‘Killology’ expert speaks in Asheville

By Barbara Blake, Staff Writer Asheville Citizen-Times

Thursday March 29, 2001

ASHEVILLE – At a high school on the West Coast, when the history teacher played a video of "Shindler’s List’’ for her class, students laughed and jeered as the horror of the Holocaust unfolded on the screen.

In movie theaters on the East Coast, young people viewing the re-release of "The Exorcist’’ – which a generation ago caused many a teen to sleep with her light on for months afterward – laughed and cheered and mocked the characters, all the while munching on Milk Duds and buttery popcorn.

In millions of homes across America, children of all ages stare dully at TV screens as Bad Guy X blows away Bad Guy Y, yawning with boredom as blood spills across the screen.

And in millions more homes, children of all ages are frantically jerking the joysticks connected to their video games, racing the clock to commit as many cyber-murders as possible before time runs out, pumping their fists triumphantly as the death toll is proclaimed.

And adults wonder why children kill.

The culture of violence oozing from every orifice of the American media is an invitation – even a mandate – for children to grow up desensitized to others’ pain, thrilled at the prospect of horror and destruction, cheered on by the sight of blood and gore, an expert on aggression and violence said Wednesday in Asheville.

Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, who heads an organization called the Killology Research Group, told Western North Carolina educators, civic leaders, clergy and physicians during three "strategy sessions’’ that the number of school shootings and other violent acts committed by children is destined to continue to rise.

"School shootings are not going away – there will be more and more (killers) slipping through the cracks, because there are thousands of children out there who want to do it,’’ said Grossman, whose two-day visit to Asheville was billed, "How Our Kids are Learning to Kill … and Learning to Like It.’’ "It’s not going away until we cut to the root dynamics of what makes it happen,’’ he said.

At the session with educators and civic leaders, Grossman presented statistics showing the drastic increase in violent acts in the years since television was introduced in the 1950s, along with ever-more-violent movies and the advent of video games requiring the player to kill, maim and destroy.

Children who are exposed to any of those media outlets at a young age are bound to feel the impact, he said.

"Until the age of 6 or 7, children have enormous difficulty telling the difference between fantasy and reality. The behaviors we learn during those years are the hardest to unlearn – and violence is the most difficult of those behaviors to unlearn,’’ Grossman said.

In every part of the world where media violence has appeared, 15 years later the murder rate had doubled, he said. "And in every place where media violence has appeared, there has been an explosion of violence on playgrounds – and 15 years later, you reap what you sew.’’

Grossman, a military and law-enforcement trainer and psychologist who worked with health professionals and law-enforcement officers in the aftermath of the Jonesboro, Ark., Springfield, Ore., and Littleton, Colo., school shootings, said media violence alone does not necessarily turn kids into killers.

"You have to think of it like heart disease; all kinds of factors contribute – smoking, lack of exercise, stress, obesity, many other factors. And violent crime? You have the breakdown of families, drugs, child abuse, the availability of guns, and many other factors.

"But you take any of those factors, and add the death and horror and destruction being sold to kids, and you will see an explosion of violence,’’ Grossman said. "That’s the new variable – the death, horror and destruction being sold to kids.’’

The solution would seem simple: don’t buy ‘em, don’t watch ‘em. But it’s not that simple, Grossman said, when the culture of violence is everywhere, and media corporations are making billions in the process. "Even Ted Turner concedes, and I quote, ‘TV violence is the single most significant factor contributing to violence in America.’ But did he stop selling it? No,’’ Grossman said, likening such media moguls to drug dealers and tobacco companies who know their products kill, but continue selling them to make more money.

Grossman also took issue with those who would oppose the regulation of media availability to children, describing the public outcry he would expect if alcohol, tobacco and guns were not regulated and children had free access to those and other tools that could harm them.

The violence in media surrounding children at every turn translates into learned behaviors, similar to the training tactics used in Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan to desensitize soldiers to killing. And children are becoming expert marksmen as they play their "children’s’’ video games, Grossman said. "Today, kids are taught to kill every living thing in front of them with the greatest possible efficiency,’’ he said. "And kids are on murder simulators every night, shooting with supernatural accuracy.’’

Grossman said when he was a boy, playing shoot-em-up with cap guns with a friend, the deaths were imaginary, the "victim’’ often denying that he had even been shot. If one boy poked the other in the ribs, saying, "Yes you are dead!,’’ and pushed a little too hard, the offended likely would run for his mother to complain about the offender.

"Then Mama comes out, and I get in big trouble,’’ he said. "I learned from an early age that inflicting pain on someone else resulted in bad things happening to me. Today, kids are blowing heads off in the water (on video games) and watching the blood spurt everywhere. But do I get in trouble? No, I get points.’’

In Japan, he said, it is against the law to put a juvenile offender’s picture on the television, not to protect the child, but to deny him the fame and glory he may be seeking. In America, teen-age shooters like those who killed at Columbine, Jonesboro and Paducah likely are seeking that fame and glory, and the higher the number of deaths, the better, Grossman said. "It’s about racking up a new high score on the national video game,’’ he said. "Nothing motivates teen-agers more than their chance at glory and fame.’’

Grossman urged parents to prevent their children from watching TV shows with "toxic, addictive substances’’ and clearly would enjoy seeing violent video games banished from the face of the earth in a burning pyre. He urged them to write to lawmakers and policy-makers to make meaningful changes in media availability. But he said all change must start with individuals.

"We’ve got to make a decision, right now, if we’re on the path of peace, or on the side of a culture of death,'' he said. "But it’s got to start with each home.

Copyright 2001: Asheville Citizen-Times