I try not to touch any grave matters related to politics and our everyday life on this blog - to keep it a place where you can read about games and tech stuff and forget about the outside world. However, I would like to relate myself to an event of last week.
The event in question is the Papal message for the day of communication. You can read the entire text on the Vatican webpage (in English) and here (more languages to choose from). The general idea of the message was that media can be both good or bad and therefore their creators should be responsible for what they produce, especially with regards to the underage viewers.
The event in question is the Papal message for the day of communication. You can read the entire text on the Vatican webpage (in English) and here (more languages to choose from). The general idea of the message was that media can be both good or bad and therefore their creators should be responsible for what they produce, especially with regards to the underage viewers.
What caused some stir over the web was the part that related to the video games (of course quoted without the context, which you can find following the links in the paragraph above) :
"Any trend to produce programs and products -- including animated films and video games -- which in the name of entertainment exalt violence and portray anti-social behavior or the trivialization of human sexuality is a perversion"Gamespot has even disabled the comments under this piece of news, in my opinion mainly because so many of them were offensive. Unfortunately Kotaku didn't, so you can witness the fiesta of stupidity and flaming there - quite frankly, I had better opinion of both Kotaku readers and staff (the title and image accompanying the post were rather nasty, too). Eurogamer was quite balanced in their article and so were the comments there - on the whole, of course, because a good dose of hatred could be found there as well.
Most of vulgar and offensive comments seem to go along this lines:
- Joseph Ratzinger has been in Hitlerjugend when he was young and therefore he is/was a Nazi - these commenters forget that at the time it was obligatory (see Wikipedia).
- There were paedophile affairs involving priests, therefore the Church as the whole is wrong - extremely stupid generalisation, especially since Benedict XVI's stance on these priests was very stern, both as The Pope and before, when he was the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
- Also, some seem to compare him to the emperor Palpatine from Star Wars (so did Kotaku staff in the image associated with the news post) - this is silly attack Ad Personam and generally I'll leave it without comment.
I have to admit that I had doubts when I've heard that Ratzinger was going to be a new pope. So far definite majority of his actions and speeches have ensured me that he is the right man in the right place and it was really a good choice. There are of course some things that I do not agree entirely upon, but these are beyond the scope of this post, and on the whole they are few and far between. As for what he did right, some examples are : discontinuing the habit of kissing the Pope's ring at audiences, choosing not to wear papal tiara and to use open Papamobile, maintaining ecumenical traditions of his predecessor, visit to Turkey and dialogue with Muslims and many others things.
For me, The Pope's message is more or less about ESRB is all about - making sure that children are not exposed to drastic images of violence and sexuality. The Pope emphasises the role of parents in controlling what content their children see, which is also something that I always bring up in the discussion concerning video games and their influence on children.
This message does not contain any hard rules to obey, like 'if you play violent games, you'll burn in hell' or anything similar. It expresses Benedict XVI's view on the media on the whole (including, but not limited to games). And, frankly, as for the opinion coming from someone who has nothing to do with video games, it was really reasonable and equilibrated.
I myself like to play violent games sometimes, but I am an adult, not a child of ten years. I also agree that games glorifying violence only for the sake of violence are not good (for example Postal, which was so much in bad taste that I couldn't play it), especially when they are cynically aimed at younger audience.
Reminding the creators of different media about the impact they have on the society in general and in the youth in particular and underlining the importance of protecting children from violent and sexual scenes (especially by their parents) is a reasonable and good thing. One cannot be too surprised that The Pope is worried by the fact that youngsters all around the world are constantly exposed to mature content and I think one can hardly disagree with him on that.
Therefore, I wanted to use this little fragment of the internet that is my soap box and would like to say that I agree with the message and support Pope's view on the issue. Now you can call me a dumb Polish conservatist.
For me, The Pope's message is more or less about ESRB is all about - making sure that children are not exposed to drastic images of violence and sexuality. The Pope emphasises the role of parents in controlling what content their children see, which is also something that I always bring up in the discussion concerning video games and their influence on children.
This message does not contain any hard rules to obey, like 'if you play violent games, you'll burn in hell' or anything similar. It expresses Benedict XVI's view on the media on the whole (including, but not limited to games). And, frankly, as for the opinion coming from someone who has nothing to do with video games, it was really reasonable and equilibrated.
I myself like to play violent games sometimes, but I am an adult, not a child of ten years. I also agree that games glorifying violence only for the sake of violence are not good (for example Postal, which was so much in bad taste that I couldn't play it), especially when they are cynically aimed at younger audience.
Reminding the creators of different media about the impact they have on the society in general and in the youth in particular and underlining the importance of protecting children from violent and sexual scenes (especially by their parents) is a reasonable and good thing. One cannot be too surprised that The Pope is worried by the fact that youngsters all around the world are constantly exposed to mature content and I think one can hardly disagree with him on that.
Therefore, I wanted to use this little fragment of the internet that is my soap box and would like to say that I agree with the message and support Pope's view on the issue. Now you can call me a dumb Polish conservatist.
