Why Culture Is Never Responsible for Mass Murder

Esquire ^ | 12/22/2012 | Stephen Marche

[nickcarraway]

The NRA executive vice president has just proposed a plan that many predicted the NRA would come up with: The solution to guns is more guns. Liberal commentators are already lambasting it, but I think the news that the NRA is even discussing the matter is a positive sign. They have put a proposal on the table, and that implies that there is a problem. What was really worrying about Wayne LaPierre's remarks was the return of a very old trope — blaming Hollywood violence for real-life death. LaPierre even mentioned "celebrities" in his talk — as if Megan Fox were plugging thoughts into Adam Lanza's mind. The relation between culture and murder simply does not exist and has never existed. It just doesn't.

Below is the most relevant part of the NRA's statement, all italics theirs:

And here's another dirty little truth that the media try their best to conceal: There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people.

Through vicious, violent video games with names like Bulletstorm, Grand Theft Auto, Mortal Kombat and Splatterhouse. And here’s one: it’s called Kindergarten Killers. It’s been online for 10 years. How come my research department could find it and all of yours either couldn’t or didn’t want anyone to know you had found it?

Then there’s the blood-soaked slasher films like American Psycho and Natural Born Killers that are aired like propaganda loops on "Splatterdays" and every day, and a thousand music videos that portray life as a joke and murder as a way of life. And then they have the nerve to call it "entertainment."

But is that what it really is? Isn't fantasizing about killing people as a way to get your kicks really the filthiest form of pornography?

In a race to the bottom, media conglomerates compete with one another to shock, violate and offend every standard of civilized society by bringing an ever-more-toxic mix of reckless behavior and criminal cruelty into our homes — every minute of every day of every month of every year. A child growing up in America witnesses 16,000 murders and 200,000 acts of violence by the time he or she reaches the ripe old age of 18. I have to say this lengthy piece of paranoid rambling really brought me back. It was like being in the nineties all over again, with the claim by very old, very uncultured people that youth and culture were really alibis for murderousness. The good news is that because we had to go through all this in the nineties, we don't have to go through it now. The studies have been done. Here's the clearest one, which the Atlantic republished three days ago.

Common sense says as much as any study, though. Widespread mass slaughter by guns is an American disease. Everywhere else in the world consumes American culture voraciously, and yet they don't have murder as a public-health problem. Canadians and Koreans play more video games than Americans, but manage to rein in their shooting impulses. Ever seen Japanese slasher movies? Or Japanese pornography? It redefines exploitation and disgust. Japan has virtually no gun deaths. Why? One answer — I'm just saying — is that it has virtually no guns.

People much more serious than Lapierre are tempted to listen to the cultural argument about gun death. Joe Scarborough mentioned "the culture of violence" on his show, and so did President Obama during his first legislative proposal. It is imperative to note, right now, that this is garbage. There are many fascinating and difficult questions to be had over guns. Even the possibility of armed guards in schools should seriously be discussed. But the question of culture is not worth discussing. There's nothing to discuss. Culture products do not lead to an increase in murder. Period. Leave Megan Fox out of it.

[Larry Lucido]

It was this.

[Joe 6-pack]

Marche is almost breath-taking in his sheer stupidity.

And his hypocrisy. The same guy who is now saying Hollywood doesn't influence behavior wrote this essay last January, stating:

"Advertising works: Why do you think Americans are so fat and in debt? A world of hyperadvertising in which advertising dominates the basic functions of living will obviously be a world of hyperconsumption. We've blamed the bankers and the government for the inability of Americans to keep within sustainable limits, but everything ordinary people do, from walking down the street to sending an e-mail, tells them either overtly or clandestinely to spend more...advertising intrudes more and more surreptitiously into every aspect of life...as social-media companies dream of a world in which the persuasion is so subtle and insidious and constant and perfectly pitched that the distinction between a brand and an identity dissolves entirely, advertising has become too essential to life to treat so casually or contemptuously."

But now, 11 months later, he concludes that Hollywood doesn't influence behavior.

[Strategerist]

In the 1800's, there were no background checks, no waiting periods, no age requirements, gun locks did not exist, there were no arbitrary gun restrictions, gun safes were few and far between, yet school shootings NEVER happened.

Don't have school-shooting rates but the murder rate in the 1800s in America was a lot higher than it is today.

Last time I checked there were no Tarantino movies or Call of Duty games in 1850.

[y6162]

Nonsense. The violent Hollywood porn wave and the ACLU protected monsters commit mass murders. Not legally purchased guns.

[y6162]

There have been many mass murders in Europe most notably the school shooting in Scotland and camp shooting in Norway.
Committed by mad men. No evidence. duh

Comparing European culture to America is an intellectually lazy tactic.

[AllAmericanGirl44]

Believe me, I know this! I live in Chicagoland, so this is nothing new to me.

I was attempting to point out the nonstop hypocrisy...

[Alaska Wolf]

I live in Chicagoland,

At least you have the Cubs. ;^)

[Psycho_Bunny]

“He provides the evidence that other countries watch the exact same movies (and have even more violent locally-produced movies) and play the same video games, but are far less violent.”

Apples to oranges. The other countries can’t identify with the fundementals of the culture being portrayed and will - of course- be less effected by it.

But you’ll note, many foreigners actually believe our culture is how it’s portrayed in violent movies.

[Wuli]

if the argument that the media culture has nothing to do with a proliferation of demented mass killers, then

is there really no correllation at all with the ban on broadcast media advertizing for cigarette/cigar/chewing tobaocco products, together with the entertainment media’s carrying the tobacco-is-bad meme into every form of entertainment

and the very large decline in smoking???

or is the uber-Liberal entertainment and advertizing industries simply a bunch of hypocrites, with positions of “cultural promotion is not the problem” when it suits them and “cultural promotion is the problem” when it suits them

[vbmoneyspender]

Don't have school-shooting rates but the murder rate in the 1800s in America was a lot higher than it is today.

And the murder rates in the 15th and 16th centuries were much higher than they were in the 17th and 18th centuries - which would indicate that murder rates aren't tied to the lethality of available technology but rather to how civilized people are and how able they are to control their violent impulses.

Long-Term Historical Trends in Violent Crime