Babies, we need a new Role Model. Big Daddy War God aka “The-Lord-Is-a-Warrior”* isn’t cutting it. We need Mother Goddess to sweep back and calm us down. Goddess men were manly enough to be manly and motherly too. Today, however, men crawl all over each other to see who can be most like the bloodthirsty, bully-gods Jehovah, Allah and Yahweh.
Never underestimate the power of role models:
Right after a hot new video game on killing the homeless hit the shelves, American boys began killing the homeless. “A segment called 'Bum Hunter,' hosted by a Crocodile Hunter-like actor wearing a safari outfit, shows him 'tagging' homeless people by pouncing on them and binding their wrists” to make it easier to kill them.
Some homeless-killer-boys “… have said they were inspired by ‘Bumfights,’ a video series created in 2002 and sold on the Web that features homeless people pummeling each other for the promise of a few bucks.”
Meanwhile, the National Coalition for the Homeless reports that “last year, there were 122 attacks and 20 murders against the homeless, the most attacks in nearly a decade.”
Here's just one case of how un-Goddess-trained testosterone with some boys wrapped around it, beat a man to death. This collection of Untrained T had a beer with the man and then casually murdered him:
"Luis says 'I'm gonna go hit him,' We're all laughing, thought he was joking around,'" but he wasn't, Moore concedes. "We just all started hitting him."
“They hurled anything they could find -- rocks, bricks, even Baum's barbecue grill -- and pounded the 49-year-old with a pipe and with the baseball bat he kept at his campsite for protection.
“Ihrcke smeared his own feces on Baum's face before cutting him with a knife "to see if he was alive," Moore said.
“After destroying Baum's camp, the boys left the homeless man -- head wedged in his own grill -- under a piece of plastic where they hoped the "animals would eat" him.
“Then, Moore says, they took off to grab a bite at McDonald's.”
"They bragged about it around town....
"Ihrcke told police that killing 'the bum' reminded him of playing a violent video game, a police report shows.
"Criminologists call these wilding sprees 'sport killing,' -- largely middle-class teens, with no criminal records, assaulting the homeless with bats, golf clubs, paintball guns."
For more go to "Teen 'sport killings' of homeless on the rise," CNN.com, POSTED: 7:55 p.m. EST, February 20, 2007
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“The Lord is a warrior, the Lord is his name.” Exodus 15:3.
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Pic: Mr. Rex Baum of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, gas-station worker, homeless, now deceased.
16 comments:
That is close to the most disgusting thing I have ever heard. T_T
But I can't stand to hear people blame it on video games. Hold the kids responsible and they might start acting responsibly. "Oh, they couldn't help it because they watched bumfights" is nonsense.
I don't think you go so far as to say that, but I bet some of the people quoted in that article would.
Well, the boys will be in jail probably for a long time, Paxton. But do yu think they said, "Let's kill this guy; no one will blame us they'll blame the video game guys instead"?
I guess to me the important thing is that we give our babies the right role models. Give 'em a war god, and they'll be warriors. Give 'em a "bum" killer, and they'll become bum killers. Give 'em a strong nurturing figure and they'll become strong and nurturing.
It's, like, what kinda people do you want living around you?
I fear for my Monkey Man. Many people think he's homeless. On the other hand, he's about six-foot-five and in damn good shape for a man in his 60s. It would take a big gang of T boys to wrestle him down.
I agree with Paxton that the kids blame the video games when the kids themselves are just bloody mean. And I agree with you that they need some gentle manly (ha ha! "gentlemanly") men to show them how to behave in the world.
May-be we need to send these kids to work, in the oil fields like my husband did at their age may-be working 20-hour shifts with six hour sleep between them in the middle of the sea. May-be that will calm them down some overworking
I don't know if the kids start off blaming video games -- most kids aren't that stupid. But apparently a lot of adults are. =P And when all of the adults are blaming video games, of course the kids are going to start thinking that's a valid mindset.
When people treat kids like mindless drones, they're actually *encouraging* kids to be mindless drones. Luckily some of them are sharp enough to exceed their elders' low expectations. =)
What do you think about the recent um affection for "warrior goddesses"? I've been giving this some thought myself but it hasn't quite jelled yet. Though I think part of it is that both what you describe here, and calling some goddesses "warrior" goddesses may be related to the political reglorification (in the US) of war, soldiers, etc.
Medusa, I think war goddesses are as phony as two-dollar bills. They sprang up when the War Gods did. Formerly peaceful goddesses were turned into backers of war. Examples: Athena, Astarte, Andraste among the Celts, Neith and Sekhmet in Egypt, Bellona and Minerva in Rome, Inanna in Sumer, Freyja among the Norse -- all were invented or transformed by the new War God peoples who swept over the world around 3000 BC.
Let me just amend my last comment a bit. I certainly don't think Athena, Astarte, Inanna etc. are phony goddesses. What's phony is their war-goddess overlay.
We all need to send protective energy to your Monkey Man, Anne. May the power of the fairies be with him always!
Paxton & Anne. You think some T is just born mean? You think even if the right role models were set in front of it, and the bad role models kept away -- even then, this particular T would become Killer T?
Sopka, You might be right. Hard physical labor would probably spend some of that T and get their endorphins working besides, and they'd cheer right up. Part of their problem may be that they're rich and don't need to do a darn thing -- and so don't.
Athana, what I think is that role models play a huge role in a person's development, but not a total role. You might believe that you can completely control a person's character, but you can't. =) There is always an element of personal choice. I have seen nasty people who grew up in great families. I have seen amazing people, as gentle and wise as you could wish for, who grew up with TERRIBLE role models. It happens pretty rarely, to be sure.
All I am saying is that role models aren't *completely* capable of making a person "good". If that were true, we would just be robots who need "social programming".
That's why I stress personal responsibility so much. You can't always control your circumstances but you can choose how to react in those circumstances. =)
Interesting related article:
http://rca.snm-hgkz.ch/blog/articles/2007/02/13/dont-ban-video-games-start-looking-at-the-age-ratings/
I think some people are born mean and some have meanness thrust upon them. You won't believe this, but I once had a cat that was born mean. We got it as a kitten and treated it kindly, but it was just nasty from day one, deliberately aggressive. We were all glad when it up and disappeared one day.
Paxton, I left this comment at http://rca.snm-hgkz.ch/blog/articles/2007/02/13/dont-ban-video-games-start-looking-at-the-age-ratings/:
You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
Where'd you get your appetite for violence? You weren't born with it, cause I know lotsa dudes who don't go ga-ga over violence. Mostly they're the ones with guts.
Many societies don't have violent games -- the ones that don't beat up women, rape babies, and kill homeless dudes just for sport. Takes manly-men to do those things.
As a matter of fact, in my experience, the dudes drooling over violence are the ones who feel they *aren't* manly-men. They're terrified that if they ever had to show courage in the real world, they might not cut it.
So dudes, the more you fight for your violent games, the more the rest of us know who you really are (jelly on the inside). It's kind of embarrassing. For you, I mean.
Oh, I agree with you. "Vicariously" doing all sorts of horrible things and enjoying it...seems like that would have some kind of effect on a person, even if they deny it.
But it sounds like that's an argument against cruelty, not against violence per se.
I think it can be reasonable for a person to be opposed to *all* violence in video games and other media. I'm not personally opposed to it -- I play a number of games where violence is used either to oppose cruelty, and also some games pointless sparring games that are less about violence than about "a contest of strength"...which is really a contest of out-of-shape people pushing buttons with their thumbs, so it's kind of funny. But anyway, like I said, I think it can be reasonable to be opposed to violence in all games, so my question is,
how do you feel about games that involve violence, but still promote good values like Courage, Dedication, Selflessness, etc? I.E. Superheroes and that sort of thing?
I need to think more this...Violence was unknown in Paradise, and violence for violence's sake doesn't sound healthy, but my respect for "Champions of Good" who have to use violence sometimes (i.e. police officers) is pretty high. Complicated issue...
...I'll probably end up simplifying it to "Be nice, but stand up to bullies, for yourself and for others."
Like I said, I think your comment on that other blog was really valid, Anne. It disturbs me that people enjoy things like GTA (a game where the character goes out of his way to do really awful things for personal gain or cruel amusement).
Oh, one thing I just thought of as I was rereading your comment...
You talked about guys with guts who don't have an appetite for violence, and how this means that guys aren't born with the appetite.
To me it seems the other way around, that it's the really courageous guys who overcome the natural tendency to "feel strong" by indulging their violent tendencies. It's the really courageous guys who can face their weakness and be okay with it, instead of posturing and preening.
Not trying to contradict you or anything =)
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