We as people
are constantly engaged in threat assessment.
When we look around, we evaluate people and things around us. We use information get got from our
development to classify something as threat or not a threat.
There was a
time when grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and members of society told
their children to watch out for black people.
The children who received these messages used them and passed them on to
their children.
Today, I was
reading an article in Law Enforcement Magazine online. The author, a police trainer, was trying to
make the point that we are all prejudice because we always prejudge people
before we have any real information about the person. This simplistic science in a law enforcement
person is dangerous.
Prejudice
means having an attitude against a person because of preconceived motions. For example, believing all people from Mexico
are lazy. Assessing our environment for
threats is not being prejudice. This
assessment behavior is a natural behavior that serves us by keeping us safe.
It is not a
gift from evolution. In linked In,
someone posted a forum item concerned with if we are hard wired to be
racist.
We did not
acquire a biological function through generational experience that became coded
in our DNA that leads us to be racist or prejudice. Behavior is learned and we have the advantage
of being thinkers.
I know
scientist want to give the impression people were born gay or alcoholic. Most studies that deal with genetic
influences on behavior usually find someone who has the gene in question but
does not exhibit the behaviors that others with that same gene in their DNA. Many
scientists attempt to explain this discrepancy by stating that the person who
does not behave like others was taught to behave differently.
Okay, I have
to ask. Why can these scientists give
experience credit in the discrepancy but not acknowledge that behavior is due
to what a person learns through experiences?
I was
watching a documentary on anger, rage, and violence. The subjects of the investigation were people
who were almost always agitated and desired to harm others. The scientists in the documentary did their
DNA studies and supposedly found the gene responsible for this personality
type.
However,
there was one person in the study who had the gene but was not filled with rage
and desired to harm others. Again, these
scientists explained that the difference was due to experience.
Mr. Glen
Beck was talking about video games and violence on his American radio show. Mr.
Beck mentioned that there is an age when the person begins to distinguish
between fantasy and reality.
I enjoyed
the psychology classes that were on the brain.
I haven’t the slightest idea what Mr. Beck was talking about.
However,
people want to believe that an inanimate object can make people behave
violent. Children who have parents that
do not bond emotionally with them will suffer from mental health issues. These issues can be of the form of emotion
retardation to anger. Of course, we know
that abuse of a child may lead to serious psychological complications.
Video games
by themselves are not responsible for violence.
People need to be taught to be violent or made violent through abuse.
Let us take
a look at the young men who were bored and went out to kill someone. These teens were from a culture that idolizes
violence. This culture is the gang
culture. In the gang culture there is a
lot of talk about harming others. These
gang members laugh about what they want to do to people. The pleasure from this social interaction creates
young people who get pleasure from harming others. Therefore, they have been taught through
experience with people who glorify violence to be violent.
The reason I
wrote an article about the 75 percent versus the 25 percent was because I do
not like simpletons who destroy the products of science. Mr. Beck, a non-scientist, is attempting to
promote the idea that violent video games make people violent.
Violent
video games do make a person violent.
When a person does not have an emotional attachment to significant
people in his or her life, they do not have the power to fight the influences
of violent education. It is because the
parent did not make the child feel loved and did not give any values, virtues,
and morals to the child that child can be taught to be violent.
We are not
taught to be violent by TV programs, Movies, or video games. I can remember the outrage over the violence
in Bugs Bunny cartoons. Really, people,
get a grip.
The first
brother in human history killed his only brother. There were no video games at this time in
history.
Because we
can think, we can learn. All of us are
told by our adult family members not to be violent. People with good mental health learn these
messages and are not violent.
Many people
with mental health issues lash out because they feel threatened or they were
taught to be violent. The human race
will always have to contend with people who are not mentally fit to follow the
morns of a civilized society.
Wasting time
on something that has nothing to do with violence, makes no productive
contribution to society. We should be
concentrating on dealing with people who do not know how to parent, people with
biological psychosis, and groups whose members teach violence.
Many people
unfortunately have bodies with biological deficiencies. Organs, brain systems, brain cells, neurons,
and neurotransmitter regulation systems do not function properly. These people suffer from anxiety and/or
depression without there being any exposure to stress to account for their
symptoms. Because of their mental health challenges, these people with
biological based mental health challenges may practice violence. Stress compounds these peoples’ mental health
challenges.
In
psychology, it is understood that the harshest behaviors are the result of the
worst abuse possible. Sexual, physical,
and mental abuse contributes to violent personalities.
We who study
psychology also understand that behavior is learned. People who have not been taught that violence
is bad may practice violence. People who
are taught that violence is good will practice violence.
Therefore,
people have to be taught the moral ethic that leads to violence. These attitudes towards violence can be
compounded by an individual’s mental health status.
Mr. Glen
Beck in his radio show stated that soldiers were taught to shoot at the enemy
with video games because in early wars American soldiers were involved in many
soldiers had a problem shooting the enemy.
The trainers, through the use of conversation, transferred the moral
ethic for violence to the soldiers they were training. The video game itself did not make the
soldiers violent. Self-defense is not
violence.