Analyzing Violent Media Is Good For Kids
“Violence is good for kids” is by Gerard Jones. In my opinion, I feel that there is confusion between the word action and violence. Action is armed conflict as in a manner in which something moves or works. On the other side, violence is a physically forceful behavior with intentions of causing harm to another person. According to the authors’ thesis of the lack of trust on violent media that his parents had built a wall between him and the genre and the smashing of that wall by hulk, leaves the questions of whether it is true that violence is good for kids or if it is extremely harmful as most parents perceive.
This show in the authors claim when he says, “I am not going to argue that violent entertainment is harmless” and goes ahead to give examples of providing his son with comic books such as Tarzan. The author claims that it was to help the boy in learning how to climb trees. The author makes reference to a girl who acted as a tomboy while young and later, became successful in uniting boys and girls because of the help she received from the stories to avoid her fantasies. The author debates the presence of violence in media through presentation of negative and positive influences of the contents in comic books, movies and video games. He may be right in his argument, but parents have a role in taking care of their children can that is not convincing enough.
He presents evidence that, in his belief, violent stories are helpful to children for their dealing with natural emotions. He warns against over protection of children from the violence since it robs them of the capability of staying “against power and selfhood”. This writing seems like a guide to good parenting as it presents some parenting examples showing that it is possible for a parent to hinder the effective development of a child. He targets a large audience and leaves a lasting impression that triggers thoughts regarding the problem. In fact, his use of personal experience is an effort to captivate the attention of the audience further. However, it cusses slackness in his credibility like his narration of his childhood and the influence of violent media in his life helping him to be a better person. The use of his son as an example strengthens his argument.
I am in part agreement with Mr. Gerard Jones that there is a capacity to, which fantasies are helpful to helping children in understanding some things that are impossible to learn because of barriers created by their parents. It opens up the power of imagination in children, and they begin understanding their capabilities beyond what their parents made them believe. This allows for the conquering of helpless situations and fears, which limit their capabilities. However, I am not in agreement with the presence of bloodshed presented in video games and comics or any form of media for that reason. The claim that such media can be helpful in management of rage is confusing to the audience as it leads to an imbalance to social constructs of the livelihoods of children. Such scenes ingrain in the imagination and thoughts of children and since there is no immediate punishment prescribed, they can easily develop violent behaviors.
He uses fallacy of logic to present his arguments though it lacks any research evidence. He presents his logic that violence in the media “helped hundreds of people for everyone it‟s hurt” and even without statistics of violence in children, it is obvious that violent media is not the only avenue for exposing children to violence. The fallacy that violence has helped more people than those it has harmed is something that I cannot agree to because it is a fact that would take several years to study, gather statistics and evidence to change the beliefs of people. The logic in presenting the positive and negative aspects of violent media makes it easy, to accept the claims of the author. That in combination to his appeal to emotions by touching through his experiences he presents points to consider. His expression of the things that children might go through because of sheltering from violent media produces guilt and regret and that specifically targets adults and parents. However, that produces fallacies of hasty generalization because he uses surveys of a couple of people. Therefore, his claim might not be particularly true because his surveys are not large enough to represent people. Therefore, he is making hasty generalization fallacy trying to prove that parents should not over protect their children from violent media.
However, there is a conflict of interest by his mentioning of the fact that he is a comic book writer. It leaves me as one of his audience, with a torn choice for the acceptability of comic books for the good they can present in the lives of children or for the justification of the authors’ career. Another thing that raises his credibility is the expert opinion from a public school psychologist. However, he again mentions his association with the psychologist in the league for creating a children’s program. This presentation of examples and relating them to his own actions takes the audience back and forth as it leaves his arguments as mere personal opinions.
In conclusion, the argument of Jones was not credible but was full of evidence and decent examples. He also incorporated real life experiences, which leaves his, position as a comic book writer having relevant positioning in the development of children admirable. He believes that the “passivity and loneliness” he suffered as a child was because of the protection of his parents from violent media. The author succeeds in presenting a persuasive argument that though I am not in agreement with his reasoning. As it comes out, it is good to guide children without being too strict on them, but there is no conviction that exposing them to violence is an advantage to their development.
