David Gergen engages Sissela Bok, a fellow at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, author of "Mayhem: Violence as Public Entertainment."
DAVID GERGEN: Sissela, you begin your book on violence on television by talking about the gladiators in Rome.
SISSELA BOK, Author, "Mayhem:" Yes. In fact, when I began to think that I wanted to use them as an example was when I came across Nicholas of Damascus, who wrote about dinner parties for the Romans where people would actually have their food, have their drink, and then lie back and watch live pairs of gladiators fight to the death and be thrilled at seeing that at such close hand. And that struck me then as a real example of entertainment violence, of taking pleasure and thrill in actual killing, which the Romans were such experts at.
DAVID GERGEN: There was a phrase from St. Augustine about the gladiators and what it was like to watch that I thought had so much resonance today.
SISSELA BOK: Yes. He talked about a young friend of his who was determined not to watch the violence and went to the arena with his friends and did watch it anyway and felt that his soul was stabbed. So St. Augustine had the sense that he then explained the effect of violence on people and on their spirits and their souls.
DAVID GERGEN: The stabbing of the soul.
SISSELA BOK: The stabbing of the soul.
DAVID GERGEN: You come at this issue as a teacher of moral philosophy and of practical ethics. And you frame the issue in those terms. Tell us about that.
SISSELA BOK: Yes. I'm interested really in entertainment violence, because it has so much to do with the kind of life we really want to lead, and that has so much to do with the main questions of ethics, namely what kinds of people do we want, how do we want to spend our time, what do we think watching all this violence might be doing to us. Iris Murdoch, the British philosopher, also talks about maiming the spirit or the soul. And the word "mayhem," in fact, really means to maim.
And what I wanted to ask was whether the constant exposure to extreme violence and very graphic violence, much more than the Romans had, and in our own homes on the screen, whether that can be in some sense maiming, and, in particular, I feel for children who have no choice about the matter. We adults can decide what we want to watch, but they are indoctrinated, acculturated, without any choice at all.
DAVID GERGEN: So what does it do to the moral framework of a child?
SISSELA BOK: Well, it does several things. First of all, I think it does affect their resilience, their sense of empowerment and growing up as young people with resilience, and it takes away also the capacity, which is the most basic capacity for making moral choices, and that is having empathy. This is something quite normal. Children two or three develop a feeling for other people. They notice when somebody is hurt or is in pain. And seeing so much violence that really asks them to take delight in violence and to shut out any empathy is, I think, very damaging, especially for those who see a lot.
DAVID GERGEN: So instead of being resilient, able to bounce back, one is fearful life.
SISSELA BOK: Yes.
DAVID GERGEN: And instead of being empathic, one is de-sensitized.
SISSELA BOK: Right. Both of those things are probably the most important. When it comes to the fears, you know, we hear now more and more about children being clinically depressed at earlier and earlier ages, and people are talking about giving them Prosac and anti-depressants, and they're not really stopping to ask first of all, what is the world of these children, what is it that they're seeing so much of? And they can't tell the difference between real violence and fictional violence.
DAVID GERGEN: You also went on to make the argument that beyond the lack of resiliency and the question of empathy there are also the issues of self-control and, as one's appetite grows, and a respect for others.
SISSELA BOK: And a respect for others. And, of course, that is cut away as well when we are asked in so many of these programs where disrespect is shown, where extreme violence, rape, torture-children see it all-in self defense they have to almost feel less and less, feel less and less pity for people and less and less respect for the victims.
DAVID GERGEN: When I talk to people in the television world or people out in Hollywood, they say that this isn't real; it's not like the gladiators. That was real. People were seeing real live violence. This is make-believe, and people know it, and they also argue that it has a cathartic effect. It enables you to deal with your fears. Now how do you respond to those?
SISSELA BOK: Yes. Both of those arguments are interesting. It's true that much of what we see isn't real. It's enacted. And for us, as adults, we can tell the difference on the whole. It's not at all clear that young people can, and it's definitely sure that small children cannot tell that difference at all. As for the cathartic effect, this was a theory in the 1950's, some people thought that if you could see violence on the screen, somehow, and live it out in your imagination, you'd be less likely to carry it out in reality. And that has really been totally disproved. Now, of course, also we have much, much more graphic violence, much more serious violence. And scholars are, more or less, agreed that this is not true at all. On the contrary, a certain number of people become more violent as a result.
DAVID GERGEN: What can people do to combat these problems?
SISSELA BOK: Well, this is what I really want to do, do partly in writing the book. I feel in going to schools and talking to parents people are so helpless and paralyzed and some of them even feel that it is an assault on free speech if they even tell their children so much, you know, the fact that programs are problematic or dangerous. I'm noticing more and more how much people are already doing. Families are doing a lot. They can do a lot. There are many more outlets than people often know about for children to watch other kinds of videos, for instance, non-violent programs.
The on-off button is very important. But then there are also technological means, and there are screening technologies that people are going to be able to use more and more. The V-chip is only one of many. Then now and this, to me, is perhaps the most encouraging-we now have-on the Internet we have Web sites for groups against media violence. There is an international clearinghouse for children and television violence, so that for the first time the consumers can band together and see what they can learn from one another. In the past it was only the producers who had the combined and collected effect.
DAVID GERGEN: You pointed to two countries that you thought were particularly innovative in the way they approach these issues. One was Canada and the other was Norway.
SISSELA BOK: Canada has had a much longer discussion than we have had and a much more articulate discussion about media violence. It was initiated by the government, but it involved teachers, parents, people in the industry, kids, adolescents, so many people, to try to figure out what you can do as a community and what individuals can do, without getting into censorship, which they agreed and I agreed very strongly is not the way to go at all. And so they really-they, for instance, prepared V-chip themselves, tested it. They arrived at voluntary standards for the industry, with respect to violence on the screen, violence before certain hours at time, and others. They, like the Norwegians, were talking about an anti-violence campaign.
Now, the Norwegians, who, after all, had lived under the Nazis and knew everything there was to know about government control over the media, did not want to go in that direction, but they also had what they call an anti-violence campaign that was-involved the whole people. Media literacy was very important in both societies, namely helping viewers to be much more critical in what they see and to be aware of who is trying to send a message to them here, who is trying to get them to buy things, who is trying to indoctrinate them in a way to enjoy violence, and what the results might be and what the risks with that might be.
So, to me, Canada and Norway, I used those two examples, but there are others all around the world and everywhere-in Japan, for instance, now many other societies-people are getting really disturbed about the environment that children and young people are growing up in and asking what to do.
DAVID GERGEN: Sissela Bok, thank you for helping find some of the answers.
SISSELA BOK: Thank you.
Sissela Bok on lying and moral choice in private and public life http://www.infed.org/thinkers/bok_lying.htm