Please finish reading the article "Trained To Kill." Then, select one specific section and compose a 5-8 sentence response to this question. Remember that a response is not a summary; instead, it is a reaction to, an analysis of, or a questioning of the author's assertions. Your response can also connect the article to A Long Way Gone.
This response is due Wednesday, December 5.
As always, please read others' responses before posting you own, and feel free to comment on your peers' posts as well.
In the "Classical Conditioning" section from the Article "Trained to Kill," it talks about how people are trained to kill people and how media leads to this using classical conditioning. I was surprised how easy it was to train people into people who have no reflex in their middle brain to save their own kind. I think that classical conditioning can still be used today but for a much more beneficial use. They can help save criminals and give them a new life. This section relates to the training Ishmael Beah had while being a child soldier. For example, on page 5 of the article it says, "...a select few of Japanese soldiers would go into the ditch and bayonet 'their' prisoner to death. This is a horrific way to kill another human being. Up on the bank, countless other young soldiers would cheer them on in their violence." and on page 124 and 125 it says, "The morning after the lieutenant's speech, we proceeded to practice killing the prisoners the way the lieutenant had done it. There were five prisoners and many eager participants. ... The boys and other soldiers who were the audience clapped as if I had just fulfilled one of life's greatest achievements." I was shocked on how easy it is to train people to kill and how wide spread this method is.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was interesting that Rattlesnakes will wrestle each other. I thought that was interesting because i never knew that. Also it was interesting that only 15-20 percent of riflemen during WW2 would fire at an exposed enemy. Its amazing that only that many would actually try to kill someone. I wonder what the others were doing. Were they acting like they didn't see them? You see all the WW2 reenactment movies now days and everyone is shooting at the enemy, so why didn't they show this fact in the movies that are supposed to be based on a true story.I also think that video games can desensitize us a little because us teens begin to associate killing with winning and earning things like respect and a high kill/death ratio.
ReplyDeleteIn the section "unlearning violence" i dint think it is posible to unlearn vilence. Once its in your mind and in your actions you can not unlearn it but i do think you can push it out. Theres violence every were so it is imposible to not be exposed of it. It coud just be your parents simply yelling at you, that is a type of anger and violence. The are ways to prevent it like just leting it flow by you and not bug you, but in most cases thats not how it works it just stays in you. Its apart of life that can not be forgoten but can be ignored. Unlearning violence is just not posible but there are ways to cure how to act around it and with it.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I think the authors idea of how video games train kids to be violent is true I think he took it too far. Video games are meant to provide entertainment, they're not made to make killers. With the example he used with the kid who shot the clerk in the head he blamed it on video games, video games didn't cause that, being ill in the head is what makes people go out and do those sort of things. Blaming that act of violence on video games and television doesn't seem fair. There are millions and millions of people who play video games and watch violent tv shows and they don't go out and rob stores and murder people. I do believe his ideas are logical but then again I think he takes them way out of hand.
ReplyDeleteIn the section "Killing is Unnatural" of "Trained to Kill" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, he discusses the fact that the army has conditioned the human mind to become able to kill other humans, even though it is unnatural. Grossman explains that there is a "built-in aversion to killing one's own kind" (Grossman, 2). I think this is interesting because it does not just apply to humans, but other species as well. I think that this shows that humans are not as different from other animals as we think we are. I also find it interesting from a psychological stand point because I didn't know that the human mind does things to counteract violence. It also makes me question the motives of the military for promoting this instinct to be diminished in soldiers because it seems to me like it almost makes them lose their humanity.
ReplyDeleteIn the Section "The Methods of Madness: Desensitization" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, he talks about how the military uses methods of breaking people down and building them back up over and over to make them mentally stronger. No only is it done through verbal abuse but physical abuse as well. He later states, "When young children see somebody shot, stabbed, raped, brutalized, degraded, or murdered on TV, to them it is as though it were actually happening." I find this "fact" very interesting. I can understand how the marine training over time can somewhat desensitize a human to kill, but comparing this to an 18 month old child seems a little over-exaggerated. For one, an 18 month old child will not know what death is and not even be capable to understand the concept at all. All the child will see it somebody getting punched or shot then falling down. I can't imagine a child becoming used to death after seeing a few gory things on TV. My opinion is that in order for this to have a real effect on a person, something else must be wrong with them from the beginning.
ReplyDeleteThe Section " The Methods in this Madness: Desensitization" in the Article "Train to Kill" says that in the military they teach you to kill by "Brutalization, classical conditioning, operate conditioning, and role modeling."(Grossmen Pg.3) I would say that this is not such a bad thing. If the person or persons join the military, you have to know how to kill for war to protect yourself and people around you. For the Media of the little children, it's the parents fault for letting these kids watch movies or play games like that. For anything thing that involves media or games there is a age limit on the package or on the screen. Though media might be the case of these young kids being violent, I blame it mostly on the parents that let them get influenced by things that make them violent.
ReplyDeleteAs I was reading this I thought that it was interesting how they mentioned that when soldiers enter combat training they are broken down into killing machines. Well the point of doing this myself being a military buff, is so that they are not weak or faint of heart when and if the situation comes to present it's self, they yell and scream and yell and put you through the worst thing of your life is so that you don't become weak minded. When it come to video games the creators have no idea what they are doing they are just making money off of what they do they are"nerds" who create these games and they couldn't ever want to do something. The reason it makes kids so violent is that it makes them get so into it that they get angry when someone is bad at it or is too good at it and they're losing.
ReplyDeleteSections "classic conditioning" and "operant conditioning"
DeleteI found "the methods in this madness: desensitization" to be very interesting. How from day one of being a soldier they abuse you and make you feel like no one wants you. The soldiers are trained for a long time to be killing machines. Later it says that kids can be trained the same way by watching movies or playing video games. When I think of this I dont feel like this is accurate and feel that I will never kill just because I watched movies. When I read that kids from 3-5 didnt realize it was a movie I got a little scared. I have a 4 year old brother and it got me worried that when he watches spider man or even starwars it might make him a more violent person. It got me wondering if you would need a bad influence or a bad family life to set of the violent rage. I dont plan on doing any crimes and have not had thoughts of it and I play video games and watch tv like others. So my thought of needing a bad influence makes me think it is more likley for people with bad influence.
ReplyDeleteThe section "Classical Conditioning" really stuck out to me in the article "Trained to Kill" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman because it apply's to way more than just video games and violence in children, it apply's to everything in this world and why it is so wrong today. The author talks about the famous case of Pavlov's dogs in this section and how when the dog ate he would ring a bell and every time he rang that bell the dog would be expecting food and start salivating. I think this apply's so well to violence because kids do tend to associate joy out of getting the most kills in a video game against other players. I saw this and started to think on a bigger picture and how it apply's to other things than just violence and it made me think of anything else material in this world that gives us joy and we do not know exactly why it brings us this joy it just does. It apply's to technology so much, just like how everyone in this world has an Iphone or some kind of apple product. Everyone in the halls, in class, and walking around in public spend 80% of the time staring at there phones playing apps, snap chatting, and checking facebook. Everyone spends so much time on there phones and can do so much that when they lose it or the battery dies it is the worst thing ever to them, people can't go a whole day without checking there phones because they associate it with joy and how it can do everything for them and they don't even have to stop to think for themselves just making life easier and slowly dumbing the people in the world down. Just like how the dog related the sound of the bell to food the dog didn't have to walk around and guess when the food was going to come the bell did all the thinking for the dog. It also apply's to the boy soldiers in a long way gone because they don't have to think what they are doing is wrong or right they already associated it with pleasure. This classical conditioning method is way beyond just a training exercise for soldier, it is a way how anything material in this world can mold are brain's into believing life wouldn't be the same without it and that if it was taken away it brings us suffering. If the world and media can train are brain's to associate's feeling and our thoughts to what they want us to think then isn't that no different than brain wash even though everyone in this world is a victim of it and at this point can you truly say your opinion is your own.
ReplyDeleteI found the part of this article in which he is talking about our youth playing interactive video games and unknowingly becoming desensitized to violence very true. At the end ofthis article, the author says that he wants all violent games banned. This was more interesting to me because, sadly, in our society, the children enjoy and play these games everywhere, and everyday like it is nothing. I think that the author makes very valid points in saying that the media is one of the main "problems in today's society just because of he importance that it plays in nearly every family (I'm mostly talking about America). I believe that if no one was desensitized to violent acts that seem to occur practically everyday, the world would be a very sad place where everyone is scared to face everyday life. I personally feel like desensitization has made dealing with tough matters such as wars and massacres that little bit more manageable. Even still, the amount of violence seems to have made many people too insensitive and like no one cares about tragedy unless it is either a major issue or directly related to them.
ReplyDeleteThe section I selected was, "Virus of Violence", This is the section were the author describes how the murder rate in america had more than doubled over the past thirty five years. I was very much surprised by this data because it elaborates on how society in the united sates of america has become tremendously more violent over the years. The author continues to say that the imprison rate has quadruple and help lower these rates, increasing my interest in this particular part. My reaction to this part was complete dumfoundness. I was utterly dumbfounded, the violence in every day society has skyrocket, and no one is doing anything about the problem. The questions i have for the Author is were and how was he able to obtain this data. i would ask this because why would the FBI release such astunision data that is harmful on americas reputation. I am also curious because it speaks of injailment of more and more people witch today is a political probable.
ReplyDeleteThe Methods in the Madness: Desensitization
ReplyDeleteIn this part of the article it talks about how the army desensitizes soldiers to kill and how it is related to media violence desensitizing children. I can relate to this article because when I was little I played violent games and my little brother now plays violent games. For me I don't think they affected me that much other than I would play pretend war games at recess with my friends which they all wanted to play to so I know they were all influenced by it to, even if it wasn't from video games. Every kid has and likes star wars which had shooting and death in it and mainly all of their parents are ok with it, maybe because it is more aliens and robots but still killing is killing which is what the parents don't understand. I think it is completely impossible to avoid it and if the parents are really good at hiding violence from their own children they will still pick it up from other children. I do agree with the author in this section about desensitization, you cant avoid it and kids will always be affected by it.
In the section "Killing is Unnatural" of "Trained to Kill" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, he explains how the human mind has a built-in aversion to killing one's own kind. Not only does he relate this to war, but he explains how animals have the same aversion. I find this to be interesting because it seams like a very controversial topic. In the book, A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, there are many moments where Ishmael and his friends are cheering and truly thrilled by the deaths of their opponents, The Rebels. Clearly desensitization plays a huge role in this situation, but it seams impossible to me that you can completely desensitize a person to the point where they feel absolutely nothing but joy from seeing the deaths of others. Another question that I was left with after reading this section involved animals and their ability to be desensitized. Clearly video games and marijuana will not desensitize a rattlesnake, so what is the answer to brainwashing a reptile? Although this may not be relevant to the authors point, I find this connection between humans and animals to be very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI liked the part of the article where he talks about kids who plays these interactive video games are becoming desensitized is very true. I know that I am not alone in people who play these games. They are fun to play but I know it desensitized and you associate the memory with having fun. This problem will only get worse. Kids will thinks the Army is a big joke and just want to join to shoot guns. But i feel like shootings will become regular. In this article i fell he looks at all aspects of how this will affect us. Even though this article is a little out of date all of this still applies.
ReplyDeleteLt. Col. Dave Grossman's Killology expresses how the media influences kids, even at a young age. I found Grossman's thoughts about violence interesting, "Children don't naturally kill. It is a learned skill." Video games, television, and even life at home causes kids to become aggressive. Just like in Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone, Ishmael, as a rebel, witnesses some gruesome killings that desensitize him. He is now accustomed to the fact the killing is in his every day life. Lt. Col. Dave's point about killing being a learned skill is evident throughout Ishmael's journey.
ReplyDeleteIn Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's article "Killology" he makes a huge deal about how video games a desensitizing modern day kids. I do believe this is a contributing factor especially with today's first person shooter games. On the other hand I do believe he made to big of a deal out of it. Video games probably just speed up desensitizing young people because the real world will finish it off. I think bulling and abuse from the home is a bigger deal and will turn into violence in the future.
ReplyDeleteIn Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's Article the section "Method to the madness: Desensitization, He talks about how the military had to up date there tactics to increase the rate in which soldiers fire at enemy's. He talked about how the recruits are broken down, and then told to kill, kill, kill. I found this interesting because not all of the branches do this. For example my dad was an officer in the U.S.N and graduated from the naval academy. He was a bomber and he said that the navy trained him to have accuracy on target, and that they where a team, not one soldier. The marines take your identity, break you down, get rid of all emotion and then build you up again with a new sense of morals. At boot camp they set up tires for you to stab with your bayonet. As you do it you must yell and run and be viscous every time you swing. My older brother is currently at Army basic training. From what he has said, he wasn't broken down, just yelled at and told what to do, and had to learn to act like a team. So what Mr. Grossman was saying was far to broad and on fair. They don't always break you down, for example the "chair force" I mean Air Force make's you feel right at home and welcomes you in with more luxury then any other Branch. Only when you do para training are you taught to be violent. What I am saying is that though the military does want to increase the return fire rate, the branch doesn't always break you down. I think the issue is that this article is over 10 years old and many of the branches have changed the way they train except the marines who still follow that pattern.
ReplyDeleteIn the section "Killing is Unnatural" of "Trained to Kill" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, he explains how the human mind has the ability to kill one's own kind. He relates this to war, and he explains how humans are not the only ones with this problem. It is very intriguing because it is very controversial. I relate this to Ishmael in A Long Way Gone because there are many moments where Ishmael and his friends are cheering and truly thrilled by the deaths of their opponents. I think that this is because they desensitize the kids. I do not believe that you make a person lose all of their humanity and only be entertained by deaths of others. I really found this topic interesting and I really was wondering many questions afterwords.
ReplyDeleteI found the article to be very interesting. It posed some very good statistics and facts. Overall it was very well done however it seemed like he was only taking shots at the media. If he was going to make an article about the media he should have included something of how the media can also be a positive thing. I thought it was intersting how he included the part about how people were laughing about killing. I would agree in the fact society has gotten desensitized but once again you can not just blame the media.
ReplyDeleteThe section "Classical Conditioning" caught my attention the most in the article, "Trained to Kill" by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman because it goes beyond the application of violence in children and video games. It describes how media ipmacts and/or is impacting the children of America by these viloent video games. Personally, I beleive that the video games are in a way "brain washing" kids in not as an intense manner but is very well impacting children because of experiences even I have had. As shown in this quote, "Our children watch vivid pictures of human suffering and death, learning to associate it with their favorite soft drink, candy etc." This quote in my oppinion, is the smartest observation in the whole article. When we sit on a coach with a coke and candy it is bascally doing the same thing it did to the Japanese kids in WWll. It portreys to the whole aspect of the video games taking over the mind. In conclusion, this idea should be looked upon in a greater sence of cuation to the American people to show what is actually happening.
ReplyDeleteThe Section, "Video Games" personally relates to me the most. It talks about how in video games, role models are displayed, sometimes you are the role model. I think in some cases this is good and sometimes bad, unlike how the author thinks all role models in video games are bad and train us to kill. I have experience with games and one thing I have noticed is that they either make you agitated or calm you way down. I think it is ok to play the ones that calm you down once in a while, on the other hand I agree with the author and how he thinks these games can train you to kill. They seer images in your mind and agitate you making you violent a lot.
ReplyDeleteIn the section Classical Conditoning he says, "Every time a child plays an interactive video game, he is learning the exact same conditioned reflex skills as a soldier or police officer in training." I can relate to this because my brother who is 9 years old plays Call of Duty with me. Or he used to. He was bullied a bit last year and when he had drawing time in class he expressed his feelings by drawing his bully being shot. I know at first it sounds insane like I have a messed up brother but really every one has thoughts like these once in a while. Maybe not to the extent of murder. So I can say that the violent games he played as a young child taught him that violence was appropriate in casual situations. I think in the world we grow up in my brother knew about violence and murder before he played this game but it's possible he was conditioned to think violent to a higher extent than normal people. I could be very wrong maybe he was just pushed so far by his bully that he had bad thoughts about him. I guess all in all I could say I agree that video games gives the sense that violence is acceptable but I don't think they teach violence.
ReplyDeleteIn the article "Trained to Kill" By Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, I read about people's nature to carry out acts of violence only after they have been trained to do so. The section of the article "Video Games" makes me wonder whether or not video games have actually been the cause of acts of violence. I can relate to this topic, because I have played shooting video games and sometimes do not realize how violent they are. The article states that "...every time a child plays an interactive point and shoot video game, he is learning the exact same conditioned reflex and motor skills"[as shooting a gun at a pop up target]. The author of the article is stating that video games are teaching kids to be more violent. I disagree with this based on personal experience. If someone were to jump up and scare me such as an enemy in a video game would do, my first reaction is not to shoot them. Even though my mind has been conditioned to react to these situations with violence, in my life, these reactions are restricted to the game. Video games may be excessive in violence, however I don't think they are turning kids into killers.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading this article all i have to say; T'is complete garbage. Now the reason i say this is because this article is basically saying that any and all video games relating to violence at all are bad. It is saying that anyone who plays a violent video game or "shooter game" is going to be violent or have violent thoughts, which is not true. People for the most part have a good grip on life and understand the difference between right or wrong, which allows them to know not to do violent acts to others. This article is a "bash" article to just express someones personal opinion on video games, and that's alright, because they have the right to express that. The question i have is, if someone were to play a mildly violent video game like "Frogger", which happens to be a children's game, during the mission to get across the street while cars are zooming by, would it desensitize them and make them want to run people over in a car? As for the media showing violent things/clips, no one's making you watch the television... If you don't want to watch it or let your children watch it, then get rid of the television. In the end when they provide a list of non-violent games, the game "Earth Worm Jim" involves the character in shooting animals with a ray gun, "Yup, sounds real non-violent to me". As for violence in the military, these tactics are used to protect the land we all love and cherish, if the author has a problem with it, i ask him to tell us a better tactic or method to defend our nation. Also if we didn't our military didn't use some of these tactics, then we'd lose wars, lose freedoms, and this article wouldn't even exist. Overall what i'm saying is, matured human beings know the difference between right and wrong, as well as to commit an act of violence or not. People aren't being forced to play any video games, watch television, or do anything of that matter. If someone has opinions that i don't agree with, then i'd rather not have to read a packet about it, with the sole intention on "bashing" what my business or personal views are.
ReplyDelete-Matt Myers.
In the article "Trained to Kill" By Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, it talks about how video games are bad for kids and all they are doing is desensitizing kids. I think this is true but hey also have thought me a lot of things to. World at war is a game during world war two. It thought me a lot about the war so when i learned about the war in history class last year i already knew a lot bout the war. But i can see how it ca desensitize kids when you are killing people. And i think kids need to learn what is real and what is not and what is ok to do and what is not.
ReplyDelete