Yesterday marked the release of Rockstar Games’ highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto IV, and once again the Baby Boomers are freaking out over the evil demons that will possess the souls of the unsuspecting innocents from the two most dangerous gateways to Hell: Xbox360 and PlayStation 3.

Now I don’t normally write on this subject, but I figure I’m not running for office or anything so I might as well. This uproar is just the latest in a long line of cultural panic in this country, from dangerous comic books in the 1950s to video games today. The argument is, of course, that these video games will turn children into stone-faced killers. Disputing the claims made by those under the spell of the culture of fear is the subject of the blog GamePolitics.com. Here are some of their posts:

Child psychologist Dr. Frank Gaskill argues against the video game fear-mongers, as do a number of other reputable authorities in the psychology and medical communities. As people now feel that the uproar of Elvis Presley’s dancing was silly, Millennials feel the same way about music and video games.

In Danny Goldberg’s Dispatches from the Culture Wars: How the Left Lost Teen Spirit he talks about the cultural disconnect between Baby Boomer politicians and the younger generations. The outrage shown by Boomer political figures like Hillary Clinton and Tipper Gore over music lyrics turned off a lot of young people. The Millennial generation has shown a preference for openness, freedom of speech and expression, and transparency. Unwarranted hysteria over video games and calls for censorship of the medium is unacceptable to those that have grown-up with and fully understand computer and video games.

While stirring up unwarranted fear and seeking draconian responses to the specter of youth poisoned by video games may earn politicians some brownie points with scared-to-death Boomers, it will be to their detriment in appealing to the growing Millennial generation.

In a world where we are afraid of all the wrong things and ignore the real dangers we face, this kind of pathetic outrage is not surprising, but hopefully one day people will start to actually read the research and evidence before they begin their political posturing. As Dan Abrams would say, this is why America hates Washington.


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