Violence in Western Culture

I grew up playing video games.  Several years ago, I would have vehemently resisted the notion that video games promote violence, but as I've shifted my focus to other pastimes and begun to take philosophy more seriously, I have come to seriously question the effects that playing these games has on the mind.  When my anthropology professor, Dr. Devon Peña, showed the class a decidedly shocking video game based on killing Mexican immigrants (he showed it as a demonstration of the racist tendencies of our culture), I returned to the question of why we play video games in the first place.  (If you really want to, you can see the game here: http://www.aztlan.net/racist_anti-mexican_game.htm.)

Here's my thinking on the subject: as I've discussed before, our culture is based on striking out against perceived enemies.  However, we've reached a level of education (or at least many of us have) at which we realize that our violent tendencies more often destructive than constructive.  So we play violent video games as a way to divert our violent tendencies into a channel where no one gets hurt.  However, there is significant debate as to whether playing the games actually works to expend the violence stored in our minds or it simply reinforces the violent tendencies.

In the case of Border Patrol, the violence is directed at virtual Mexicans.  And in this case, the violence is certainly not being harmlessly diverted.  In fact, I say that it's impossible to really divert the violence so that no harm is done.  That's not to say that all video games are bad--there are certainly games that focus on intellectual challenge rather than primal satisfaction, and games that stand as works of art--but we need to reexamine our value system if so much of our entertainment is based on simulated violence.

Of course, it's extremely difficult to abandon a philosophy based on violence/struggle.  It forms a positive feedback loop--when your greatest value is strict adherence to your values, it is nearly impossible to abandon that system.  However, it is possible.  The alternative philosophy is one of inhabitation--forming a mutually respectful relationship with the surroundings rather than subjugating the surroundings.  The connection between these two totally different views is that education is an aspect of both.  While inhabiting the surroundings expressly entails knowing the surroundings, though, defeating the surroundings only involves learning if the person in question is smart enough to realize his or her ignorance.  In other words, Westerners only seek to educate themselves if it is necessary to their continued sense of progress.  In any case, the pursuit of knowledge ("piercing through the veil," as Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick) is one way that we fight against the world.  That is fortunate, because if we continue educating ourselves, then at some point we will realize the folly of our egocentric, violent worldviews.

This is evident in the fact that some of us play video games, rather than acting out our violent fantasies on our neighbors (though that activity is not yet extinct, sadly).  At least we're making an attempt to stop our violence.  I say we take this a step further, though, and shift our whole philosophies; recognize the power of cooperation, stop loving those near us more than those far from us.  Stop getting into battles of "us versus them."  Egocentric thinking is what ruins the world.

Let me know what you think.  Should we keep trying to channel our aggression, or should we try to abandon the worldview that causes these tendencies?

-Casey