Why oh why is there so much hate

ExperiencedNotOld

My husband had a typical 70s time as a lad - seeing fights in pubs, fights everywhere. Not once did it involve knives. I can’t say I was aware of them either. Does it connect to the present extreme hate question?

Both my parents were publicans, I have lived in central London, Surrey, outer London & Hampshire.

Some establishments were more prone to brawls/fights it was always apparent which group carried knives by their demeanour.

Absolutely Chestnut. I posted yesterday about games being played and films being watched being age appropriate. It must be a nightmare ensuring that children are safe when on line and not able to access inappropriate material, especially when they're not at home.

It's a matter of balance *Doodledog. DS who is 40 is a big gamer and plays on line. Living alone I think contributes to this but he has two dogs so is out a lot with them, goes to the gym and socialises. I would be worried even now if he was gaming most of the time and was socially isolated.

I can see how gaming has been positive for your GS GrannyGravy. It's a level playing field isn't it.

I agree ENO that prejudice often comes from fear. Fear of 'other', different and the unknown. Reading this thread has made me think about this in relation to the old adage that 'attack is the best form of defence'.

Envy and a feeling of inferiority also play a part. It was envy of successful and wealthy Jews that contributed to the anti semitism in Germany and elsewhere.

Unfortunately there are members of the younger generation who just hone in on anyone who is different and torment them, poor Brianna was one of those. Many may remember the Goth girl a while back who was murdered just for the style she adopted. Then there was the case of a young boy lured to a local park close to his home in Reading and stabbed by a couple of classmates over some perceived disrespect, if I remember he was only 12 or 13. It's really hard to understand the mindset of such arbitrary and fleeting hatred of an individual whose lifestyle doesn't affect theirs or wanting to to commit such an irrevocable act of violence over, what a disagreement presumably to teach that person a lesson, when in fact they the perpetrator/s will be the one/s learning a harsh lesson once they are incarcerated, one would hope they would use that time to reflect on enormity of taking a life. I hate to come over all religious but that 6th commandment" was hammered in at my school, not that I think killing ever occurred to anyone, but the concept of taking a life as the worst thing that anyone could ever do remained part of our consciousness. Different days though, I do sometimes wonder as regards to violence on screen in whatever form, whether lines in the minds that are not fully formed become blurred. between fantasy and reality.

I think such unfortunate incidents are quite separate from gang knife crimes which always appear quite tribal and can display territorial pack instincts.

As always it's such a tragedy to lose young people to mindless violence.

I'm not saying that typical boys carry knives now or did in the past but that some do now and some did then. My husband and his friends didn't, and nor did my children or theirs. Maybe it depends on whether you live somewhere where you feel you are at risk?

Or hate

Knives have always been the weapon of choice.

“Beware the Ides of March” how many knives were thrust into Caesar on his assassination?

Nothing to do with gaming.

My husband had a typical 70s time as a lad - seeing fights in pubs, fights everywhere. Not once did it involve knives. I can’t say I was aware of them either. Does it connect to the present extreme hate question?

I agree that there is another side to it, GrannyGravy, which is why I really don't know what to think. My friend's son is socially isolated, but would be anyway, so at least when he's gaming he is interacting in some way.

Re Brianna, we don't know whether she was killed for being different, or just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I don't think that blades have become a weapon of choice at all suddenly, ENO. Teddy boys used them in the 50s, nearly 70 years ago, and I'm sure they weren't the first. I think it's just that as you say, they are readily available - every house has them to hand.

Sorry - stabbing!

What confuses me about all the standings is that a blade has been accessible for centuries, and in numbers for a very long time. Why suddenly has it become a weapon of choice!

Gaming has helped our autistic teen GS immensely, online he is not judged and he is more confident.

Our just 8yr old GS plays online games and is able to play with his schoolmates remotely.

Our Godson games his partner makes her living from game streaming

One of our AC is a seasoned gamer as is his wife.

I am hesitant to blame Gaming for the violence without evidence.

There have always been violent individuals of all ages, now with 24 hour rolling news channels, along with news available on many different platforms which people are in some cases constantly scrolling it is inevitable that the bad news stories will out number the good news stories as bad news sells and attracts clicks

Having scanned the discussion above, I don’t think anyone has raised the question of where any ‘prejudice’ comes from. Brianna Ghey was bravely living a trans life. We’re her alleged attackers troubled by that, perhaps afraid of they own feelings on that issue? Were they indoctrinated against anything other than boy and girl? Did they come from a background that bullied the weak? That’ll emerge at the trail .
Over centuries we’ve been conditioned to feel fear of someone different. As a child I can recall having to hide from a turbaned brush salesman. This was in the sixties, in rural Ireland, where my grandmother had never seen anyone dark skinned or in a turban. Was she expressing hate - no, it was fear of his difference.
Perhaps change has happened so quickly we’re still afraid of much.
Religion served to control society, getting most everyone to lived a shared experience if a reasonable, law abiding life.
We’ve little common bond anyone. (No community through religion, however fractured locally).
Children are influenced by others. Emotional neglect, lack of control, poor educational achievement, lack of any construct - all these and other issues make an incomplete person, someone desperate to belong.
I have no answer but I do try to understand what’s behind the wrongs.

Doodledog I don’t think that too much gaming is at all healthy for social development, but neither do I think it is responsible for the killings we are discussing.
We're thinking of the child frequently exposed to the experience of killing, who will then grow up to be a teenager/young man who is used to online killing. Their developing brain has now developed and the adult emerges.

The problem is obsessions, Doodledog’s friend in his late 20’s, staying in his room, gaming on his computer late into the night is likely to be socially isolated.
Neglected children are the ones without adult interest or control over what they’re watching on line.
Violence has always been with us, look at the Greek myths, fairy tales, etc. there does seem to be an increase in stabbing which I don’t think is linked to video games - but maybe associated with drill.

I’m hesitant to jump in with both feet about gaming, as I know little about it, and a quick search on Google Scholar didn’t throw up much. My children had a PlayStation and when they were young I restricted their games to ones where there was no killing, so they collected carrots or raced around in cars and so on. This was easy until about the age of 12, when it became increasingly difficult to find games that stretched them but didn’t involve killing at some level, other than FIFA and similar sport-based ones. The fact that gamers are actually doing the killing as opposed to watching it seems dangerous to me, yet studies I read at the time seemed to suggest that gaming encouraged cooperation and strategic thinking (but I was looking more at reports of the findings than at studies themselves, which is notoriously unreliable). Luckily neither of them were remotely obsessive gamers (and neither plays now on streamed games which were not around when they were young) so it was just part of a broad range of activities that they enjoyed.

The risk of the obsession and isolation that some children succumb to was another of the worries that I didn’t have to face (along with the worst excesses of social media exposure), and I don’t know how I would handle it if I had young children now. A friend’s son is worryingly (to me) obsessed with gaming, and in his late 20s spends hours in his room playing online late into the night. It seems such a waste of his youth, but it obviously gives him something that I don’t understand. I do think that the potential for danger inherent in dealing so much with people you don’t know, (and in the killing side of it) is there, but then I am on here most days, so am maybe not in a position to talk 🤷‍♀️

I don’t think that too much gaming is at all healthy for social development, but neither do I think it is responsible for the killings we are discussing. It may encourage a detachment from the reality of violence but probably (as with tv and film) only in those who are already susceptible to that influence.

But they won't in many homes where dysfunctional parents allow their children to do anything (Thomson and Venables). Plus there are many apparently normal homes where children are allowed access to age-restricted movie and games.

Yes I'd agree with that chestnut

Age restrictions should be enforced by parents

Regarding video games, surely the age of the child, the level of violence and the number of hours spent on it are all factors. If a 10 year old plays a violent 18+ video game for two or more hours each day then it must surely affect their outlook. The human brain is not fully formed until about 18-20 I believe, so a 10 year old's brain is still developing. Seeing violent things at that age is not the same as seeing them as a fully grown adult.

Yes I suppose that's why I am sceptical of the idea that hate or violence has got worse.

I hope it continues, I really do

I think chunks of the world now regard hate as something we need to tackle. The past, often, people were only things, especially those who were poor and therefore were not human.

It wasn't always that way, we have evolved to a point.

Maybe humans are just violent

We've evolved to be less violent but one only has to read Dantés Inferno to see that violence is nothing new. Old Testament.

I recently watched a YouTube about the torture, breaking on the wheel.

Goodness knows where they got that idea from

There isn't much difference Doodledog and neither substantiates a definitive conclusion. My head tells me that violent games and films can have an impact especially if what's being played and/or viewed is considered inappropriate for the child engaged due to their age, which is why so many are certified by age, and if there's no input from a responsible adult.

That's why I suggested looking yourself doodledog

I've gotten to know you a bit

I agree that 'no evidence to suggest a link' is not much different from 'no evidence to suggest that there is not a link'. It's the sort of headline used in PR or journalism to make the point that the author wants to be true.

It's such a difficult area for the reasons I outlined above. It is always important to check who is doing research of any kind, and look for a possible source of bias, and also important to look at the methodology, which in this case is even more difficult to get right than in other areas of social science.

I think that a 'common sense' approach would be to think that games will influence children, but if that is the case then so would other media, and the jury really is still out on that - and that is after decades of research into media of all types, including studies carried out when ethical considerations were pretty much optional :grin:. My heart says games are likely to have an impact, but my head says that they probably don't, so basically I don't know.