Alright, you’ve pissed me off. I’m glad you decided not to link this for others to actually read and not trust you when you crop out pieces for your own agenda.
I’ve tried accessing that article and well, it won’t let me– it gives me the 404 NOT FOUND.
So I’m suspicious when I myself cannot read an article that “proves” fiction affects reality in such a dangerous way.
Do not place blame on mythology for the crimes people commit– Greek, Norse, and Egypt mythology has not brought any rise in criminals from what I know of, so don’t lie.
Also, comparing fictional content to religious text can be considered soi goddamn disrespectful, so watch your tongue– that intself is a separate issue dealing with how a religion is taught, the family upbringing and community upbringing.
Parade floats and balloons are real, material things. Fictional beings are not– they are words, they are drawings on paper.
First, let me destroy your argument based on the Slenderman stabbings with the help of @shitcoursechef :
i’ve seen a lot of people using the 2014 slender man stabbing to support their claims that fiction affects reality.
To those who don’t know, the slender man stabbing was when two girls, anissa weier and morgan geyser who were both 12 years old at the time, lured their friend and classmate payton leutner (also 12) into a forest and then stabbed her 19 times in the chest. they goal was to sacrifice their friend to slender man and prove themselves worthy. fortunately, payton was able to crawl her way out to the road and was rushed to the hospital. she survived the attack and has since made a full recovery.
while on the surface this appears to be a very solid piece of evidence, people often forget a few key points about the case:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/07/us/slenderman-teen-guilty-plea/index.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41292913
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/slender-man-anissa-weier-verdict/
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2643061/slender-man-stabbing-case-anissa-weier-morgan-geyser-payton-leutner/
these are real psychologists saying that neither morgan nor anissa was 100% mentally capable at the time of the attack.
it is not just ableism deflecting responsibility of horrible actions away from neurotypicals, no psychologist has ever supported that a 100% mentally sound individual is capable of committing murder at such a young age (these girls were TWELVE years old), especially to please a fictional character.
if anything, this case proves that fiction only affects the very young and mentally ill… not full grown adults and teenagers. please find another legal case to use and read up on this article about how fiction doesn’t affect reality by david gauntlet.
Thank you Shitcoursechef– so yes, there is an actual documentary you can watch about those girls, which states they were not mentally stable– they most likely would have harmed anyone regardless of fiction because of that– not to mention they had no adult supervision, totally neglected.
Also, if you’re going to blame VIDEO GAMES for the rise in crimes and violence, let me tell you, you sound like an extreme conservative, radical zealot SOCCER MOM of the 80s and early 90s. Congrats, moron.
I’m gonna get some help from the wonderful @tenaflyviper
No, fiction does not affect reality the way you want to believe.
The statistics for rape, child abuse, assault, murder, etc. have all experienced a dramatic decline over the past few decades, in spite of our media becoming more graphically violent, and pornography being more easily accessible. Your logic just doesn’t hold up to the facts (by the way, this also applies to stories with mature themes like rape or murder, or stories with abusive or taboo relationships. IT’S JUST FICTION, PEOPLE. It’s a reflection of various aspects of our humanity, which includes the things we most fear.
Writing and reading about them is one way we can strip them of that fear and power they hold over us. It doesn’t mean we stop recognizing those things as morally wrong–it’s just a way of reconciling their existence, and coping with it).
An abuser can groom a victim without ever using anything sexual whatsoever. It’s about trust. It can be something as simple as an interest in model airplanes–does that make those “problematic”? As for those abusers, chances are that they’re not some random stranger on the internet, but someone known to the victim. You may not want to hear this, but the greatest threat to children statistically? It’s their own mothers.
Being inspired by something does not equate to causation. “Slippery Slope” is a logical fallacy that has been used for years (usually by conservatives and overzealous religious fanatics) to blame certain behaviors on the media a person consumes. Yes, that’s right: You’re regurgitating the EXACT SAME ARGUMENTS used by conservative, Republican, religious extremists. If your argument sounds like a Jack Chick tract (like this one implying that playingDungeons & Dragons recruits teens into the occult), you should be SERIOUSLY FUCKING EMBARRASSED. By your logic, you’re placing the blame for an incident of a child jumping off the roof in the 90′s on Wile E. Coyote (and before you even try to pull the “Jaws” argument, don’t bother: It holds less water than a thimble).
The “Fiction affects reality!” argument was bullshit when they tried to use it against video games in the 90′s, it was bullshit when they tried to use it against horror movies and heavy metal music in the 80′s, and it’s bullshit now (remember the “Satanism Scare”? Yeah, of course you fucking don’t, you weren’t even born yet–but the entire country was in a moral panic that daycare centers were sacrificing children to Satan, even though not a single piece of evidence was ever found to prove it, and heavy metal music was one of the scapegoats being blamed for “turning kids into Satanists”), and it remains bullshit to this day (honestly, it’s incredibly embarrassing seeing this argument being used by people who claim to be progressive, because it’s an argument that has been used against the LGBT community for decades to–for example–prevent kids’ shows from having openly LGBT characters by insisting that it will “corrupt” children).
Let’s talk about the criminal mind for a moment (because, unlike you, I actually have a background in studying criminal minds, as I had originally gone to college for forensic psychology. I had intended to be one of the people that would track down and bring the kind of monsters that prey upon children to justice). It has been shown time and time again that criminals and abusers have a lack of function in the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for controlling our impulses, connecting our actions to their consequences, and having empathy for others. Now, there are those out there with low functioning in these areas that never harm a fly. Why? Because there are more ingredients required to create an abuser. How? Not by “problematic” works of fiction: They are primarily a result of broken homes, traumatic experiences, and–most importantly–parental abuse/neglect. Parental influence (or lack thereof) has been directly linked to lack of function in the brain, and behavioral issues, meaning that their time in the crib had a far greater influence on them than anything they will ever read, see, or hear. When nature and nurture have come together to create a psychopath, they have molded an individual that is disconnected from reality in a very dangerous way. It takes many factors working together to create people capable of committing abuse. No amount of fiction changes a person’s upbringing, genetics, or brain function. These are not average people. They are a very, very small minority of people that are fully, completely aware that their behavior is wrong–they simply lack the inhibition to not go out and do it, and the empathy to care. They would be this way regardless of the media they consumed, and removing them from it would change nothing, except potentially causing them to actively seek out the real thing, which–unlike fictional media–causes real, physical harm.
Also, while our media has become increasingly violent–and pornography more easily accessible–actual rates of violence, rape, and abuse (including child abuse) are the lowest they’ve been in decades (we’re talking in most first-world cultures, but not all first-world cultures, so don’t even bother talking about Japan, because they have a patriarchal and legitimately misogynistic society that represses its citizens). If what you insist was the truth, we would be seeing the opposite result. Meanwhile, transgressive behavior existed long before fan art (which isn’t even professionally published, and therefore not a piece of mainstream media), and has always declined as civilization progressed.
For your homework, please educate yourself further about how most people can differentiate between fiction and reality, and morally separate themselves from work they know isn’t real (not everyone is as susceptible to and obsessed with fiction as YOU are):
http://bigthink.com/insights-of-genius/why-we-love-violence-in-fiction
https://psychcentral.com/news/2013/03/30/why-do-people-like-violent-movies/53211.html
https://elflands2ndcousin.com/2012/12/04/the-anatomy-and-value-of-fictional-violence/
https://www.edge.org/response-detail/23745
Blaming media for transgression is scapegoating. You’re simply creating a false solution to a problem in order to feel like a hero for doing absolutely nothing. You’re honestly no better than those who blame social ills on minorities rather than accepting that people just like them–or even their own indifference, ignorance, or lack of understanding–could be part of the problem.
