For what degree of “want”? Computer games about killing people are popular, whether the context is waging a war as a general, shooting hundreds of opponents on the battlefield, or being an assassin. Obviously enough people find this interesting enough to produce/buy those games. We do not have a similar number of games about e.g. cooking broccoli. (“Because that’s not fun!” “My point exactly.”)
I connotationally disagree with the word “suppressed”, because to me it seems like something that requires a degree of constant self-violence, an active desire fighting an opposite active desire. Instead of that, I simply realized that violence in real world does not work the same as the violence on the screen, and that there are further consequences which the games conveniently ignore (e.g. the killed enemies disappear, and at no moment you meet their grieving families). That’s why the computer game violence is fun, and the real world violence is not. But the computer game is pulling on an instinct that I have, otherwise I might as well play games about cooking broccoli (which also would be technically different from cooking broccoli in real life).
In Jungians terms, I do have a shadow; I have met it, consumed it, and digested it. I am not tempted to go out and kill people, but I am not pretending that the “hardware support” is not there in my brain.
(Adding myself as another example of having a dark side.)
If you gave me the option to kill 1000s of people easily, say at the push of a button and I would get away Scott free, I wouldn’t. I mean you can have any ethics you’d like, but I get nothing from killing them.
However, games give you somthing different. Domination, displaying skill, winning. There is simulated killing sure, but its incidental to the main point.
For what degree of “want”? Computer games about killing people are popular, whether the context is waging a war as a general, shooting hundreds of opponents on the battlefield, or being an assassin. Obviously enough people find this interesting enough to produce/buy those games. We do not have a similar number of games about e.g. cooking broccoli. (“Because that’s not fun!” “My point exactly.”)
I connotationally disagree with the word “suppressed”, because to me it seems like something that requires a degree of constant self-violence, an active desire fighting an opposite active desire. Instead of that, I simply realized that violence in real world does not work the same as the violence on the screen, and that there are further consequences which the games conveniently ignore (e.g. the killed enemies disappear, and at no moment you meet their grieving families). That’s why the computer game violence is fun, and the real world violence is not. But the computer game is pulling on an instinct that I have, otherwise I might as well play games about cooking broccoli (which also would be technically different from cooking broccoli in real life).
In Jungians terms, I do have a shadow; I have met it, consumed it, and digested it. I am not tempted to go out and kill people, but I am not pretending that the “hardware support” is not there in my brain.
(Adding myself as another example of having a dark side.)
If you gave me the option to kill 1000s of people easily, say at the push of a button and I would get away Scott free, I wouldn’t. I mean you can have any ethics you’d like, but I get nothing from killing them.
However, games give you somthing different. Domination, displaying skill, winning. There is simulated killing sure, but its incidental to the main point.