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<blockquote data-quote="woodelf" data-source="post: 2151431" data-attributes="member: 10201">USians seem to be particularly good at being afraid, and at blaming others--whether those &quot;others&quot; are other people, other influences, or other causes.If you want to see an excelent exploration of this, watch Farenheit 9/11. Ignore the stuff about Charlton Heston and KMart, and stick to the parts about analyzing cultural attitudes, and it's very insightful, i think. It also illustrates our tendency to (1) overlook obvious&nbsp; connections (2) in favor of any connection to &quot;unusual&quot; activities, (3) especially if this yields a &quot;simple&quot; explanation . For a society founded by outsiders and enshrining the right to be outspoken, we really don't like non-conformists. They give us the heebie-jeebies, apparently. The worst part of this is that it makes it nearly impossible to actually discuss anything even vaguely fringe. So, frex, we're making ridiculously slow progress on the question of any possible correlation between TV violence and real violence because a lot of proponents of the link *do* tend to be fringe whackos who make no distinction between Wile E. Coyote and Cops and, so you get equally-dogmatic opponents pointing out the ridiculousness of the mare extreme claims, and those who take a moderate position are dismissed by both sides as being idiots for falling for the other side's BS. As for the poor reporting and/or questionable analysis of the DA stoking D&amp;D prejudice: yeah, probably, but only really in those who're already predispuosed toassume D&amp;D, or even RPGs in general (for those that know the difference), are problematic, questionable, or evil. I don't expect this sort of story to sway those who know better, or even fence-sitters. It's too insubstantial to get the fence-sitters, and those who actually know anything about RPGs will recognize the BS for what it is. But it will likely get taken up by the wackos who already believe as further &quot;evidence&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="woodelf, post: 2151431, member: 10201"] USians seem to be particularly good at being afraid, and at blaming others--whether those "others" are other people, other influences, or other causes. If you want to see an excelent exploration of this, watch Farenheit 9/11. Ignore the stuff about Charlton Heston and KMart, and stick to the parts about analyzing cultural attitudes, and it's very insightful, i think. It also illustrates our tendency to (1) overlook obvious connections (2) in favor of any connection to "unusual" activities, (3) especially if this yields a "simple" explanation . For a society founded by outsiders and enshrining the right to be outspoken, we really don't like non-conformists. They give us the heebie-jeebies, apparently. The worst part of this is that it makes it nearly impossible to actually discuss anything even vaguely fringe. So, frex, we're making ridiculously slow progress on the question of any possible correlation between TV violence and real violence because a lot of proponents of the link *do* tend to be fringe whackos who make no distinction between Wile E. Coyote and Cops and, so you get equally-dogmatic opponents pointing out the ridiculousness of the mare extreme claims, and those who take a moderate position are dismissed by both sides as being idiots for falling for the other side's BS. As for the poor reporting and/or questionable analysis of the DA stoking D&D prejudice: yeah, probably, but only really in those who're already predispuosed toassume D&D, or even RPGs in general (for those that know the difference), are problematic, questionable, or evil. I don't expect this sort of story to sway those who know better, or even fence-sitters. It's too insubstantial to get the fence-sitters, and those who actually know anything about RPGs will recognize the BS for what it is. But it will likely get taken up by the wackos who already believe as further "evidence". [/QUOTE]

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