Tattered Page

We haven’t heard many public figures stand up in support of gaming, so we’ve come to expect the worst… particularly from someone that you’d expect to claim moral authority and judgment, as many see the Pope.  On January 24th, BENEDICTUS XVI released his message for the 41st “World Communications Day” and it briefly alluded to violent video games.

I’m a bit amazed to discover that anyone reading this document can come away thinking the Pope ”Dislikes Games”  like Scott did over at Broken Toys.  Then GU Comics runs their own rather defensive comment.  

Are we reading the same document? 

I think, if you’ll look again, you’ll find the game industry has an ally here.

Some Background

Now, Pope Benedict has had a rougher start in the world press than his predecessor, but having a recognized religious AND political figure on your side can’t be a bad thing, can it? 

“World Communication Day”  has its start in a Second Vatican Council document called Inter Mirifica which is Latin for “Among the Wonderful.” 

Inter Mirifica states that great things- and great harm- can come from this media.  Rather than encourage stifling it, the document celebrates the media’s potential and hilights the role we can all play in using it. Hence, the name “Among the Wonderful.” (No, this isn’t like many congressional bills where the name has no relationship with the content)

Why Gamers Should Rejoice

Pope Benedict’s message is entitled “Children and the Media: A Challenge for Education.”  It’s broken into sections that I’ll summarize below.

Section 1: The media is powerful and influencial. Some suggest it’s even more influencial in childhood development than parents or teachers. 

This is primarily a tone-setter. what I DO want to emphasize here is that by addressing games later on as one of the media, the Pope’s acknowledging that games are “Among the Wonderful” that inspired the parent document.  There is no categorization or stratification.  Games stand with all the communication media as equals.

Section 2: You can look at this as how the media influcence our kids, or how we teach kids to respond appropriately to the media.  This second part, the focus of the second section, falls on the parents.  The church and educators should be prepared to help, but it falls on the parents to do this.   Positive expressions of beauty and truth are encouraged.  The exercise of free will is stressed.

Isn’t that what gamers are calling for? Parental responsibility?

Section 3: The Media is encouraged to be positive.  It implies that the media has free will to decide, but encourages the positive path.  It also has the point that’s got everyone’s hackles raised, listed below.

What Gamers MIGHT Not Like To Hear:

It’s that second part of part 3 that has everyone screaming bloody murder. 

Any trend to produce programmes and products - including animated films and video games - which in the name of entertainment exalt violence and portray anti-social behaviour or the trivialization of human sexuality is a perversion, …

OH MY! A game which exalts violence and portrays anti-social behavior or the trivialization of human sexuality, IS a perversion.

Ummm… No kidding. Really. Are we surprised? 

He isn’t saying that these things cause violence.  He isn’t saying that ALL games are like that.  He isn’t even condemning the game producers to hell, for goshsakes.

He says that X which has Y, is a perversion.

That has a very specific meaning.  A “perversion” is something that has been “turned away from what is good or true or morally right.”  This implies that games that ”ARE good or true or morally right” and only those that do the above are turned away. 

(Before you think that’s a stretch, remember “Among the Wonderful.”  This is the tone the Vatican has used to EMBRACE the media.)

What does “Exalt Violence” Mean, Anyway?

Now, some people with limited reading comprehension… or limited ability to reason… or both (most likely) are quick to say “OMG! But even MARIO has violence!  He’s saying all games are bad!”  There is a big difference between displaying violence and exalting violence.  There’s even a big difference between a game that has a villain exalting violence and the game exalting violence.

Back in the original parent doctrine, paragraph 7 sheds some light in this:

7. Finally, the narration, description or portrayal of moral evil, even through the media of social communication, can indeed serve to bring about a deeper knowledge and study of humanity and, with the aid of appropriately heightened dramatic effects, can reveal and glorify the grand dimensions of truth and goodness. Nevertheless, such presentations ought always to be subject to moral restraint, lest they work to the harm rather than the benefit of souls, particularly when there is question of treating matters which deserve reverent handling or which, given the baneful effect of original sin in men, could quite readily arouse base desires in them.

In essence: even graphical portrayal of evil can serve a greater good, but you should be careful (exercise moral restraint) in using it, as it may result in people reveling in the evil instead.

Now, some games might just celebrate in cruel wanton destruction or sexual mayhem that you wouldn’t care to reproduce.  Sometimes, these can still serve as a mirror for society to look at its darker side, but oftentimes people will revel in the darkness.  How it’s portrayed, and how parents condition their kids to read into that kind of media, will determine it’s impace on our society.

The same goes for “trivialization of human sexuality.”  The Papacy isn’t calling for women to be dressed as nuns here.  It hasn’t issued a hemline measurement.  There are ways to be expressive without trivializing, and that’s by far the more common path. 

Finally, note that nowhere in that document or any of the referring docs, does the word “ban” or any of its synonyms appear.

What’s It All Come Down To?

The Catholic Church embraces the inventions of man and celebrates the great potential of the communications media.  Once a year, the Pope issues a statement reinforcing and clarifying those views.  This year, he addressed the way they can affect kids and included games “among the wonderful.” 

He noted that there are things you can do with the media to turn it away from truth and goodness.  He also said that Parents bear the burden of educating a kid in the use of media.  Be socially responsible with what you produce and take responsibility of your kids.  The Church will offer help where it can.

Somehow, I don’t see Jack Thompson celebrating over that message.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 2:57 am and is filed under Gaming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.