The Passing of "Extreme"

[damppanties]

I do wonder, though, if you think listening to music with violent lyrics prompts kids to go out and be violent, or playing violent video games does the same thing, or violent TV/movies.

I was just reading something the other day which I think is related.

I Don't Think They Deserved It

An article in the Post Magazine (Sunday, November 30, 2003; Page W16) speaks about how an adopted boy killed his parents one day. The article talks about his being influenced by "The Matrix" and when he killed his parents, he had a song playing on his earphones on full volume. Some quotes from the article...

He sat on his bed and stared at the wall, which was dominated by a life-size color poster from his all-time favorite movie, "The Matrix." He'd watched the film over and over, so many times that he wore out the VHS tape and had to buy a new one. He was drawn into its surreal world of virtual reality and he strongly identified with the hero named Neo, played by Keanu Reeves, who soared through cyberspace and exacted revenge on his imaginary enemies, blasting them away with a 12-gauge shotgun.

Josh related so strongly to Neo that, unknown to his parents, he'd bought the identical black, floor-length, cape-like trench coat that Reeves wore in the movie, along with the matching black boots and black wraparound sunglasses. When his parents were not around, Josh sneaked out the outfit just to wear around the house, while playing the "Matrix" soundtrack CD full blast on his headphones. Sometimes, he would put on his "Matrix" get-up and walk around by himself at Fair Oaks Mall. In Neo's coat and shades, Josh attracted a lot of attention, and he liked that. Just two days earlier, though, he'd worn his regular jacket and drawn little notice when he walked into nearby Galyan's sporting goods and laid out $535.65 in cash to purchase a shotgun, along with five boxes of ammunition. It was virtually identical to the Remington 12-gauge shotgun that Neo used.

In another part of the article -

His mind, he would later say, was a blur. His head was full of thoughts, yet somehow empty. Josh stuffed his portable CD player in his pocket and clamped on the earphones, choosing a song called "Bodies" by a favorite heavy-metal group, Drowning Pool. He had been listening to it repeatedly for more than a year. Now, in his room that February evening, he cranked up the volume to the max. The sounds pounding in his ears were relentless drumbeats, a blaring bass crescendo and a series of anguished, screamed lyrics:

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Let the bodies hit the floor

Beaten. Why for?

Can't take much more.

Josh took the loaded shotgun out of his closet and stuffed extra shells into his pockets. He headed out into the hallway, down the stairs to the family room, holding the 48-inch Remington 870 Express Super Magnum in front of his chest. He would later say he did not remember many details of what happened next, but that he had a flash that it all reminded him of "The Matrix."

One -- Something's got to give

Two -- Something's got to give

Three -- Something's got to give

Now!

Let the bodies hit the floor.

He descended the stairs toward the basement, and his mother stood up and turned toward him. He pointed the seven-pound shotgun at her, squeezed the trigger and blasted her in the chest. She staggered but didn't fall. Josh turned to see his father, who was 6-foot-3 and nearly 250 pounds, dive under his computer table.

Josh did not realize that his father had been on the telephone talking with Josh's 18-year-old sister, Tiffany, a freshman at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania. With his earphones blasting, Josh couldn't hear much, but Tiffany later told police that she heard what sounded like pots and pans falling to the floor.

Josh walked toward his father's computer table and stuck the gun barrel under it, firing several more blasts. He walked back upstairs to reload, then returned to the basement.

Skin against skin blood and bone

You're all by yourself but you're not alone

You wanted in

Now you're here

Driven by hate consumed by fear

Let the bodies hit the floor.

He took off the headphones to listen for his parents' voices. His mother was still standing, bleeding profusely from the chest. "What are you doing, Joshua? You wouldn't . . ." he heard her say. He looked her in the eye, and shot her in the face. Then he stepped over her body, and walked back to his father's side of the basement, where Paul Cooke already lay face down on the floor. Joshua fired several more shots into his father's upper body. The Fairfax County medical examiner would later determine that Margaret Cooke was hit twice, and Paul seven times.

It's a looong article and I could quote away to my heart's content but I'll stop here. Long post already. It's apparent that the movie and the songs, if not influenced, then triggerred off or at least heightened the boy's mental unstability. Agreed that he was abnormal but did the movie+songs influence him or not?

Other stories --

The Matrix Defense

This is about other people influenced by the movie Matrix and committing crimes. Very good reading and food for thought, if nothing more.

 

[bridgeburner]

This is a familiar rant for me but I insist on repeating it until I've beaten the opposition into surrender:

Fantasy is not Reality

Fantasizing does not inherently indicate a wish to shape reality.


My other favorite rant is:

Why is it that what you like is just kinky and all in good fun but what I like is sick?

"Yeah, I write about having sex with my dad, but everyone knows I'm not SERIOUS. You write about having your dog lick your pussy, you're just sick and a menace to society."

Why is it that my fantasy is more serious than yours? Why are you "just kidding" and I'm a menace to society? How would you feel if I treated you like you really do want to have sex with your dad? I mean, you wrote about it right? Obviously somewhere deep inside you really want to get it on with your father.

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

I no more believe that everyone who writes an incest story has the hots for their siblings than I believe that James Patterson wants to be a serial killer.

It is a wicked-slippery slope to say that some fiction is dangerous but other fiction isn't. Eventually everyone offends some member of the audience, should it be up to that one person to dictate what you can write?

I do not believe in Thought Crime and I will not support the concept.


-B

 

[bridgeburner]

And yes I miss the extreme section. I didn't find a lot there that appealed to me, but a couple of my favorite stories ever did come from there.


Checked out what is currently "All Extreme Stories" and had to scratch my head. I mean, these stories aren't extreme and they aren't categorized correctly either. It's like somebody just dumped a bunch of stories into the site and didn't bother with changing the categories at all.

There's a fetish story about some dude trapped in an elevator with a lactating woman who desperately needs relief. She asks him to suck her, offers to suck him and everyone ends happy. What in the heck is "non-consensual" about that story? Or even remotely extreme?

I will not be going back there.


-B

 

[damppanties]

Whew! I just posted a long one on the other side of the debate... I'll just get some of my views in.

This is a familiar rant for me but I insist on repeating it until I've beaten the opposition into surrender:

Fantasy is not Reality

Fantasizing does not inherently indicate a wish to shape reality.

No, fantasy is not reality. It may influence reality though. Especially for unstable people. With the amount of abnormality in the society, how safe is it to get the violence out there? There is something called a subconscious which IS influenced by what happens around you.

My other favorite rant is:

Why is it that what you like is just kinky and all in good fun but what I like is sick?

"Yeah, I write about having sex with my dad, but everyone knows I'm not SERIOUS. You write about having your dog lick your pussy, you're just sick and a menace to society."

Why is it that my fantasy is more serious than yours? Why are you "just kidding" and I'm a menace to society? How would you feel if I treated you like you really do want to have sex with your dad? I mean, you wrote about it right? Obviously somewhere deep inside you really want to get it on with your father.

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

I no more believe that everyone who writes an incest story has the hots for their siblings than I believe that James Patterson wants to be a serial killer.

It is a wicked-slippery slope to say that some fiction is dangerous but other fiction isn't. Eventually everyone offends some member of the audience, should it be up to that one person to dictate what you can write?

Ohh offend away. No problem with offeding. I just have a problem with violence.

Then, with regard to violence - no, no one can dictate what you write. If you feel what you write will affect certain people in a particular way, then you will not write it in the way which will harm them.

I do not believe in Thought Crime and I will not support the concept.

The thought itself is not wrong. When the thought leads to the crime? How can you say which thought will lead to crime and which one will not?

 

[bridgeburner]

DampPanties,

You did note that Joshua was the child of two paranoid schizophrenics and a victim of both physical and mental abuse, right?

No, fantasy is not reality. It may influence reality though. Especially for unstable people. With the amount of abnormality in the society, how safe is it to get the violence out there?

There will always be people who are mentally unsound. Does that mean that the rest of society should be restricted to only activities that are safe for the mentally unsound?

I think the estimate is that at any given time there are 5 serial killers operating in the USA. That's 5 out of roughly 300 million about 1 in 59 million. The odds of winning the California Jackpot Super Lotto are about 1 in 14 million.

Yes, that's right, you're four times likelier to win the California Super Lotto than you are to be a serial killer no matter how many times you see The Silence of the Lambs.

There is something called a subconscious which IS influenced by what happens around you.

Both the conscious and the subconscious mind are influenced by the world around us. Not only that, but they're also influenced by the world within us -- the chemistry of our own bodies.

What is the overwhelming majority of the information we process both consciously and subconsciously? How to be a good and upstanding member of society. It's ridiculous to believe that years of being taught to behave well can be undone by watching fictitous examples of people behaving badly.

Ohh offend away. No problem with offeding. I just have a problem with violence.

Violence offends you. Interratial sex offends others. Incest still more. It's exactly what I was saying: My fantasy is just kinky, your fantasy (which offends me) is dangerous.

It's completely subjective.

If you feel what you write will affect certain people in a particular way, then you will not write it in the way which will harm them... The thought itself is not wrong. When the thought leads to the crime? How can you say which thought will lead to crime and which one will not?

So far we haven't been able to predict who will commit a crime and who will not. To behave in all ways as if our every act could provoke others to lose control and become criminals is not only impossible to do but patently ridiculous.

The onus is not on me to keep from provoking you but on you to behave within the dictates of society. I cannot control you. I can only control myself. Believing that I have control over another person through what I write is simply an excuse for those who don't wish to take responsibility for their own actions.

Porn made me do it.
Video games made me do it.
God made me do it.
The neighbor's labrador retriever made me do it.

Utter crap. We had violence and murder long before we had video games. People used to routinely watch public executions and bear-baiting. Did those people then become increasingly more violent? How in the world did we become a society that more and more frowns on violence?

Humans have violent tendencies. Much better for them to explore those feelings and relieve that tension by blowing up pixels than seeking to bring back public floggings.


-B

 

[shereads]

I went there once when I was new to Lit, just to see what qualified as extreme. (Also, I only watch television when PBS tempts me with something really highbrow.)

Choosing at random, I found a nonconsent story apparently written by an overstimulated, undereducated, 14-year-old future Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, which detailed the variety of awful things that could happen to a young white virgin at the hands of a dark-skinned man with an unnaturally large penis, a limited vocabulary, and an insatiable appetitite for "raped white pussy."

Where will this lad publish his work now?

I bet a keyword search for "hate speech disguised as erotica" or even "raped white pussy" will turn up some other creative outlets.

Let's all hope so! Otherwise, who will remind all of us white girls to remain ever on the alert for so-called "handimen" whose overalls have a third leg?

 

[Pure]

Hi BB, note to 'she reads'

you said,

//People used to routinely watch public executions and bear-baiting. Did those people then become increasingly more violent? //

Aamof, I'd say, 'yes.' Public executions and tortures arguably whet an appetite for them, and these events, though punishments and alleged deterrents, may have drawn people to the acts. Somewhat as in the Matrix example posted, someone familiar with the penalty, e.g, public hanging, decides to do the deed and undergo the consequences, go out in a blaze of glory.

That said, I can't really condone the censoring of violent material; I loved the Wild Bunch, and Butch Cassidy, and want to see Medea--child murder-- and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus sometime (in which a girl is raped, her hands cut off and her tongue cut out--off stage, to be sure). I have a particular fondness for "High Plains Drifter," early Eastwood, as well as "Unforgiven," late.

But then again I suppose I am a danger.



-------

For shereads: Unfortunately to defend against censorship and suppression, one must defend some really crappy, puerile, and degenerate material produced by total hacks; many important cases that have reached the courts, and have far reaching implications, do not involve Joyce and "Ulysses", but "ABC Adult Industries" and depictions of "Dangerous Dan's Amazing Cock and the 100 Virgin Chinks".

 

[bridgeburner]

Pure,

Public executions and tortures arguably whet an appetite for them, and these events,

Wouldn't it stand to reason, then, that we would have become an increasingly violent society rather than an increasingly non-violent society? We have steadily progressed from the cave to a society of laws and rules rather than remained unlawful and disorganized in spite of our biological drive to violence....or perhaps because of it. We know our own violent natures and seek to protect ourselves from the violent natures of others so we agree to give up the freedom to commit violence in exchange for the security of not having violence committed upon us.


I think there is likely a far more crucial tie between violence and poverty than there is between violence and entertainment. If we feel we are not safe or thriving even though we have given up the freedom to commit violent acts then the deal becomes imbalanced. If we're not safe and not thriving then there's no reason for us not to be violent.

Somewhat as in the Matrix example posted, someone familiar with the penalty, e.g, public hanging, decides to do the deed and undergo the consequences, go out in a blaze of glory.

I would argue that that individual is already fundamentally broken and will seek a way to revolt against society regardless of the movies he watches.

--B

 

[bridgeburner]

And, yes, of course you're a danger, Pure. It's one of the reasons I'm so fond of you.

 

[Wills]

Someone correct me if I am wrong but I am sure most violent acts against another person are committed in the name of 'love'.

Certainly in the UK hardly a month passes without a husband or wife killing their children and then themselves - in the name of love. Their objective presumably to bring as much suffering as possible to the 'guilty' party left behind.

The statistics quoted higher in the thread bear out the marginalisation of extreme acts committed by individuals supposedly 'driven to it by some outside influence'. Love related violence will be significantly higher.

Violence between individuals is always internally driven, that voice inside your head is your voice, any accompanying song and its words only serves to convince your voice that it is taking the 'right' action.

I have refrained from joining this discussion on 'extreme' partly because I never visited the story board and partly because 'extreme' can be likened to 'one man's (or woman's) meat being anothers poison'. It should be viewed contexturally, an extreme act incorporated into a story may have merit, describing an extreme act just for the sake of putting words on a page strikes me as pointless, except perhaps to the writer. Maybe we should be happy they are writing it and not acting it out.

Will's (Listening for voices)

 

[Pure]

Jeez Wills, some of us oldtimers are gonna hafta take up a collection for you; post you some of our old downloads from 'extreme.' what i saw was mainly, rapes**, brutality and torture, and lotsa bestiality; dogs, horses, etc. which i was forced to read for sociological research purposes. there was, of course, no child related stuff, and 16 yr olds did not fuck in 'extreme' either, that being viewed as too extreme for 'extreme'.

in mechanics the stories i'd say were above average for Lit, workmanlike; but in imagination and creativity a little lacking, i.e, it's really not an imaginative feat to describe details of someone getting diced and sliced, at least the way it was done at extreme.

one 'plus' of extreme is that some author's continuing stories had certain chapters unpublishable at Literotica proper. So you'd see, Chs. 1,2, 5, and 6 at Lit proper, then you'd go to 'extreme' for 3 and 4.

J.

P.S. regarding what you said about one man's meat, etc. note that nasty rape--fairly common--was viewed as 'extreme'; son fucking mommy and aunt sally--unusual, I think; in that sense 'extreme'-- was and is quite OK and postable in the 'proper' area of Lit.

 

[Svenskaflicka]

There are weirdo's of all kinds.

But why should we give them a forum to express themselves? Do they deserve it?

 

[Wills]

Pure,

Thanks but no thanks.

Didn't go there, not interested.


Svenskaflicka,

One of the things I have discovered in Lit. is the divergent views that exist in what we each choose to read. I suppose the catagories are there just for that purpose. There is a lot of stuff posted that I think is weird, that I don't choose to read. Believe me I am not batting for 'extreme'.

I only posted when the thread diverged into violent acts. I thought some of the concern expressed was misguided - but couldn't resist adding that last para.

"describing an extreme act just for the sake of putting words on a page strikes me as pointless, except perhaps to the writer." is what I said and stand by. Should they be allowed posting space? My personal opinion is no, my wider sociological conciousness recognises the need for freedom of expression. But I would not shout loud in support of extreme.

Will's

 

[Dirt Man]

Does anyone have the link to Extreme?

Just curious, I lost every link I had when my computer died.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[damppanties]

DampPanties,

You did note that Joshua was the child of two paranoid schizophrenics and a victim of both physical and mental abuse, right?

I did and said so in my earlier post.

my earlier words

It's apparent that the movie and the songs, if not influenced, then triggerred off or at least heightened the boy's mental unstability. Agreed that he was abnormal but did the movie+songs influence him or not?

What I am trying to say here is that the music and movie was not THE single cause of the guy's violence. But it helped. It was ONE of the agents which influenced the crime. A clinical psychologist who evaluated Joshua says -

Outside the courtroom, Shostak suggests that Cooke was always headed toward an explosion. "Would it have happened if he hadn't had access to [violent media]? I can't say. Did it make it more likely? There's a good chance. But it was in combination with many other very potent variables."

There will always be people who are mentally unsound. Does that mean that the rest of society should be restricted to only activities that are safe for the mentally unsound?

What do you mean by mentally unsound? Only people who are schizophrenics? IMO, violence affects people who are even mildly depressed. It increases aggressive behaviour. Maybe not to the extent that they would kill someone, but it does. They'll hit their child, or their wife, or something. Is that okay as long as they do not kill someone?

I think the estimate is that at any given time there are 5 serial killers operating in the USA. That's 5 out of roughly 300 million about 1 in 59 million. The odds of winning the California Jackpot Super Lotto are about 1 in 14 million.

Yes, that's right, you're four times likelier to win the California Super Lotto than you are to be a serial killer no matter how many times you see The Silence of the Lambs.

These are extreme statements BB. Violence is not just about killing. I'm not repeating what I said above.

Both the conscious and the subconscious mind are influenced by the world around us. Not only that, but they're also influenced by the world within us -- the chemistry of our own bodies.

What is the overwhelming majority of the information we process both consciously and subconsciously? How to be a good and upstanding member of society. It's ridiculous to believe that years of being taught to behave well can be undone by watching fictitous examples of people behaving badly.

I am not saying you watch one murder on screen and go out on a killing spree. Long-term exposure to violence, and yes, fictious violence, can and may lead to violence in real life.

Violence offends you. Interratial sex offends others. Incest still more. It's exactly what I was saying: My fantasy is just kinky, your fantasy (which offends me) is dangerous.

It's completely subjective.

No, violence does not offend me. I can view it in a completely detached manner and maybe even appreciate the camera angle.

Fantasies of violence, which may lead to violence in real life, which harms others is my problem. Fantasies of interracial sex, which leads to interracial sex, fine. Do what you want. Incest- okay, it's your family. Psychological and/or physical harm is what I am against, not particular fantasies or values or whatever. Kiddie porn and excessive violence come under this.

So far we haven't been able to predict who will commit a crime and who will not. To behave in all ways as if our every act could provoke others to lose control and become criminals is not only impossible to do but patently ridiculous.

The onus is not on me to keep from provoking you but on you to behave within the dictates of society. I cannot control you. I can only control myself. Believing that I have control over another person through what I write is simply an excuse for those who don't wish to take responsibility for their own actions.

No, your every act will not provoke others. Some of your acts may. And will. And no, of course you are not responsible for someone else going crazy. But you are contributing to it. That does not make you responsible. In the end, everyone is responsible for their own actions. If their action is influenced by some violence which you throw out for public consumption, well, up to you.

With regard to your last sentence. Okay, let's say it is an excuse. Therefore, you are at least providing an excuse to those mentally unstable people, however misguided their claims may be. Does that make it okay since they are crazy?

Porn made me do it.
Video games made me do it.
God made me do it.
The neighbor's labrador retriever made me do it.

Again, no. Nothing can make you do anything. Okay what I'm trying to say here and in the portion above has been said by Wills much better so I'm just going to borrow his words.

-----Violence between individuals is always internally driven, that voice inside your head is your voice, any accompanying song and its words only serves to convince your voice that it is taking the 'right' action.-----

I think there is likely a far more crucial tie between violence and poverty than there is between violence and entertainment. If we feel we are not safe or thriving even though we have given up the freedom to commit violent acts then the deal becomes imbalanced. If we're not safe and not thriving then there's no reason for us not to be violent.

I agree that there's a tie between violence and poverty too. Desperation may make people do bad things. Same goes for repeated exposure to excessive violence.


Lastly, BB, I agree with you about one thing wholeheartedly. Pure is a danger.



Dirt Man,

I don't think there are any links of the extreme section which remain. It's dead. Passed away. R.I.P.

 

[Pure]

Hi Damp,

Interesting thoughts. Of course there are myriad influences. I do believe violent video games have a role in some young persons' violence; I've heard the talk of my nephew who plays Grand Theft Auto, where you go around killing cops, bystanders, and hookers.

At the same time, and far as adults are concerned, it's not clear what if anything you propose to do about 'bad influences.' I really like my "Wild Bunch" and "Unforgiven" and "Straw Dogs."
In this respect, I kind of agree with BridgeB that you can't insulate folks from 'violence', and thus a few unstable persons are occasionally going to 'go off', possibly triggered by that. At the same time, millions have watched those movies and other equally or more violent, like "Reservoir Dogs" "Kalifornia" and another favorite of mine, "Romeo is Bleeding."

There is a famous novel by Goethe which was blamed for a few suicides in its time (in imitation of the suicide in the novel, by the guy who was rejected by his ladylove.) Presumably the problem still exists with other stories, esp. of teens.

If I may use an analogy, if adults can drive cars, they will occasionally run amok. They will, say, run over their spouse. At the same time, that rate is so low that trying to 'psych evaluate' driver applicants, or build in 'people sensors' into front bumpers, is not going to happen soon.
-----------

Fantasies of violence, which may lead to violence in real life, which harms others is my problem. Fantasies of interracial sex, which leads to interracial sex, fine. Do what you want. Incest- okay, it's your family. Psychological and/or physical harm is what I am against, not particular fantasies or values or whatever. Kiddie porn and excessive violence come under this.

This is a fashionable view, a kinda 'official philosophy' of literotica. It purports to justify incest, but not (any more) extreme violence. But have you read the nonconsent story,

Restaurant Nightmare, by blondfungirl
http://www.literotica.com/stories/s...y.php?id=109463

Are you worried?

The first point is that physical harm is a very fuzzy line; e.g., you and the Lit folks defend BDSM writings (and activities, I presume).
Yet legally, more than 'trifling' harm, e.g, in spanking, is going to leave you open to prosecution, e.g., leaving welts through a whipping.

Psychological harm is even fuzzier; e.g., the role played by fear. Also consider, is an 'erotic' slave who's been trained so, 'psychologically harmed'?

Lastly, harm will NOT encompass lots of what humans almost universally abhor. You cannot lay aside 'particular values.' I know, as a liberal, you will ignore, say adultery, and its depiction in stories; I think it's fair to say that's for you 'a particular value'.
Correct?

But taking say, consensual(pre-mortem) necrophilia, do you really want to allow it [irl or in depiction], on the 'no harm' view? Are you really OK with incest--say, your brother and your mom-- and bestiality? This is the old 'what makes us human?' issue. Cockroaches, and even dogs sometimes eat a fallen companion. Should your brothers and sisters be worried?

J.
(dangerous in the realm of mind, only).

 

[damppanties]

If I may use an analogy, if adults can drive cars, they will occasionally run amok. They will, say, run over their spouse. At the same time, that rate is so low that trying to 'psych evaluate' driver applicants, or build in 'people sensors' into front bumpers, is not going to happen soon.

No Pure, you may not use the analogy. Driving cars is no comparison to killing a person or other extreme acts of violence. Driving a car repeatedly will not make you want to drive over somebody, looking at a video of a car driving over someone for 25 straight years might.

This is a fashionable view, a kinda 'official philosophy' of literotica. It purports to justify incest, but not (any more) extreme violence.

It's not about what lit justifies or doesn't. It's my own scale.

But taking say, consensual(pre-mortem) necrophilia, do you really want to allow it [irl or in depiction], on the 'no harm' view? Are you really OK with incest--say, your brother and your mom-- and bestiality? This is the old 'what makes us human?' issue. Cockroaches, and even dogs sometimes eat a fallen companion. Should your brothers and sisters be worried?

J.
(dangerous in the realm of mind, only).

Hi D. Pure,

*I* would not allow consensual necrophilia, but I am not going to say you may not do it. Everyone has a levelof gross out which they live with. Necro just crosses mine. Your next point, no, I am not okay with incest between my mom and bro. But there's very little I'd do to stop 'em once they get their minds to it. (Ewwwww, Pure why do you hate me?) Bestiality, fine. If you want to. It's not my concern as long as you're not making me watch it or telling me the high points of the coupling.

I'd have eaten my bro a long time ago if only I could get up the courage to do it.

 

[shereads]

There will always be people who are mentally unsound. Does that mean that the rest of society should be restricted to only activities that are safe for the mentally unsound?

I have to agree. Freedom of expression has to include the right to speech that offends us - and the right to speech that risks being co-opted by the mentally unstable. Otherwise, it's meaningless. No country has ever needed a set of laws to protect what a majority of citizens find pleasant and non-threatening.

I joined the ACLU despite the fact that some of the cases they defend make me uncomfortable, for one reason: without "extremists" on the side of freedom, we don't stand a chance against the power-hungry and the fears that they prey on. I'm not sure if we can ever know whether violent tendencies in some people are aggravated or encouraged by images in the media, or if those people would have found some other theme for their madness.

But we shouldn't all have to give up our personal tastes in entertainment so that children and other easily-influenced individuals can live in a world free of unsanitized images. Parents, as sadly incapable as so many of them seem to be, have to be the ones who determine what is and isn't acceptable for their kids to see and hear and celebrate.

The Matrix sucks for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that it's boring. At least the ten minutes of it that I sat through to humor a thirty-something male friend who thought it was the best thing since "Buffy The Vampire Slayer."

As a parent, I'd be less afraid of being murdered by my Matrix-obsessed kid than of just being bored to tears in his presence and afraid for the future of popular culture. (Is Keanu Reeves human or robot? I forget.)

I hope I'd be watching my son closely enough to know that he has lots of money and spends it secretively, and that he doesn't seem to like Pa and me very much.

Sooner or later, The Matrix will end up as an animated Saturday-morning kids' TV series, where it will be stripped of whatever seems risky.

Witness what's happened to poor Daffy Duck. No, not the pretender-to-the-nest currently voicing the role, but the Mel Blanc original as directed by Chuck Jones. One recent rainy afternoon, I was channel-flipping and found one of my all-time favorite Elmer Fudd/Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck episodes, the classic, "Rabbit Seasoning." The entire cartoon consists of Daffy accidentally making himself the target of Elmer's shotgun, when in fact it's rabbit season.

Or it did, back in the day...

Pointing at his arch-nemesis, the "dethpicable" smart-ass rabbit, having been shot multiple times already, Daffy screeches, "It's rabbit season, I tell you. I demand that you shoot me now!" KABLOOM! ("Pronoun problems," Daffy explains in a sheepish aside to the camera, just before his beak falls off.)

Except that in the new p.c. version, there's no gunshot or even a reference to one. We go directly from "It's rabbit season, I tell you," to the hapless duck re-attaching his beak. If we aren't of a generation that memorized this bit decades ago, we aren't give a clue about how the beak ended up off of the face, and why Elmer Fudd is looking so perplexed.

As kids, did any of you ever interpret from these cartoons that firing a shotgun at close range would leave someone humiliated but otherwise okay? Or that you could don an Acme Batman Suit and dive off of a cliff in the desert, so long as you didn't fall for the "faux tunnel opening" scenario?

Yes? I see a small show of hands, but clearly you lunatics are in the minority.

I still say we should see the sequence of events that made the duck bill fall to the ground, and set those skull-feathers a' smouldering. Of all the kids who saw that every week during our formative years, most of us haven't even shot a duck, much less mom or dad.

 

[Pure]

Another look: Did 'the Matrix' influence Joshua to kill?

Damp panties said,

It's apparent that the movie[Matrix] and the [heavy metal] songs, if not influenced, then triggerred off or at least heightened the boy's mental unstability. Agreed that he was abnormal but did the movie+songs influence him or not?

Having looked at the article now--thanks to your careful referencing--I'd say, the answer is 'very little' influence and not likely 'triggering' the acts. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, that you were just making a point about movies and music, but I don't think your posted excerpts presented a balanced account of the situation, so I'm posting a few more.

====
[Washington Post story on Joshua, excerpts]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14233-2003Nov25.html

"I don't think they deserved it" by Peter Perl

[start, verbatim]
But Margaret and Paul knew precious little about the life histories of the children they adopted. In 1984, at age 1, Joshua, and newborn Tiffany, had been removed from their birth parents, who had been declared unfit and neglectful by the Ohio Department of Human Services, according to their adoption records. Those records tell a harrowing story of Joshua's earliest years -- which the Cookes never knew because, when they applied to become adoptive parents in 1986, such documentation was not made available to new parents.

According to those records, Joshua's biological father was a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic and a former male prostitute who repeatedly battered Joshua's birth mother. Joshua's mother also had been a prostitute, and had a history of psychiatric illnesses, including schizophrenia. The father's violence persisted even during supervised visits at a social worker's office when Joshua was a 3-year-old in foster care. "The father ranted and raved, attempting to intimidate the staff. In fact, he terrified his children. Finally, on 4/18, he actually destroyed furniture and tore up carpeting during his visit," according to a September 1986 report used to get a court order barring further visits.

Two months later, a caseworker described Joshua as a "very loving and easy-going child," despite fairly severe speech, hearing and vision problems. Bed-wetting and recurring nightmares were also noted. The caseworker mentioned that after the father's visits "Joshua had nightmares and was trying to hurt himself and scratch himself . . . [He] does that whenever anything hurts him or [he] doesn't understand something."

Joshua, who does not remember his birth parents, says that he was abused by his foster mother, who smacked him and hit him with a belt. He says that she forced children who misbehaved to beat each other with "switches" from backyard trees, and that she also fondled him several times. Tiffany also has recollections of the foster mother making children hit each other, although no reference to abuse appeared in their records.

[...]
But she remembered Joshua having a harder time, being particularly plagued by the nightmares and the school bullying. In grade school, Joshua was "thin and short, with big glasses, and they called him Urkel," referring to a famously nerdy character in a popular 1990s TV show, she said. "All through his life, he had that constant bombardment of negativity. He couldn't help what he was, or what he looked like. Even his friends made fun of him," she said. "We used to come home from school, and he used to tell me how angry he was about who was bothering him, and then he would just be silent about it."

When Josh got to Oakton High School, his tormentors gave him more names: Four Eyes. Ugly Duckling. Square Head. Puny. Dumb. "And I believed everything they said about me . . . I had absolutely no self-confidence," he says. "I was afraid of everybody."

Josh sublimated that fear; later, when he watched "The Matrix," he'd sometimes imagine the people being shotgunned by Neo were actually the bullies from school. The negative reaction of girls only reinforced his low self-esteem, even after he got rid of his eyeglasses in favor of contact lenses around 16. "I always thought I was ugly. I still do today," he says. "I just thought girls like guys who are handsome, with wavy hair. Tall and dark." As he says this, he laughs self-consciously for the first time, and averts his eyes.

The Cookes had already pulled Tiffany out of public school because they thought her language and behavior were getting rougher, and they feared more negative influences in high school. So Josh joined Tiffany at the Fairfax private school Margaret had selected -- Way of the Faith Christian Academy, operated with missionary spirit by the Assemblies of God.

Josh, a steady churchgoer with his mother, did better in the tiny school with only four students in his graduating class. With tutoring, he got passing grades. "His stay here was so natural, and nothing outstanding or bizarre about his behavior," said Ellen Blackwell, the school director. "I think whatever altered his personality, he encountered after he left here."

Despite all the Cooke family's emphasis on education, it was obvious Joshua didn't measure up. Tiffany got B's and A's, and Josh C's and D's. The Cookes, on rare occasions, expressed to family and friends their disappointment and concern. "Margaret and Paul were both high achievers. Joshua was not, and he didn't want to be," said James Hines, a family friend and former IBM colleague. "And that was unfortunate."

Joshua says he felt his parents' growing frustration, but the conflict intensified after puberty hit, around 15. "A girl I met at church, we got talking. I never had a girlfriend and never been on a date. We were talking on the phone, and I asked if I could write to her, and she said, 'Send me some pictures, too,' and I said, 'What about, like, naked pictures?' And she said, 'Okay.'" So, "I sent them to her house . . . these close-up shots, and it didn't show my face," he says. When the girl's parents found the photos and told the Cookes, "I thought I was dead. Man, that was embarrassing," Joshua says. "My father, he was so mad at me, he just didn't look at me and he ignored me.

After that, things were really different." Relations with his father were "already bad enough," Joshua says, "but then one day -- this is stupid, but -- he found me gratifying myself, and after that, it was really over with us. He just looked at me and said, 'You're disgusting' . . . He was just so mad at me, he said I was like scum."

[...]
David Shostak, a Northern Virginia clinical psychologist with 25 years' experience in treating childhood disorders, interviewed Joshua on September 13. "In a nutshell, there is truly a schizophrenia here," Shostak wrote, but he added that it was "well-masked" because Joshua never showed outward signs such as the hallucinations and delusions associated with full-blown cases. Shostak later testified that the combination of deep childhood trauma and failures in adolescence -- when schizophrenia typically develops -- had resulted in a "detachment from the self."

"People are scarcely real to him," Shostak said, and "video games are a community he could relate to." Because of his unsettled, disjointed early childhood, Joshua had never formed a normal bond to parent figures, Shostak said, and then suffered an "attachment failure" with his adoptive parents. He testified he believed the murders arose from a subconscious self-loathing that Joshua aimed instead at the only available targets. "Let me destroy the mirrors," said Shostak, "and I won't have to look at the self." He called the act "a deflected suicide."

"This was a truly preventable tragedy. He shouldn't have had a gun. He should have been diagnosed and treated long ago, maybe from age 10," said David Pickar, a psychiatrist and internationally known expert who for more than a decade headed the schizophrenia research unit at the National Institute of Mental Health. Pickar, who reviewed the basics of the Cooke case at the request of The Washington Post, said a biological child of a schizophrenic has roughly a 10 percent chance of developing the disease, while a child of two schizophrenics would have a 40 to 50 percent chance.

He added, however, that he was not convinced that schizophrenia was the proper diagnosis because Joshua never was comprehensively examined. "This kid, from the information I have, went into the legal system without an adequate work-up, psychiatrically," Pickar said. The defendant should have had a brain scan and been examined by a psychiatrist, a neurologist and a neuro-psychologist, he said, because there is a question whether he suffered from brain damage or possibly a form of retardation from a very early age. [end]

 

[damppanties]

Another look: Did 'the Matrix' influence Joshua to kill?

Damp panties said,

It's apparent that the movie[Matrix] and the [heavy metal] songs, if not influenced, then triggerred off or at least heightened the boy's mental unstability. Agreed that he was abnormal but did the movie+songs influence him or not?

Having looked at the article now--thanks to your careful referencing--I'd say, the answer is 'very little' influence and not likely 'triggering' the acts. I'm sure it wasn't intentional, that you were just making a point about movies and music, but I don't think your posted excerpts presented a balanced account of the situation, so I'm posting a few more.

====
[Washington Post story on Joshua, excerpts]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14233-2003Nov25.html

(can be seen in previous post)

Yes, Pure,

Thank you for posting the excerpts. I'm glad you took the trouble to read the whole 6 page article. It has been stated before by BB that Joshua was a schizophrenic and I have agreed to it. That's where the mentally unsound thing came into the debate. What exactly are you trying to do by posting these particular excerpts?

Do you still not agree that the music and movie was a factor in the crime?

By "triggered off" I mean that little thing which is just the absolute last thing to matter before something in you snaps and you go shoot people. Could the lyrics and movie have done that?

My opinion, yes.

I'd also want you to see the other referrence which is in the post in which I mentioned Joshua Cooke's adventures for the first time - The Matrix Defense. It's interesting.

The two articles I did post are just a glimpse of what lies out there. Do a google on "effects of violence" or "violence in media".

My whole argument is that watching violence effects people. I am not proposing a ban or censorship here because it is just not possible. I have no solution to the problem really. Going over shereads' post, her parental censorship does make sense but there is only so much that they can do. In today's society, the kids do not take kindly to being told what to see and what to avoid on television/ movies/ choice of video games, whatever. In this type of a scenario, all I'm saying is that the violence out there is too much and has been steadily increasing. Do we really need to see all that senseless murdering and those gory details?

 

[Dirt Man]

Do we really need to see all that senseless murdering and those gory details?

Perhaps if more people saw the atrocity of war there would be less wars.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[shereads]

"Let me destroy the mirrors," said Shostak, "and I won't have to look at the self." He called the act "a deflected suicide."

Wow.

 

[Pure]

DP said,

//My whole argument is that watching violence affects people. //

Let's be clear: Being subject to or watching *actual* violence--and emotional abuse-- affects people. Joshua saw and was object to his first father's violence before he was three. He likely saw violence to mother and sister. He saw police deal with his father. He was seized by Children's Aid, from his first parents, a placed in foster care, then moved from there to adoptive parents.

He was subject to emotional abuse over bed wetting. (He had nightmares as a reaction to various events.) He was bullied and derided at school. His parents let him know their disappointment over his academic performance. His father bullied him about the sex incident, including masturbation, "he said I was like scum."

Surely this is a shaky basis for any claims that the Matrix movie or the heavy metal songs played a significant role in causing his violence. One might even argue that the movie and songs *delayed* the explosion that seemed to be building.

Another analogy: If you want to prove eating margarine is bad for a person, you can't just say, "Well, look at 5-yr-old Billy; he ate a lot of it on some toast, this afternoon, got violently ill and had to go to hospital."

Omitting to say: Billy had a genetic defect from birth and was allergic to oils; he had developed stomach ulcers at age three, during parents' divorce. He'd had operations on his stomach, at ages 4 and 5. He had, just that morning, eaten a pound of cookies containing a half cup of butter.

With violence and sexual stuff--movies, music, books-- the *actual events* (including witnessed) are arguably primary in causing later behavior. It's not beyond possibility that the viewing and reading habits merely *reflect* one's leanings; and indeed, in most cases, their causal role may be *opposite* to what you suggest: they defuse or provide harmless outlets to the anti-social desires.

Or, to make a weaker claim, they have no appreciable 'influence' or 'effect' whatsoever, except as perhaps affecting the form or venue of the antisocial behavior, should it appear (i.e., if the kid's going to murder, maybe if he's just read about a shot gun killing, he'll choose that, instead of an ax).

 

[SlickTony]

has your writing, and presumably reading, incest stories made you look at your family members in--how shall I say it delicately--a new light?

Nope, can't say as it ever has.

 

[shereads]

DP said,
Another analogy: If you want to prove eating margarine is bad for a person, you can't just say, "Well, look at 5-yr-old Billy; he ate a lot of it on some toast, this afternoon, got violently ill and had to go to hospital."

OH MY GOD!!!

Is Billy going to be okay?