Parental Responsibility
Recent events with the game Grand Theft Auto have troubled me. Apparently, one can access secret sex scenes in the game, which has lawmakers, retailers, and parents up in arms. As I understand it, talking to BNG, some parents are mounting a lawsuit against the game’s creator for the material. So there are two places where I get fuzzy.
First of all, are these parents actually under the impression that Grand Theft Auto was a wholesome game until it was know that the sex scenes were in there? Now I’m not trying to say I think the material in the game is right or wrong, but I don’t understand how a game that rewarded theft, murder, and drug dealing is suddenly evil because it contains sex. As I understand it, sex is a legal act in most of this country, which murder and such are not. So why are people so concerned about explicit sex, but not explicit violence? The contradiction can be seen every day on television: blood and violence can be seen on prime time television, but a quick peak at a nipple puts the FCC and legislators on the warpath.
The other thing that bothers me even more is that parents are unwilling to take responsibility for their children and instead turn to censorship as a means by which to shield their kids from what they deem inappropriate. We have seen public outcry on many occasions for song lyrics (e.g., Ice T’s “Cop Killer”), television content, and internet websites. The common response is to try to pressure the creator to publicly apologize and pull the “offensive content” from the public eye. Why can’t parents make these decisions for their own kids and act accordingly? Don’t want your children listening to explicit music? Check the lyrics of albums they want to buy before you allow them to purchase them. Concerned about the images your children might see on television? Make sure to watch with them or, if really concerned, don’t have a television. Want to make sure your children don’t access certain content on the internet? Put the computer out in the open in a room where you can see what your child is accessing.
The bottom line is that a number of parents want to have kids, but don’t want to put in the time and effort it takes to raise them. Parents can be quick to blame the media, the schools, or any other scapegoat they can use, so long as it means they can just be hands-off on a day-to-day basis. I don’t pretend to know what it is like to be a parent, as I have not yet had that experience. But I do firmly believe in the idea that what is right for me is not necessarily right for everyone else. If I don’t want my children exposed to something, I will take the steps to keep it away from them. In the same way, I don’t want other people to tell me what the world, my kids, and I should be exposed to.
Think it’s okay for your kids to shoot people in the head in a video game but not see animated breasts? Fine by me. Just don’t take my right to make that determination for my own kids out of my hands.
July 27th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Bravo. Thanks for saying it.
I think the outrage over sex in a video game is coming from one main source. There are minor sources, too, but this one is key: Fear of that which gives us pleasure. We have a rich tradition in this country of denying ourselves all sorts of natural pleasure, declaring pretty much anything pleasant a vice. Violence is one thing, but sex? No way. Sure, an aversion to promiscuous sex serves a social and evolutionary purpose, protecting that which fosters raising children (a family) and avoiding rampant disease, but we’re talking about a video gamehere. I’m of course being facetious.
Maybe it all comes down to parents not wanting the responsibility of raising children. Most parents are pretty lazy. I figure maybe 10% of parents really deserve to have children. Potential parents should police themselves and not breed unless they’re really up to the task of working 24 hours/day, 365 days/year for a good 18+ years per kid. The only other option I can see is turning over the raising of children to the state, a la Huxley’s A Brave New World.
As for lesser, more minor reasons, degradation of women has been mentioned. I haven’t seen the video clip (someone else watched it so I wouldn’t have to), but I understand it is pretty bad, in a blocky-cartoon-video-game sort of way. Or maybe parents just object to the game-within-a-game’s lesson that “Failure to satisfy a woman is a CRIME!” like all good little conservative families should. “Sex is fer makin’ babies,” as every right-thinking person knows. (And the corrolary: if a couple can’t make babies for whatever reason, their marriage should be dissolved so the fertile partner can fulfil his (or her) biological duty.)
The maker also apparently lied about the origin of the mini-game, blaming hackers for it. Now that it has appeared in the PS2, that statement is no longer operative.
August 2nd, 2005 at 3:25 am
Perhaps we should consider forced sterilization? Where like, all men are sterile by default, but you can sign some contract, or maybe take some training course that gives you the right to have kids? And then they tie everything back together the right way?
I mean, how many of those bad parents /really/ wanted to have kids anyways? I sure didn’t. Wait, I mean, I did… I mean, I don’t have… err… Yes I’m awesome!
August 2nd, 2005 at 7:54 am
I think the only problem with a “test for parenthood” is, who would decide the correct answers? I very much doubt we want the current administration in the United States to do it. I certainly don’t feel qualified to do it. And actually, I think a parental test would still create the exact problem I’m trying to avoid: someone telling me what is right and wrong for my children, which I also didn’t want/did want/don’t have.
August 3rd, 2005 at 4:33 pm
The US political scene is sickening. There’s so much grandstanding and pontificating that ordinary folk such as myself have forgotten that politicians are actually intelligent human beings. I used to think that everyone was really stupid. I think now the problem is that everyone is really smart.
August 3rd, 2005 at 4:45 pm
I should probably clarify what I mean by that last statement. Complexity is a vice and simplicity begets wisdom. There’s too many smart people devoting brain power to too many subtleties of random issues. Instead, they should be more worried about their basic responsibilities.