Violence in the Arts – Plato vs. Aristotle Essay

Sissela Bok opens a controversial topic on violence as entertainment which explores the effect of the increasing of violence both in fiction and in real life. Not only do films, television shows, and video games evidence an escalating level of graphic violence, but daily news of war and other human brutality are as bad as well. As less time pass on doing physical activities and an increase in using electronic devices as increases, particularly by teens, there is growing concern about a possible link between violence viewing content and actual behavior. Bok draws a balanced image, naming some possible benefits from violence. One of the benefits could be the redirection of human physical and verbal aggression and the confrontation of fears in

In Gerard Jones' essay “Violent Media is Good for Kids,” he argues a position not taken by many in today's culture. Jones advocates children should be exposed to violent media in order to overcome real life hardships. The problem with Jones' argument arise when he fails to develop his somewhat dated ideas and leaves his audience questioning how effective such exposure would be.

I chose this topic because I want to be a videogame designer and I wanted to defend my right to create what I want. Unfortunately, after researching this topic it is clear that it is no longer possible to say violent media is completely harmless. Videogames and television do have harmful effects on children and young adults. Research has been done since the 1950’s and almost all studies show clear evidence that media violence does cause increased violent tendencies, desensitization, and antisocial behavior – which is the same as sociopathic and psychopathic behavior, it does not mean introverted.

A controversy has been made over if media or video game violence can influence the viewers. There are some that say people can comprehend the difference between what is real and what is not, but as seen on news outlets, games like GTA V are to blame for violence in adolescences to rise. The idea is that early violence exposure should be stopped. Famous romantic poet Shelley, wrote something similar to this in Frankenstein. She wrote about how the creature experienced violence and then in turned displayed his anger towards people.

“Violent Media Is Good for Kids” is a short essay written by Gerard Jones. In Jones’s essay, while the author was trying to convince the audience that violent media can be very beneficial when controlling rage along with a range of emotions and shaping children’s perceptions of life.in children but he falls flat when appealing to the logic and ethos, thus making it unlikely that his audience will side with him.

In the modern-day world, people are convinced that the Earth is plagued by mass shootings and other acts of violence because of violent media. Children and adolescents being exposed to violent media is deemed, by society, to be detrimental to their mental health. In Gerard Jones’ “Violent Media is Good for Kids,” he vindicates violent media. Exposing children to violent media through video games, comic books, and movies are beneficial to children in Jones’ claim. He believes that violent media creates opportunities for children and teaches children to overcome their fears in order to battle their own subconscious hurdles.

In “Violent Media is Good for Kids,” Gerard argues that, violent media is not necessarily harmful to kids, rather very essential and of great importance to them and their future lives.

Engaging yourself with homicidal, murderous, and vicious media leads to an increase in aggression, lack of empathy, and it desensitizes you to violence. Researchers have found immense evidence supporting the thought that high levels of violence in movies, television, and other media induce mental illness and disturbed behaviors. When children are exposed to brutal actions they start to blur the line between reality and fantasy. It is proven that “ ‘The amount of gun violence shown in PG-13 films have more than tripled since 1985’ ” (pg 29 paragraph 4). Children model what they see. When young children see people murdering each other in a video game, it desensitizes them into thinking it is okay. To what extent are we going to allow ourselves

Furthermore, Carol Olsen proclaims, in an article titled “Carol Olson: Senior Columnist: Too much violence on TV and movies”, it states shockingly “there has been a mass shooting somewhere in America ALMOST monthly since 2009”. Her belief is that the violence in the media, including video games, teaches the viewer to “shoot and kill people just for the fun of it” and that in addition to that the reality based television programs portray family members that behave badly toward one another. Dishonesty and loss of values are what is portrayed by these families via many lies and deceitful behavior, and Olsen’s belief is that it is not possible to be surrounded by so much cruelty and anger without it having an effect on you; I agree wholeheartedly. Contrarily, some of the supporters of these types of programs defer to the first amendment and claim that censorship violates their freedom of speech, and in a way I agree that it does; however, I believe as a society we must weigh the pros and the cons, and that the

Plato, in addition to being a philosopher, wrestled at the Olympic level, is one of the classical Greek authors, mathematicians and the founder of The Academy, the first higher learning institute in the west. In short, Plato is one of the great thinkers in history and his contributions to philosophy, ethics and politics are many and varied. One of Plato’s main philosophical ideas is based on the idea that the world

Violence in movies needs to be decreased. When has it been okay to promote violence? We want to teach our kids that violence is never the answer. Then why have children watch movies that show violence in a presumptuous way? Statistics show that violence has reduced in the last 10 years, but the rate of violent crimes is still too high. Kaplan says, “Nearly two-thirds of TV programs contain some physical violence”(Kaplan). Any type of violence can play a role in the mental corruption of a person. The physical violence can take the biggest toll on someone. If someone watches physical violence from a movie, they could

Most experts contend that violent television shows, video games, and toys promote aggression and destructive behavior. Rhodes (2000) states, “The American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the National Institutes of Mental Health say that there is a link between entertainment and violence. In fact, no direct, causal link between exposure to mock violence in the media and subsequent violent behavior has ever been demonstrated…” (p. 555). While violence in entertainment is pervasive and a real concern; it needs to be understood and addressed rather than blamed as the cause. After all, it is possible seek solutions to minimize violence when you understand the nature of

The media is currently regulated according to voluntary industry established rating systems. Many critics state that these systems that are in place do not effectively inform guardians or prevent children from accessing violent content. In 2007, the United States government addressed that some regulations might be placed in order to protect children. Such regulations have yet to be seen but are being pushed (Gerdes81). Violent media is protected by the first amendment, which is why society is fine without the regulations. They would rather place the possible effects on children growing up rather than feel like their freedom of speech is being tampered with. As stated, “Naturally, debate over media violence stirs up strong emotions because it raises concern about the balance between public safety and freedom of speech” (Matter 1). In order to keep hold of our rights, society is not willing to regulate the amount of violent content that is presented in the media. Professionals such as doctors should also be more aware of the role that media is playing on the lives of their patients. It is crucial for them to be asking what devices that patients have at home and what they watch and play. The government realizes that they should place regulations, but it is a difficult situation for them due to the courts protecting violent speech under the first amendment. This is in order to help place some regulations and maintain a healthy amount of violence in the media that they are intaking (Beresein 1). Eighty-two percent of parents that allow their children to watch between two to four hours on a daily basis believe that violence in children's programming is concerning, and nine out of ten says that they are seeing a negative impact taking place in their children (Gerdes 82). Many counter this by saying that it is the parent's

Here, he is a believer in those who use knowledge to understand nature in reality and is against people who use their senses through art to understand the beauty of nature. In addition, Plato says artists promote the use of our senses over reason through something they do not have an experience of. According to Plato, “There are philosophers, who form an idea, then a craftsperson, who makes the physical representation of the idea, and then the poor artist who creates a copy of a copy of that idea” (Blocker 5). In this sense, an artist has no clue what he is creating because his works are only imitations of other people’s ideas. Therefore, Plato considered artists to be dangerous in the human society because they are not experts in the representations they create.

In the book Critique of Violence ,author Walter describes Violence as "The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, male development, or deprivation .The violence that is portrayed in the media has been debated for decades ,and it has rose a question about how does it influence the youth?. From movies to video games society has been accustom to seeing violence in their everyday entertainment. Since children are easy to be influence by their environment, it is safe to say that violence in the media can and will contribute to violent behavior.