choices; who makes them, about
what, and who for.  Once censure is permitted in one field, for
any reason whatsoever, it permeates to other fields, and the
reasons are not always commendable.  When I explained this, I was
asked by some "isn't this the price for living in society?", and
by others "yes, but what about children?".  I will deal with this
latter point first; the former point is best kept till the end.

What children see or do not see is the responsability of their
family and educators.  They should take the relevant actions to
insure their children are not to know about violence. But, beyond
the futility of hiding the real world from children, the
important point is that nobody should be able to prevent me from
seeing what's there (and exercise my own choice as to whether I
want to see it or not) in order to spare a child some undesirable
knowledge.  Some of us are adults.

There is no doubt that a child's mind will be affected by what he
or she sees.  A child's mind and all of ours too.  The garbage we
are exposed to on TV is detrimental to our mind.  This trash
doesn't stop at overt gratuitous violence; we can't ban 85% of TV
programs and 98% of commercials because they are potentially
harmful to our intellect (they are!). Likewise, there is plenty
of violence in the real world but we don't ask that news coverage
be limited to canine shows and agricultural fairs.  Even this has
a fair amount of covert violence since most of the pretty lambs
and chicks will become somebody's food in a very short time.  We
can't protect children against this knowledge.  In fact we should
teach them about it.

The streets are full of violence and danger.  But we don't
pretend we live in Disney Land.  We tell our children to be
careful when they cross the street, and we ask them not to talk
to strangers.  We equip them against potential dangers, we don't
ban traffic.

TV is not the source of violence, it is the medium through which
we see the world.  What the networks show us is what we, adult
consumers ask for.  If we did not enjoy the sight of violence so
much, advertisers and networks would not feed so much of it to
us.  Vote with your dial and explain violence, inside out, to
your children instead of letting TV make up their receptive minds
when you are otherwise distracted from your censure duty.

Violence is part of the human psychological profile as it is part
of all life forms, from viruses, bacteria, venus fly traps to
snapping turtles, sharks, baboons.  All of life exists in a
perpetual cycle of violence; wouldn't banning National Geographic
movies from the air be stupid and self-defeating?  We can't
pretend reality doesn't exist just because we don't like it. 
Let's not ignore or hide reality, let's explore it.  This is what
education is all about.  Children will be better equipped to deal
with violence if we have shown them that it is not a solution. 
If they learn about violence in spite of us, they will not have
been forewarned.

When television shows gratuitous violence for the purpose of
shocking those it claims to entertain, it reflects on our own
tastes.  Check out the rental video stores, a place where
networks do not force us to watch one program but where we make
our own choices.  Violent movies are in demand.  They are the
most numerous in the shop and still, there is a waiting list. 
Even Grand Canyon, one of the most morally uplifting movies of
all times, is full of violence.  Peter Pan is full of violence
(and sex) and so is Alice in Wonderland.  The "Holy" Bible is
full of violence (and sex).  Should we then arrest all preachers? 
It would make my day, but this would hardly qualify as an
enlightened choice, nor as a practical one.

There is a study (Journal of the American Medical Association -
June 1992) which proves that TV violence encourages real
violence.  This is true, of course.  And showing lots of home
making programs would promote cooking and decorating.  We did not
need a million dollar study to know this.  But television can't
promote something that's not there.  We can show all the Super
Man movies there are, 24 hours a day, we'll never be able to swat
a flying locomotive with a speeding building, or something...

Showing people having sex and enjoying it is banned from the
airwaves because it gives us ideas.  Who would it hurt, and what
wrong is there in it?  Still, some well meaning zealots found it
necessary to ban it because they were afraid someone somewhere
was having a good time.  They probably circulated a petition in
church.  And the petition got out of church.

Do we want to ban the sale a razor blades because somebody could
get hurt?  But then, pencils are deadly weapons too (if you don't
believe me, drop by one day, I'll educate you) and they should be
banned.  String, rope, plastic bags, drain cleaner, high heel shoes,
vinegar, umbrellas, food processors, silverware, tooth picks,
crazy glue, champagne glasses, perfume bottles, spray paint...
where do we stop?  Lower sidewalks so you don't hurt yourself
falling under the bus?  Put tires on railway trains?  Force
airplanes to fly three feet from the ground?  At 40 miles an
hour?

There are people who argue against obscenity and want all
displays of body parts banned.  I personnally see nothing obscene
in the  display of healthy body parts but I see a huge obscenity
in the fact that our municipal government is wasting their time
and our tax money fighting to have such gorgeous tidbits removed
from advertisements.  Our local politicos got hot under the
collar because someone circulated a petition.  This, in a city
where girls give it away more often than they sell it, and where
the main street is almost a nude beach on the couple of hot weeks
we have every other year; in a city where nude bars and
restaurants outnumber bookstores.

I also see an incredible obscenity in the spending of millions of
our dollars by lying and cheating politicians just so they can keep
on lying and cheating.  These millions would make a whole lot of
a difference to a large number of people who were probably (often
violently) victimized by lying and cheating politicians in the
first place.  Should we ask that election campaigns be banned
from the media?  Should we ask that politicians be banned too?

It is all well and fine, but "what about the children?" you ask
again. Children are human beings in the making.  We owe it to
them to inform and educate them.  We can't keep them children and
we can't keep them shackled under mommy's apron.  If violence is
such an important part of our lives they should know about it, in
such a way that they don't confuse rough play with mayhem,
courtship with rape.  In order to achieve this we must stamp out
the taboos and the ignorance that results from them.  It is
indeed ignorance and distorted knowledge that are the deep causes
for the application of violence as a solution to one's most
frustrating problems.  The violent urges will arise in all of us,
children included; it did well before there was television.  It
is best that our children know how to cope with the ugly thing.

One couple told me they did not want to worry about what their
child saw on television.  "We want to know that when we leave our
kid at home, his mind is not being damaged by violent movies". 
Consequently they wanted to see all violent movies banned from
the air.  In other words, in order for them to guiltlessly fail
in their parental duties, we would all be deprived of our right
to choose.  This is fundamentally sick.  Parents who use TV as a
baby-sitter, father, mother, and teacher should be banned.  Not
stupid movies.  And by the way, buy books for the kids.

When a man rapes and beats his wife, he justifies it on the
ground that she is HIS wife.  I get a lot more upset at this than
I would if they'd show the Texas Chain Massacre during the
Saturday morning kiddy hours.  But here again, violence is not
the problem.  Education, or the lack of it, is.  The notion that
men have inherent rights over women is not borne out of some
totally inane television series.  Our priests, pastors, rabbi,
and other saintly charlatans have encouraged this perception for
centuries.

What is not explained is: how can these men think that violence,
however legitimate they believe it is, will resolve their marital
difficulties.  Here again, violence is not the problem, the
belief that it is a valid, and long term solution is.  They did
not come to this through television.  They came to this because
violence seems to work and they are never aware of the price they
pay for it, if any.  Society let's them get away with it.  Once
more, violence is not the problem, society's tolerance for
violence is.  This is not a television problem, it is a legal and
a social problem.  Let's not make the display of violence a
crime, let's make the act of violence a crime.  Right now,
abusive husbands get away with it.  Ban violence, not movies.

This reminds me of a similar situation with car theft.  Should we
leave our car unlocked, we expose ourselves to theft, which is an
unpleasant but logical consequence of our neglect, but we also
expose ourselves to a fine.  The law, unable to curb car thieves,
goes after the next best thing, the victims.  Instead of handing
out stiff sentences to car thieves, the justice system let's them
out as fast as they come in.  The problem of car theft, an
offense mostly mostly confined to kids, is complex; the
prosecution of the guilty is difficult.  The issues are beyond
the simple notions of right and wrong.  So, instead, one punishes
the defenseless innocents under the weak excuse that they caused
the temptation in the first place.

This warped logic is EXACTLY the same as the one being used in
the petition.  It has worked for car thieves, let's hope it won't
work for rapists and murderers.

All of the above points lead to the unavoidable discussion of the
much underestimated trade-off between freedom and safety which I
had reserved for the end.  It has often been said that those who
are willing to exchange a bit of freedom for a bit of security
deserve neither.  In this case, the situation is even worse; our
freedom is being bargained down against the illusion of security,
a security that is not even threatened by the freedom being
bargained down.

I will not make the philosophical point about this trade-off.  It
has been (well) made many times before.  I will ask all the same
that we do not lightly throw away other people's choices because
we don't wish to exercise them ourselves.  It is never justified
by the absence of other means; it is always due to a lack of
thoughtful examination of all aspects of the problem.



--
 Alain
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,talk.abortion,alt.activism.d