PAYING THE PRICE FOR A VIRTUAL PERSONAL
Copyright 2002 www.faz.com

[ May 12th 2002 ]

Those who have spent a whole evening playing chess probably know the feeling. On going to sleep they find themselves applying chess rules to the thoughts and images rushing through their head, and as they slowly drift off to sleep they treat people like chess figures. The brain seems to follow the same patterns it has been concentrating on for the past few hours.

Those who have played the computer game "Tomb Raider" all night long may find themselves mentally reacting to the mindless tweeting of a blackbird outside their window with a movement they used for hours in front of the machine: They hear the bird, pull out the imaginary weapon and think: "Bang! You're dead." At times like these people can be quite surprised by their reaction and may start wondering about their attitude to the way in which violence is portrayed in entertainment media.

Of course, anyone discussing this topic in the wake of the school massacre in Erfurt feels that they are safe - as indeed they are. After all, we have surely learned how to differentiate between games and reality. Any child knows that he is not really a cowboy or an Indian, but only pretending to be one. "Only pretending" has almost become the motto of a society that has chosen entertainment as its main pursuit. People go to theme parks where the management has spared no effort or expense to make whatever fiction is on offer to look as realistic as possible. People book "adventure holidays" that give them the illusion that traveling is a mere continuation of their lives through other means.

But we expect young people to be able to draw the line at any time. And astonishingly, hundreds, thousands, millions of them can do just that -- only one could not. And it is best not to think about how many it would be if more of them had access to guns. So if the gun laws are being made stricter now, and violence in the media is being discussed, there are good reasons for it.

But it is doubtful whether all these discussions and round tables are going to have any effect. The very attention this crime has been getting holds potential for further killers. Apparently the killer had comprehensive information about the school massacre in Littleton stored on his computer; he is now being termed a "copycat killer." So did he copy what he saw at the movies or on his computer, or did he just proceed along the path that the media had forcibly paved for him -- from insignificance to the center of national interest, from a life without a future to the man of the hour? The discussions will deter no one; they will merely point the way for the next maniac.

Yet our civilization bases itself on a minimization of risk and exists with limited liability. We live surrounded by air bags, television remote controls, microwaves and the Internet. But all these modern conveniences are depriving the world of its physicality and divorcing our bodies from experience. No wonder tattoos and body piercing have become so fashionable. The popular sociologist Richard Sennett believes that our lives consist primarily of attempting to deny, minimize or avoid any kind of conflict. All our technologies are geared toward minimizing the risk of experiencing anything, or anyone, as strange whenever we come into contact with them.

This is no reproach, merely a statement of fact. We live with this rule, and fear the exceptions. It is almost inevitable, however, that someone will break this agreement according to which we are merely shifting our needs for risk, danger and violence into those artificial paradises to which we have recently gained access: the cinema, the computer and the Internet. That is where people can be what they are not: porno queens or killers. A permanent carnival of souls is in progress here, and anyone who considers it home will not want to exchange it for reality - as a rule.

It is unproductive, however, to cite the 1994 movie "Natural Born Killers" as an example of the glorification of violence, despite the fact that real murderers have referred to it and author John Grisham, of all people, has tried to bring a lawsuit against it. People can think what they like of Oliver Stone's paranoid view of the world; the fact is that his movie denounces precisely what he is being accused of. He tells the tale of a couple who kill willfully, and depicts the media circus that gets built up around them. The film is a satire, and those who refuse to realize that fact are beyond help.

People can draw similarly wrong conclusions from the 1976 movie "Taxi Driver" if they have not understood it. It certainly does give us a vivid idea of the motives of a person who goes on a killing spree, in a way that makes them comprehensible - and these shots could have backfired, too. And what about the 1991 film "Silence of the Lambs," in which serial killer Hannibal Lecter is not only invested with a charismatic aura but also escapes unpunished at the end, so that he can continue his serial murders? He, too, is one of our creatures, a creation of our civilization's violent fantasy, and turning a blind eye to it is not the way to master it. We think everything is fine when people are told not to point their toy guns at other people during Carnival time. What should they point them at instead? Lamp posts?

No one actually doubts that true violence should also be somehow depicted. And yet the question of how far to go is already being raised by news programs on television that show, with an increasing lack of scruples, what violence leaves in its wake: dead bodies being transported away, bloodstains on the road and chalk-marks around corpses.

We keep on hearing that a youth who had just come of age had lost the ability to distinguish between game and reality or had willfully suspended the rules; it was only when his mask was torn off that he realized the game was over. That can be blamed on violent videos and murderous computer games, and people certainly are going to have to reflect on what values or interests guide free self-restraint or the television authorities. Yet none of this will stop civilization from continuing to pretend. It will continue to stock its afternoon talk shows with people who behave as if life only becomes real once they have communicated all their personal details to millions of viewers -- as if what the media finds useful were the only reality. According to these shows, the iron law of life seems to run as follows: "It's good that we talked about it." This goes on to encourage a kind of spiritual exhibitionism that is only certain of gaining attention when it goes to extremes. What does that mean for someone who does not enjoy talking and whose problem is precisely that?

Perhaps we should start wondering about the curious forms of therapy and promised cures that are now an integral part of daily television. They are of course entirely violence-free, but may give the very impression that access to this world is not something that expulsion from school can prevent forever. Here life is staged in a manner that continually suggests people can only find salvation when they share it with millions of others. One does not have to be a psychopath to react to this with violent fantasies.

The transition to reality must come about under no circumstances, of course, but it is often accepted. It is almost the price that society is paying for its virtualization. Violence is only a refuge for people who have been given no other opportunities for self-realization. Those eager to try their luck alone as egotistical gunmen are very solitary figures indeed. We should start talking about that, too, rather than just go through the motions.