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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Porn and Violence: Good for America's Children? |
| 2004-07-28 |
| Last week, I responded to James Glassman's observation that American teenagers are doing better than they've done in decades by trying to figure out why that might be. Teen pregnancy is down, along with teen crime, drug use, and many other social ills. There's also evidence that teenagers are more serious about life in general, and are more determined to make something worthwhile of their lives. Where just a few years ago the "teenager problem" looked insoluble, it seems well on the road to solving itself. But why? After that column came out, it occurred to me that I had the answer: Porn and videogames. That's what's making American teens healthier. It should have been obvious. After all, one of the great changes in teenagers' social environments over the past decade or so has been far greater exposure to explicit pornography, via the Internet, and violence, via videogames. Where twenty or thirty years ago teenagers had to go to some effort to see pictures of people having sex, now those things are as close as a Google query. (In fact, on the Internet it takes some small effort to avoid such pictures.) Meanwhile videogames have gotten more violent, with efforts to limit their content failing on First Amendment grounds. But -- despite continued warnings from concerned mothers' groups -- teenagers are less violent, and they're having less sex, notwithstanding the predictions of many concerned people that such exposure would have the opposite effect. More virtual sex and violence would seem to go along with less real sex and violence. The solution is thus obvious -- we need a massive government program to ensure that no American teenager goes without porn and videogames Let no child be left behind! |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #7 Hey! Is that where our cowbell motto went!!?? I want it back, right this very minute! Don't make me pull over.... |
| Posted by: Sgt. Mom 2004-07-28 5:43:35 PM |
| #6 BS...the only thing kids need these days is more cowbell! |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2004-07-28 4:37:47 PM |
| #5 But it's a really really grand theory - it MUST be right! Who cares what happens in the so-called real world? From my lofty esteemed position, high above the teeming masses, theory is sacrosanct - as it should be! Along with my coterie of well-heeled sycophants I recently witnessed a Bergman epic at the Arthouse that proved it! Truth enshrined! Uplifting and fulfilling, it lay waste to the barbaric icons of crude and nekulturny Americana. Everyone at the Dean's cocktail party agreed it was simply splendid! Scoff if you must as it only makes my point: You're Peasants! |
| Posted by: .com 2004-07-28 3:20:44 PM |
| #4 Baby boomer kids are turning out way better than their parents. Mine are literate, sober, kind to animals and excellent fishermen. I am only to of the above. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-07-28 2:55:29 PM |
| #3 If a culture aims for the gutter, it will end up in the gutter. The babyboomers should congratulate themselves for producing a bunch of moral idiots (immoral idiots is probably a better choice of words). Can't men see what this is doing to women, children and families? Or are they just so selfish they are willing to ignore it? The communists couldn't have done a better job with providing a way for western civilization to slide the iron yoke on. |
| Posted by: AnonymousJ 2004-07-28 2:48:10 PM |
| #2 Exposure to violent television programs and movies definitely have zero impact on Far Eastern societies. Hong Kong and Japanese broadcast TV show far more violent material than is available on American TV *or* movie screens. And yet their murder and other violent crime rates are a fraction of ours. And it's not a matter of the examples set by characters in these programs or movies either - Asian TV programs or movies are far more ambiguous about who the good guy is than American shows, which tend to side with law enforcement personnel. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-07-28 2:14:02 PM |
| #1 Booze! They need access to more booze. |
| Posted by: dreadnought 2004-07-28 12:55:26 PM |