Regarding the Pain of Others

Book Description

How does the spectacle of the sufferings of others (via television or newsprint) affect us? Are viewers inured-or incited-to violence by the depiction of cruelty? In Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag takes a fresh look at the representation of atrocity-from Goya's The Disasters of War to photographs of the American Civil War, lynchings of blacks in the South, and the Nazi death camps, to contemporary horrific images of Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Israel and Palestine, and New York City on September 11, 2001. In Regarding the Pain of Others Susan Sontag once again changes the way we think about the uses and meanings of images in our world, and offers an important reflection about how war itself is waged (and understood) in our time.

Customer Reviews:

A Book that Everybody Must Read!!!.......2007-09-15

Susan Sontag only passed away recently. She was more of a philosopher, social activist, literary critic, and essayist than a fictional writer. In this book, she points out British writer Virginia Woolfe's view of war in today's society. War is a crime and an outrage where ever it might be whether it's in the boardroom, Wall Street, Sarajevo, Kabul, Baghdad, etc. War comes in many shapes and forms but what does war really mean to us. Is it about killing human lives or what about the destruction of the human soul in our society, we are transformed by the images displayed on cable television about the two wars going on and the lives lost. We are close to four thousand American soldiers being killing in Iraq. We had no reason to go but we did and now we must clean up the mess. I totally support our troops overseas because they are selfless human beings who would sacrifice their lives for their country. But what about the leaders who sent them there only to return home in coffins or end up at Walter Reed Medical Center for the injured veterans. Are the injured better off than the casualties? Maybe not because they have to live with their images of war and their actions. Sontag's book works because it makes us think about war without thinking so much about it. Where do we stand? Of course, it would be a perfect world without war and peace prevailed but war is a fact of life. Maybe Sontag should have used examples of wartime strategies that are not so gory or gloom with images of death and destruction. She did not live long enough to see Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Gulf Coast. What about the business world where casualties are not just in coffins but at the unemployment office? This book made me think so that's why I'm writing about this situation. We lose 18,000 Americans every year because they lack health insurance, that's six times the amount of the victims of September 11, 2001. Maybe we don't have to declare war, uninsured Americans are at war with a society who has neglected them or disregarded their needs for whatever reason.

Suggestive but incomplete.......2007-01-10

Sontag's essay is concerned with the moral implications of looking, through photographs, at people who are suffering or dead. Much of the book is a history of war photography, which is intimately bound with the history of public tolerance of violent photos. While Sontag does not provide any revolutionary ideas, the essay is a succinct and thorough examination of the issues surrounding photography. And, if there is no grand thesis to keep in mind, her exploration is full of smaller, thought-provoking observations. She notes, for example, that displaying photos of dead bodies is less taboo the more foreign and faraway those bodies are. Until she pointed it out, I had not even realised how North American coverage of 9-11 included practically no pictures of corpses, although picturing the dead in foreign conflicts is an expectable way of rallying support for the victims. Her remarks on the way a photo replaces the memory of the thing itself are, if not surprising, good to have restated.

Sontag also does not ignore the uncomfortable reality of the pleasure which most people have in regarding suffering, but in this as in many areas of her essay, I wished that she would go further, spend more time teasing out and elaborating her analysis -- I wished, in other words, that she had written a real book-length book, not a long essay. On the other hand, the incompleteness of her discussion means that it is particularly good at stimulating further thought, at opening questions rather than closing them off.

Sontag adds here name to the after postmodernism movement.......2006-05-30

Sontag questions her ideas that have influenced half a centary. She is not alone Terry Eagleton (After Theory), Elain Showalter, Sandra Gilbert, and even Derrida (life.after theory) have done the same

Visual means are not enough to understand visual realities .......2006-01-22

As another reviewer of this book on Amazon has pointed out the title of this book is somewhat misleading. This is not a general consideration of the subject of how we regard the pain of others. And it is too not even a comprehensive treatment of how we regard the pain of strangers when that is represented to us through the media. It is rather a kind of historical consideration of the subject of representation of war through visual images, and how that has effected its intended audience.
Sontag begins with the horrifying representations of Goya, considers Civil War photography, images of the two great wars, including images of the Holocaust, representations of 9/11 and of recent horrors in Kossovo, and what her publisher refers to as Israel/Palestine.
As another Amazon reviewer has pointed out she does not really make a coherent strong argument. Her essay is a loose discursive one, written in her ordinary complex, awkward and difficult to understand style.
One important insight she has is that 'photographs' will always have a place for us because we can contemplate and remember them in the way we cannot the flow of images in video or film. The startling images that remain in mind of horrors of war are those given in photographs. And she too points out that it is the content of these photographs which is important, and that often the work done by amateurs who catch a vital moment is more memorable than that of professionals. This was she writes the case with many Holocaust photos, and also with the photos from 9/11.
Sontag wrote this book while she herself was going through the pain of terminal cancer. And for me this gives her absorption with the subject a certain authenticity.
Nonetheless I believe that she has only scratched the surface of the questions raised about the 'public presentation of the horrors of war'. The guilt over being entertained by the nightly news horror is one question i.e. whether 'looking at such photos' is not in a certain way a kind of 'moral failing'. But of course this when the 'turning away' can also be a moral fault.
But this leads to what I believe is a major error in the whole enterprise, the whole laying out of the subject. Photos alone , video alone cannot give enough background and context to make the reality wholly understandable. To see something horrible and be repelled by it( a little girl running naked with her hands up as in the famous Vietnam war photo, or emaciated bodies lying on bunk beds unable to move- as in photos of the liberation of concentration camps) is humane, and moral. But to really understand those realities, and all the realities which she is writing about a person has to know what is going on in a deeper way.
Here I come to another kind of criticism of Sontag, one which relates to her work in general. Her extreme - left often anti-American views have always repelled me. In this book she talks about how militants from both sides of the Israeli/ Arab Palestinian conflict look at their own victims. She picks as the Israeli victim one blown up in a suicide - bombing in Sbarro pizza in Jerusalem. And she picks as the Palestinian victim a child hit by an Israeli tank shell. These examples and her presentation of them it seems to me expose a basic misperception and immorality in her whole enterprise. The Israeli victims in Sbarro including four members of one family were civilians who were deliberately targeted. A photo of their scattered remains would no doubt be horrifying. A Palestinian child torn apart by a tank shell would present a no less horrifying picture. And it would fill every decent person with revulsion. But the fact is nonetheless that Israeli tankists do not fire deliberately at civilians. In fact they have orders to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties. This is in complete opposition to the policy of Palestinian terror groups who aim to murder and maim.
Being horrified by the images does not enable us to understand fully the reality.
Again the main point is that a more comprehensively truthful approach to the visual representations would have to closely relate them to literary presentations.
Finally. Sontag makes the point that the horrors of war cannot be understood really by those who have never really been in such wars. I believe that she is probably right. But that does not mean that those who have been exposed automatically have higher moral judgment.
As I understand it Sontag throughout her writing life, raised real questions but provided most often inadequate and even morally mistaken answers.

A Fine Career Bookend.......2005-08-23

I think this book would be more aptly called "Regarding War Photography" or "War Photography as Metaphor" (keeping Sontag-style titles intact). Unfortunately misnamed, this is a book about the effect of war photography on the viewer. It's about representation and what the image means to us, what the absence of an image does or doesn't mean to us. Not a book about the pain of others, it demonstrates how images of others' pain shape our views of their pain.

Sontag writes a brief history of war imagery, beginning with the advent of photography (the result of the amount of time required to take a picture) to faster and lighter cameras (likely to capture, rather than to re-recreate or to show only war's aftermath), to television, to the present (the internet, constant access and the expectation of constant access to images). She goes back, pre-photography, to discuss a few specific paintings that depict war or other suffering. She describes the methodology of the photographs--often naming specific images and photographers--analyzes their impact, how the images are viewed during the war and, because of the images, the war thought of by future generations.

Her interpretations are largely familiar and unchanged since "On Photography," but "Regarding the Pain of Others" discusses only war photography. That her analyses are expected doesn't detract from them; Sontag's input about this topic is valuable -- some early war photographs are staged; specific atrocities have become more urgent or real after being viewed; photojournalism is given a special veracity unlike other art forms; images shape our memories of wars that took place in prior generations. Sontag is clear about disbelieving in "collective memory" and states that it is the artifacts, photographs, we are left with that determine our feelings.

Worth seeking out is a shorter piece Sontag wrote called "Regarding the Torture of Others" (quite true to its title) after the Abu Ghirab prison photographs were released. In a way, it's a finer example of what this book achieves, though far more condensed.

Toward the end, she revisits "On Photography." She's recently re-read it and isn't sure if she agrees with certain elements. She debates herself in a way, though in my opinion, only in the smaller scheme of her general argument about representation and its relationship to fact and result. On a personal level, I was glad to see her revisit "On Photography." It read as a celebration of her groundbreaking work and ways of thinking about photographic representation. The circular nature, yet diffierent topics, discussed at the start and near end of her brilliant life and career rendered this, for me, satisfying and somewhat sad. I will miss her flow of opinions.

Five Lies of the Century: How Many Do You Believe?

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Many friends have borrowed this book
Revisionist History - A Book Full of LIES
Sorry, it doesn't cut it sometimes.
Excellent
The Truth Will Set You Free

Five Lies of the Century: How Many Do You Believe?
David T. Moore
Manufacturer: Tyndale House Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | World | History | Subjects | Books

General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0842318690

Book Description

Exposes five lies generated by secular society concerning the founding of our nation, the structure of the family, evolution, sexuality, and entertainment.

Customer Reviews:

Many friends have borrowed this book.......2003-03-27

It is an excellent book and many friends have borrowed it and bought their own copies.

One warning.
There are two chapters that hit a nerve with some people. Number one is the chapter on abortion. If you know anyone who has had one they immediately put the book down and have nothing but bad things to say about it, irregardless of the other chapters. The other subject is homosexuality. If you have any friends who are gay or believe that gays are victims they will shut down and discount the book entirely.

I almost wish I could remove those chapters for those individuals so they wouldn't lose their objectivity.

Revisionist History - A Book Full of LIES.......2003-02-03

This was a book full of lies. Revisionist historians like Moore only write to promote their agenda, which is the theocratization of this country.

You want to know what our forefathers thought, what they intended for this country? Read the debates from the Constitutional Convention, the Federalist Papers, The Anti-Federalist Papers. Read the biographies and collections of letters of these great men. Don't get your history filtered through the opinions and lies of a zealot like Moore.

Reading things like this, that contradict mainstream thought and reinforce religious ideology, I know, makes readers feel special, like they know something that the rest of poor, deluded American society doesn't. They are wrong. And so is Moore.

Sorry, it doesn't cut it sometimes........2001-09-03

Well, i can say that this is a good book. It has SOME good info in it. However, some of what seems to be the best info seems to be from sources that are quite possibly highly biased. It definitely tells truths, but sometimes they turn out to be half truths. I think if you are considering buying the book, go ahead and buy it. But when you find a good argument make sure to check the sources to make sure you don't come of sounding like an idiot :) Make the decision for yourself.

Excellent.......2001-01-04

I read this book when I first started going to college, at a time when I was questioning my faith because of the incessant secularism I was bombarded with from professors. Reading this book helped me settle my heart about my faith by showing me that the secular academic onslought of ideas that I was drowning in was not well-established, objective, scientific truth, but rather a highly biased, one-sided version of events. Whether regarding American history, the sexual revolution, homosexuality, entertainment, or even law, David T. Moore helped me see that Christians need not accept their beliefs solely "on faith," but that faith can be reasonable, too. His chapter on evolution was especially insightful for me, for it showed me that in spite of all the gobbly-de-gook that professors were shoving down my throat, it was actually more reasonable for me to believe in a Divine Creator than it was to assume that my entire existence was nothing more than a cosmic accident which occurred in a puddle of slime millions of years ago. This book showed me that not even science is above politics and moral agendas. David T. Moore's book was an excellent introduction for me to the culture war that has corroded American society.

The Truth Will Set You Free.......2000-03-31

A very well researched book that provides christians withamunition to fight against the lies of evolution, sex, family,entertainment, and America's providential history. This book was very easy to read and contains great quotes. Moore gives truths and evidence for his convictions. He tackles very controversial issues like homosexuality, abortion, and the entertainment industry with a great deal of class and boldness. A book every American should read.

Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill : A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence

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Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill
Important as Today's Headlines
This book should be widely read
The most Eye Opening Book on children and violence
Highly credible with an interesting approach

Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill : A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence
Dave Grossman , and Gloria Degaetano
Manufacturer: Crown
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Accessories:

ASIN: 0609606131
Release Date: 1999-10-05

Book Description

There is perhaps no bigger or more important issue in America at present than youth violence. Jonesboro; Paducah; Pearl, Mississippi; Stamps, Arkansas; Conyers, Georgia; and, of course, Littleton, Colorado. We know them all too well, and for all the wrong reasons: kids, some as young as eleven years old, taking up arms and, with deadly, frightening accuracy, murdering anyone in their paths. What is going on? According to the authors of Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill, there is blame to be laid right at the feet of the makers of violent video games (called "murder trainers" by one expert), the TV networks, and the Hollywood movie studios--the people responsible for the fact that children witness literally thousands of violent images a day.

Authors Lt. Col. Dave Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano offer incontrovertible evidence, much of it based on recent major scientific studies and empirical research, that movies, TV, and video games are not just conditioning children to be violent--and unaware of the consequences of that violence--but are teaching the very mechanics of killing. Their book is a much-needed call to action for every parent, teacher, and citizen to help our children and stop the wave of killing and violence gripping America's youth. And, most important, it is a blueprint for us all on how that can be achieved.

In Paducah, Kentucky, Michael Carneal, a fourteen-year-old boy who stole a gun from a neighbor's house, brought it to school and fired eight shots at a student prayer group as they were breaking up. Prior to this event, he had never shot a real gun before. Of the eight shots he fired, he had eight hits on eight different kids. Five were head shots, the other three upper torso. The result was three dead, one paralyzed for life. The FBI says that the average, experienced, qualified law enforcement officer, in the average shootout, at an average range of seven yards, hits with less than one bullet in five. How does a child acquire such killing ability? What would lead him to go out and commit such a horrific act?

Customer Reviews:

Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill.......2007-05-17

This book hits upon a topic that has become severe in this country; youth violence. It discusses many avenues that contribute to our youth using violence against each other. It brings to light numerous strategies that parents, teachers, and other adult agencies can use to decrease, if not completely vanish, the violence seen in our youth. Fantastically written, this book is a must read for anyone who has kids, deals with kids, or is just a member of our society.

Important as Today's Headlines.......2007-03-19

Lt Col Grossman spent a lifetime studying what made soldiers more efficient killers in combat and able to survive. His work extended in to the world of police officers. With a worldwide reputation Grossman is the goto guy.

And then Grossman turned his focus on the army of deadly young killers. Killers who achieve far better performance than police officers in combat. Somewhere in their "training" was a mechanism that turned off the moral control system and honed their responses. As one young killer explained why he first killed his enemies and then his friends, he was on a roll.

Bound to be opposed by Hollywood, the electronic games folks and others, Grossman has the credentials that demand attention from balanced readers.

Grossman documents the effectiveness of "games" which give potential killers the motor skills, training and discipline to be cold blooded mass killers, without any training whatsoever on real firearms. Games, TV and the movies have sanitized shooting and death. The first bullet ever fired by the youngster is a head shot and just like he has done in thousands of games he quickly turns to make the next shot , the next and the next , just as he has been so well trained to do.

In contrast the young person familiar with firearms is far more likely to stop after one shot, devastated by what they have done.

One of the truly worrisome details highlighted by the book is that the only reason murders and murder rates have declined is the higher quality of emergency medicine available in most areas of the country. Without these improvements in emergency medicine the murder rate would have increased significantly.

Today April 16, 2006 his message is more relevant than ever before. Give knowledge a chance. The pattern of the Virginia school shootings follows the warning pattern described by Grossman. If we fail to heed the message we condemn hundreds to their deaths at the hands of these killers we have raised in our communities.

Highly recommended.

This book should be widely read.......2005-12-06

This book approaches the phenomenon of media violence in three parts. First, it points to the rising crime rate in America, during a period of declining racial violence, soaring incarceration rate, terrific advances in police technology, advanced medical technology, faster first-response medical help, and an increasingly educated populace. Yet violent crime has skyrocketed (Aggravated assault, to take one example, was 80/100,000 in 1960, and is about 400/100,000 today), and the muder rate has remained level. To see how far medical advances have come and to illustrate how the murder rate should be declining, the authors point out that that a wound that 9 times out of 10 killed in WWII was survived 9 times out of 10 in Vietnam.

The relationship between these trends and violent media is not one of pure speculation, but of methodical study. There have been thousands of studies on the relation, virtually all of which have concluded a link between violent media and violent behavior. One of the most interesting studies related took place in an area where there were four villages, all without television. Researches went in and observed for two weeks children on the playgrounds in these villages, and recorded all instances of physical aggression. Then televisions were brought into two of the villages. New researchers, unaware of the goal of their research, were brought in to again observe the children. Levels of aggression remained constant in the villages without television, and increased 160% in the villages with television.

The second part of this book talks about how watching violent media actually affects us. It does so in 3 ways:

1. It incites fear in us. Violent crimes are much, much more common in TV-world than in the real world. We subconsciously internalize this danger, and become more fearful of others than we would be if we weren't so hyperaware of violence, and didn't expect violence to be so common.
2. It desensitizes us. The more violence we watch, the less is affects us physically. The level of violence that excites a person's body to a certain point must continually increase to keep effecting the same reaction. As we become hardened to violence and horror on the screen, we also become jaded, without realizing it, to real-life violence.
3. It makes us more aggressive. A person who watches violent media, when presented with a conflict situation, is more liable to think of a violent solution as a viable one, and quicker to resort to such a solution

The third part of this book deals with video games, which have much the same effect as violent TV and movies. Further, however:

1. They train players to kill. Michael Carneal, a 14 year old kid who had never fired a gun before, went on a spree one day. 8 shots to 8 people, all in the head or upper torso. This inexperienced kid killed like a Special Forces vet. Video games didn't make him kill, but he (and many others) could never have been so deadly without them.
2. Video Games lower the resistence to killing. One of the greatest innovations in military technology between WWII (where on average 15% of soldiers actually fired at the enemy) and Vietnam (90% fire rate) was the movement from bulleyes to silouhettes in targeting practice. Video games are even better. Playing them, one becomes used to shooting at human figures. A first person shooter player just doesn't have same the resistence to shooting another human as a non-player.

In sum, video games don't make people kill, but they do make them damn good at it, and they do lower internal resistences which might otherwise prevent someone from killing.

I said that there were three parts in this book, but there is actually a fourth. Both authors are parents, and end the book in practical advice about how to talk to kids about simulated violence.

If you watch a lot of violent media or play a lot of violent video games, this book does call for some self-examination. It is difficult, however. How can you tell if you are desensitized? How can you tell if you are fearful, or aggressive? I can only say that I have, long before reading this book, been finding myself more senstive to violence, less aggressive, and less fearful of other's aggression since I have stopped watching TV and stopped playing video games.

The most Eye Opening Book on children and violence.......2005-09-07

This book is definitely an eye opener for parents and future parents. Mr. Grossman has packed this book full of knowledge that will "without a doubt" keep your child more safe and less likely to turn to violence. He gives you excellent statistics, knowledge, case studies, and powerful tips that WILL keep your child safe and on the road to success. This book is the best violence+children book I have read. Excellent work and a must read for all parents.

Highly credible with an interesting approach.......2005-05-27

The authors explore the possibility that violence committed by young people results from what they learn through television, movies, and video games. They cite scientific studies and research to emphasize that children actually learn how to kill by viewing these games and programs. It takes an in-depth look at media violence, but does not touch on the other media-related social problems.

Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence

Average customer rating:

Changed my views on violent play
A must-read for every parent!
Fatally flawed by the use of poor examples and lack of response to opposing arguments
Some echoes of Bettelheim
A Teen's Honest Opinion

Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence
Gerard Jones
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Popular Culture | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

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Accessories:

ASIN: 0465036961
Release Date: 2003-05-06

Book Description

From a veteran creator of children's entertainment, an insider's view of how even the most violent games and TV shows can help children conquer fears and develop a bold sense of self.

Children choose their heroes more carefully than we think. From Pokémon to the rapper Eminem, pop-culture icons are not simply commercial pied pipers who practice mass hypnosis on our youth. Indeed, argues the author of this lively and persuasive paean to the power of popular culture, even trashy or violent entertainment gives children something they need, something that can help both boys and girls develop in a healthy way. Drawing on a wealth of true stories, many gleaned from the fascinating workshops he conducts, and basing his claims on extensive research, including interviews with psychologists and educators, Gerard Jones explains why validating our children's fantasies teaches them to trust their own emotions and build stronger selves.

Customer Reviews:

Changed my views on violent play.......2007-03-19

I have always had major issues with violent play and my children. I grew up in a household where any type of violent game, tv, or play was shunned and banned. Because of this I have issues with my sons violent play. After reading an article in Mothering magazine featuring this book I forced myself to buy this book. I wanted to disagree with everything that Gerad Jones had to say. I wanted to dismiss all his ideas and stick to my thought that violent play was bad. The truth is he changed my mind. M husband and I have allowed my boys to start playing with toy guns and whatever imaginative games they want and I truly see that it changes them for the better not the worst. I would suggest to every parent that they read this book!

A must-read for every parent!.......2007-03-12

I actually picked up this book, in order to do research for a super-hero project for children that I am working on. I never expected for it to drastically change my views on parenting as well!

I have seen many parents restrict Barbie's, guns, waterguns, and swords to children, only to see it backfire. Children pick up on the tension that the parents emit, and this often ends up having quite the opposite effect. This book reminds all parents and educators to loosen up, and try to understand the children's viewpoints before restricting access to toys and fantasies and impose their adult views and fears onto the children, which ultimately makes situations worse, not better. This book does not promote violence, it promotes better and balanced parenting.

Again, every parent should read this book! It helped me see super-heroes, Barbie, the Power Rangers and Pokemon through the children's eyes, which I much needed for my project.

Fatally flawed by the use of poor examples and lack of response to opposing arguments.......2006-02-08

When I saw this book I immediately went to the index to see what the author had to say about Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's book "On Killing" which looks at military training methods and compares them to the _current_ video games some kids (males for the most part) play today.

Considering the fact that "On Killing," which was published years before this, is perhaps one of the strongest opposing arguments against the author's thesis I expected a lengthy response. The author wrote less than a half page.(!) The author contends that Grossman is wrong because the military is a controlled environment whereas video games are not. That's it. That's his refutation of an entire text and argument in opposition to his.

The idea that one needs a controlled environment to create violence in humans is just nonsensical. Sociological factors that influence behavior are everywhere, from the behavior of males and females to how people of different cultures act and dress. None of it is a "controlled environment." Only a moron or an intellectually dishonest person would dismiss the impact of this sociological phenomena with such a quick brush.

The author's dishonesty is quite obvious by the use of the image on the front cover. A kid from the 1950s or 60s with a toy play gun. Innocent, silly, and yes, a little violent. American boys have been doing this for generations. They'll even use sticks form the woods to simulate a gun. But a stick gun (or a plastic ray gun) is not the same as modern video games.

I grew up on Nintendo - Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Brothers, etc. Some violence, yes, but nothing compared to what we have today. Modern video games show with absolute detail the death and distruction of human beings in completey gorey detail. Spurting blood, screams, mayhem. There is no comparison between these games and _anything_ in previous human history. When we were kids out in the woods and "shot" each other no one's guts spilled open and our heads didn't explode. But that is what we have with many modern games. What we have is nothing less than a mass experiment in human behavior with our young children (mostly boys) as the test subjects. For the author to dismiss - and use such faulty examples - is not just dishonest. It's irresponsible.

The only point I would agree with the author is the general tendency to over react to all forms of expressed violence. There are some people who want to censor it all, whether it be the stick guns in the woods or the playing of all video games. Perhaps that's where the author was coming from. Maybe he saw this silliness and had to respond. But his reaction to the zealotry of others appears to have just brought out his own.

The cold hard truth is that there is strong evidence to suggest that some video games create violent behavior in some children, especially males. This is not to suggest all children or all games. Rather, the games do contribute do have a cause effect on certain children. While this is no defense for sweeping censorhsip of the games, it is also doesn't defend the idea of mass availability. In the end we have to ask ourselves: Do we _want_ our kids playing these games that are so different than what we all (and most of humanity throughout history!) were raised on and show such disregard for human life?

The question isn't just whether or not these games have a negative effect. The question is, what good are they? Given that we've never seen games like this, we don't know.

Some echoes of Bettelheim.......2005-10-04

Jones's book is an interesting read and well worth looking at in regards to his ability to "debunk" the research linking violence in video games to aggression in children. I do agree with one of the other reviewers that he uses way too much ancedotal evidence (it would have been nice if he balanced more social science research).
What is very interesting about this book is the way that it echoes the work of Bruno Bettelheim's work "The Uses of Enchantment". Bettelheim, who is a child psychologist, found that "fairy tales" were a great therapy tool to use with disturbed children (whatever that means). Bettelheim argues that this type of fiction helps to reflect the "realities" of the world and does not "sugar coat" life. Fairy tales even go to show that not everyone is nice. Bettelheim also states that fairy tales allow the child a sense of "empowerment" (a word that is way overused) in a chaotic world.
Jones shows similar reflections in his work. Then again video games are indeed vitural "fairy tales" that allow the participant to not just live "vicariously" through them, but rather to actually play as the character and become the character, by controlling his or her actions.

A professor of mine pointed me to the "Poetics" of Aristotle. He shared with me that the word "catharsis" used in Aristotle in relationship to his discussion on "tragedies" is a word that means "cleansing". Tragedies are meant to have a "cleansing" affect on the person who is watching them, moving them to "fear and pity". The goal of a tragedy, according to Aristotle, is to move the person to "fear and pity" so that they would not want to do the actions which they saw occur in the play, which would result in the "cleansing" affect (Aristotle did make a distinction between good "art" and bad "art" and that which did not move a person toward "fear and pity" was to be rejected).

I believe that Aristotle was on to something when he said this. I have personally known teens who have engaged in violent video games in order to "curb" their desire to go and "enact" violence against others. The violence in the video games allowed them to get out their "aggression" in a way that did no one else harm.

Since I am also a "budding theologian" I tend to also examine such things through a "theological lens." From my particular "strand" of Christianity we believe that one of the uses of the "law" is to enact as a "restraint" against more "aggressive" and violent acts. Since I believe that we live in a "sin-filled" world I wonder if "video games" can have a similar affect as the "law" in order to restrain certain "violent" tendencies that otherwise might be enacted toward a neighbor.

A Teen's Honest Opinion.......2005-08-03

I'm 13 yrs. old and I'm sick of hearing this. This sounds like a really good book(haven't read it yet). Finally, someone who isn't ragging on violent games. I hear so many adults say "It's bad for the children." It seems as if adults think we're dense. I have seen violent movies, played violent games. Does that make me a trained killer?
I think people are really underestimating us. When I first saw Jurassic Park, I was younger and yeah it had scared me but even then I knew dinosaurs were all dead. I think I have the brain capacity to distingish real from fake. It sort of sounds like they're saying I can't figure out that GAMES AREN'T REAL. What if I get from a violent game or show that some people are bad and I could become a cop to protect people? What if it helps me loosen up before a test? Adults want us to be protected, yeah, that's good, but everyone knows that there's violence on the streets, everywhere, and that's something you can't get away from.
I guess what I'm saying is that the adults should give us a fair chance to decide on our own.

Average customer rating:

Not Free SF Reader
a disappointment
No payoff !!! I Feel Foolish For Hanging In There !!
Virtually real
An okay not-quite-finished book . . .

The Extremes
Christopher Priest
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0312205414

Amazon.com

A bizarre and horrible coincidence draws FBI special agent Teresa Simons to England: on the same day that a mass murderer killed her husband and fourteen others in Kingwood City, Texas, another spree killer massacred seventeen in the small Sussex town of Bulverton. Teresa seeks to understand her husband's death by exploring the similar but unrelated event in Bulverton, as she once explored reconstructions of historical mass murders in ExEx (Extreme Experience, a brutally realistic form of virtual reality) to train for her FBI job. In Bulverton she finds a commercial ExEx parlor, which, she is horrified and fascinated to discover, offers a Bulverton mass-murder scenario. As Teresa explores both the town and the scenario of Bulverton, the separations between reality and ExEx, between ExEx murder reconstructions, between past and present, begin to blur--and so does the separation between Kingwood City and Bulverton, as Teresa realizes the simultaneity of the events may be more than a coincidence.

A New York Times Recommended Book, The Extremes received the British Science Fiction Association award for 1999. Christopher Priest's previous novel, The Prestige, won the World Fantasy Award and the James Tait Black Award. --Cynthia Ward

Book Description

Long regarded as "one of the masters of psychological fiction in America" (San Francisco Chronicle), Kate Wilhelm delivers one of her most probing---and most suspenseful---novels in The Deepest Water. Abby Connors's father, Jud, was a novelist whose career finally took off after three novels and years of hard work.Jud was also the most important man in Abby's life, to the chagrin of her husband Brice.When Jud is murdered in his Oregon lakefront cabin, Abby's life is overturned.Was the killer someone she knew?Fortunately, it seems she has a guide to direct her through the maze that is her life: Jud's last novel.If only she can see through the fiction to perceive the truth.Outwardly calm, yet irresistible, The Deepest Water grows more chilling---and more compelling---as the reader probes deeper into it.This novel is a blockbuster from one of America's best-loved storytellers.

Customer Reviews:

Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-03

A somewhat underwhelming and slow novel. A female agent is taking a break for her job, mostly for psychological reasons, after her husband has been killed in an operation goes wrong.

She goes to a town in England where a crazed gunman ran wild, and starts exploring virtual reality situations through sophisticated and probably illegal software that replicates violent situations and training.

Somewhat pointless end, too.

a disappointment.......2003-12-04

The novel started out with a very strong and intriguing beginning, but by the second half it was getting really tedious with the protagonist's repeated virtual experiences and a loss of direction to the story. I can't list all the disappointments that came out of the end of the novel -- they would be spoilers -- but whatever the author was trying to accomplish in the limp ending was certainly lost on me.

No payoff !!! I Feel Foolish For Hanging In There !!.......2002-11-11

By the time I got two thirds of the way through, I had devised three or four potential endings in my mind and was looking forward to the author's take. WHAT A LETDOWN. I now feel embarrassed that I invested all this time just to witness a complete and total LACK of anything even resembling an ending. With about 20 pages to go, I realized something was fishy. I should have seen it coming. The first half of the book gives absolutely NO CLUE whatsoever what the point of the book is.

I was disappointed with the blatant anti-gun message. Now that I know the author is English, it makes sense, but hey, America is the crime capital of the world? And simply because of the "abundance" of guns? And that the main character was "poisoned" by her father because he was a gun fan?

I'm sure the other reviewers are right, I'm just too unsophisticated to "get it." However, for the American audience, this book completely tanked. I picked it up for one dollar at our local convenience store. Sure, it didn't cost much, but the time invested reading it could have been used a lot better.

Virtually real.......2002-06-19

I picked this up by chance at a bookstore, never heard of the author prior. I was about 50 pages in when I recalled I had originally found it in the SF section. Where was the science fiction part of the story? This was starting out as just a good novel, cleanly written, with a great eye for insignificant detail that helps flesh out the tale. Having read SF throughout most of my reading career, I know most of it is plot driven with characters and settings just used to push along the nifty story. This book takes its time (luxuriates?) developing the main character, Teresa Simons, a real woman who adapts within character to the unfolding events. Its done so well I assumed the author was a woman. (He's not). She has grown up in England, the daughter of a career US military man,becomes an FBI agent, and one day loses her husband in a random spree massacre.

This is the kind of SF I need now and then, maybe the best kind; where the whole story isn't techy, there is just one added element/theme to a time that could otherwise be today, ExEx. (Extreme Experience, virtual reality on steroids.) The story takes a very pleasant ramble through Teresa's' life, and from time to time she does an ExEx scenario, first for FBI training and later through a commercial provider. The iterative process she goes through to improve her performance is the most interesting of the whole book. I want this in my life for home, work and social situations. It's like the movie Groundhog Day with Bill Murray, where he is trapped into relieving the same day over and over again, until he eventually he gets it right. How cool would that be??
The rich, lush detail of the novel echoes the supposed detail Teresa finds in the hyper-real VR scenarios. Eventually the plot becomes complicated as she enters an ExEx scenario during which she enters an ExEx scenario....and so on. It's like looking into two mirrors reflecting each other.

There were a couple of loose ends that didn't hit me until a few days after finishing. What happened to Nick and Amy, the folks who run the hotel? They just disappear from one page to the next after they sell their stories. Also, what is up with the execs from GunHo corp? They make a big splashy extrance and then they too exit stage right. I'm sure its all in here, I'm just too used to obvious plot points. Oh well, I'll pay more attention when I read it again.

So here's the question you'll have to solve: Does the whole story take place inside an ExEx, or does she only choose at the end to avoid "real" reality without her dead husband by staying permanently in a scenario?

Many books compell me to race through them to see what happens next. This made me keep coming back to enjoy spending a little more time with Teresa.

An okay not-quite-finished book . . ........2002-04-22

This is a rather frustrating book -- generally well written, filled with interesting ideas, but sometimes inconsistent and sometimes simply unbelievable. Teresa Simmons and her husband are trained FBI field agents in what seems to be our present, except that both were trained with the help of an extremely sophisticated virtual reality system that put them into various roles in a wide range of historically-based "killer" scenarios. Through repeated insertions into each scenario, they had to learn to react appropriately and to survive the situation. (The process seems extremely wasteful of personnel, not to mention impossibly expensive.) Anyway, her husband is killed in the line of duty in a small Texas town and Teresa, trying to cope with her loss, discovers a similar mass killing took place at the same time on the same day in a small town in the south of England. So, naturally, she goes off to Sussex to look around. (Huh?) Then she begins patronizing the local virtual reality provider and discovers a whole new kind of "shareware" virtual experience. (If she's so well trained and informed, why had she never heard of this before?) The overlap between the incidents in Texas and England become more pronounced and Teresa's virtual experiences become more complicated, until everything comes to a head in a scenario within a scenario . . . sort of. The problem is, Priest assumes that a woman experiencing a man's role in virtual reality -- including sexual activity -- won't react any differently than she had as her own self. This seems extremely unlikely. And he has a very shaky grasp of what West Texas is like, even though he was previously married to Texan author Lisa Tuttle. And nothing is ever really resolved. It's like he was three-quarters of the way through writing and re-writing the book, and just stopped.

Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy

Average customer rating:

Everyone's An Expert

Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy
Craig A. Anderson , Douglas A. Gentile , and Katherine E. Buckley
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0195309839

Book Description

Violent video games are successfully marketed to and easily obtained by children and adolescents. Even the U.S. government distributes one such game, America's Army, through both the internet and its recruiting offices. Is there any scientific evidence to support the claims that violent games contribute to aggressive and violent behavior? Anderson, Gentile, and Buckley first present an overview of empirical research on the effects of violent video games, and then add to this literature three new studies that fill the most important gaps. They update the traditional General Aggression Model to focus on both developmental processes and how media-violence exposure can increase the likelihood of aggressive and violent behavior in both short- and long-term contexts. Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents also reviews the history of these games' explosive growth, and explores the public policy options for controlling their distribution. Anderson et al. describe the reaction of the games industry to scientific findings that exposure to violent video games and other forms of media violence constitutes a significant risk factor for later aggressive and violent behavior. They argue that society should begin a more productive debate about whether to reduce the high rates of exposure to media violence, and delineate the public policy options that are likely be most effective. As the first book to unite empirical research on and public policy options for violent video games, Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents will be an invaluable resource for student and professional researchers in social and developmental psychology and media studies.

Customer Reviews:

Everyone's An Expert.......2007-05-24

It seems like everyone's an expert on this topic lately. And frankly, I, as both a gamer and a game developer, am sick of it. For every so-called study that concludes games and media are a direct influence on violent behavior, three more clinical studies conclude just the opposite. Read this book if you like, it's an interesting look at another person's view (I'm not using the word "opinion," since the authors try to remain fairly neutral while presenting as much material as possible). Quite a few studies are cited, although several of them were not in controlled environments.
The fact of the matter is, it's very difficult to rule one way or another. Violent behavior is a result of many factors; often genetics, parental attention, environmental stimulus, internal psychology and sometimes pathology, and an infinite number of other variables. The authors present this idea as well, and they do it better than some other politically minded "ban violent videgames" type books.
The truth is, as the authors have written, digital media is only one factor that needs to be monitored by parents, where the responsibility should ultimately lie. Certain age groups should not be exposed to certain stimulus, least of all without proper guidance, which many parents seem to ignore.
All in all, this is a decent book. Much better than several others, and better than listening to Hillary Clinton's and Jack Thomson's accusations and generalizations. My personal feelings obviously color this review, but don't let it color your opinion of the book: it is actually pretty good for a topic where there is as much misinformation as information.
Read it, do some of your own research, and form your own opinions.
And most importantly, pay attention to ratings on all media. They exist for a purpose.

Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity)

Average customer rating:

Brillant at times, but not detailed enough
Not your usual war reporter

Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity)
Carolin Emcke
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0691129037

Book Description

"Nobody I ever met on my assignments . . . asked me for direct, practical help. . . . But over and over again people have asked me: 'Will you write this down?' "--Echoes of Violence

Echoes of Violence is an award-winning collection of personal letters to friends from a foreign correspondent who is trying to understand what she witnessed during the iconic human disasters of our time--in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, and New York City on September 11th, among many other places. Originally addressing only a small group of friends, Carolin Emcke started the first letter after returning from Kosovo, where she saw the aftermath of ethnic cleansing in 1999. She began writing to overcome her speechlessness about the horrors of war and her own sense of failure as a reporter. Eventually, writing a letter became a ritual Emcke performed following her return from each nightmare she experienced. First published in 2004 to great acclaim, Echoes of Violence in 2005 was named German political book of the year and was a finalist for the international Lettre-Ulysses award for the art of reportage.

Combining narrative with philosophic reflection, Emcke describes wars and human rights abuses around the world--the suffering of civilians caught between warring factions in Colombia, the heartbreaking plight of homeless orphans in Romania, and the near-slavery of garment workers in Nicaragua. Freed in the letters from journalistic conventions that would obscure her presence as a witness, Emcke probes the abyss of violence and explores the scars it leaves on landscapes external and internal.

Customer Reviews:

Brillant at times, but not detailed enough.......2007-08-03

From time to time Echoes of Violence is a very interesting book, and when it's at its best the reader will have an extremely difficult time trying not to keep on reading forever and ever.

But alas, this only happens on a few occasions. And that's too bad, because there is no reason whatsoever to think that Carolin Emcke comes even close to being a bad writer. A German journalist with a thorough experience in doing war journalism, Emcke has spent much of her professional career in different war zones all around the world, and she writes in a style that's actually both emotional and clear-sighted at the same time. Not only that, she also offers such detailed background analyses that it never becomes necessary for the reader to have any deeper knowledge about the area she's in or the events leading up the particular conflict (though it's obviously not a disadvantage if the reader indeed does have this knowledge).

Most important of all, though, is the simple fact that she never loses touch with the human aspects of her story.

And that's not much of a surprise, really. After all, it's this humaneness that permeates the entire book and prompted her to start putting the stories into words, since the book is based on letters she began writing to some of her closest friends after visiting Kosovo in 1999 and becoming a witness to the horrendous suffering caused by all the sickening ethnic cleansing. In order to come to terms with what she's seen she decided to put it all into words, and Echoes of Violence is the end result.

However, just because it happens to be quite a touching testimony detailing the stupidity of mankind doesn't mean it's a brilliant book. Simple because it contains too few highly detailed descriptions of war, misery, suffering and revolting battle scenes. Perhaps this criticism sounds creepy, but the thing is, without such gory descriptions it's impossible to get some sort of understanding of all the awful scenarios that Emcke finds herself in. Some of the chapters are in fact quite boring.

Still, this doesn't mean it's not worth taking a closer look at. After all, when it's good it's REALLY good.

Not your usual war reporter.......2007-03-26

Although Carolin Emcke's compelling new book is subtitled "Letters from a War Reporter," she fits none of the stereotypes that the rubric of war reporter suggests. Nowhere in her writing does the reader find the cynical, hard-bitten media professional who -- writing on short deadlines for a largely uninformed audience -- has little interest in exploring complexity or challenging the conventional wisdom.

Emcke's letters, written first for her friends and later compiled for publication, give the back story that is left out of most international news reporting. Reading them, one sees a thoughtful but utterly human person at work -- not an omniscient narrator, but someone with emotions, opinions, subjectivity, and humor. Emcke describes herself as a witness, and some of the most compelling passages in the book reveal her grappling with the difficulty of being a faithful witness to situations that are in some sense indescribable.

Emcke has an eye for the telling detail. Describing a hotel in Prishtina, Kosovo, for example, she notes on a visit in 2000 that "the porn magazine in the desk drawer offers 'phone sex with mature women' in a country with no functioning telephone lines." (A few years later human rights observers documented the role of NATO troops and UN police in encouraging the rapid growth of sex-trafficking and forced prostitution in Kosovo.)

Unlike reporters who cover local or national beats -- who can assume that their readership shares a history and culture with the people described, or is at least familiar with that history and culture -- journalists covering foreign crises have to do more than report the facts: they have to translate between worlds. Emcke's moving book shows that this role of translator requires sensitivity, empathy, and understanding, qualities she has in abundance.

Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: A Critical Look at the Research

Average customer rating:

Will appeal to undergraduates and graduate students in a range of courses

Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: A Critical Look at the Research
Steven J. Kirsh
Manufacturer: Sage Publications, Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0761929762

Book Description

" Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: A Critical Look at the Research is a state of the art assessment of this complex issue. Providing both historical and theoretical context, Dr. Kirsh expertly guides the reader through the maze of myth and scientific evidence on media violence effects on children and youth. Eminently readable, this book is an essential resource for anyone who wants to understand the scientific methodology, results, and policy implications of media violence research."
-- Jeanne B. Funk, University of Toledo

Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence provides a comprehensive review and critique of the literature related to media violence in all its forms during childhood and adolescence. Special attention is paid to evaluating the role of the development processes in media violence research and to stressing the importance of methodology in understanding that research. The developmental analysis taken by the author allows for the identification of age-related gaps in the literature and helps students to become critical consumers of research. The book provides the most comprehensive overview available of the effects of media violence on children and adolescents.

Key Features:

Takes a developmental perspective and utilizes three themes throughout the text: critical assessment of research; the importance of development in evaluating research; and identifying the next step in the research process
Covers multiple forms of media violence (e.g., animated violence, sports violence, dramatic violence, gaming violence) to broaden the scope of discussion
Discusses and critiques the five major theories utilized to explain the impact of media violence on children and adolescents
Places media violence in the context of other risk factors for aggression (e.g., peers, parenting, personality)
Includes chapter-opening introductions (written engagingly) to draw in readers and to set the stage for the content to come
Extends the discussion beyond explicit media violence to address the potential benefits and harm associated with nonviolent media consumption

PowerPoint slides for this book are available to adopters by contacting kirsh@geneseo.edu.

Customer Reviews:

Will appeal to undergraduates and graduate students in a range of courses.......2006-12-11

College-level collections strong in media history as well as education studies will find plenty to like with Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: A Critical Look at the Research. Here are the analyses, studies and developmental perspective on media violence issues which focus on evaluating research with development in mind to identify the next research process step. Different forms of media violence, from animation to sports, are surveyed along with the major theories that explain the effects of such violence. Video games are included in chapters which will appeal to undergraduates and graduate students in a range of courses; from media history and communications to psychology and child development.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Framing Abuse: Media Influence and Public Understanding of Sexual Violence Against Children

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Framing Abuse: Media Influence and Public Understanding of Sexual Violence Against Children
Jenny Kitzinger
Manufacturer: Pluto Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0745323316

Book Description

This book offers fascinating insights into how the media shape the way we think. Combining in-depth analysis of media representations of child sexual abuse with focus group discussions and interviews with nearly 500 journalists, campaigners and a cross-section of 'the public', Jenny Kitzinger reveals the media's role in contemporary society.

Which stories attract attention and why? What strategies do journalists and campaigners use to persuade people and how do we respond? Answering these and other questions, Kitzinger demonstrates how media reporting can impact on people's knowledge of the 'facts', perceptions of risk, sense of appropriate policy responses and even how we interpret our own experiences.

Kitzinger examines feminist initiatives to challenge sexual violence, the emergence of incest as a social problem and the development of new survivor identities. She also explores stereotypes around sex offenders,interrogates protests against 'paedophiles-in-the-community' and presents a detailed analysis of the impact of scandals about disputed abuse accusations.

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