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Difference between fantasy and reality

NPR's May 20th (2001) Weekend Edition's Andy Berkowitz, attacked shooter computer games wielding flimsy sarcasm like a tired columnist, well past deadline, desperate for an easy target.

Look at the effect of imaginary guns on my generation:

• Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, Hopalong Cassidy, and Palladin.
• "Victory at Sea", and "The Big Picture".
• We drew ships, planes and soldiers shooting each other during the boring classes.
• We played cowboys and Indians with cap pistols each summer day until dark.

Look at what else we did:

• We learned to shoot 22s at summer camp.
• We tossed cap bombs on the sidewalk near our friends.
• We wrapped aluminum foil around empty toilet roll tubes filled with paper matchheads to make rockets and blasted mortar shells using the chemistry set.

What was the effect of this? We became the children of the '60s. We still grew up with a good sense of how to decide what makes one action right and another wrong. Some of us fought with distinction in Vietnam while others, elsewhere, opposed the war -- All strong, ethical people.

I taught my son to shoot targets at 12, to keep guns locked and never aim a gun at anyone, to sit on deer watch with his grandfather and me.

At 14 he plays Half-Life Counterstrike on the Internet like tens of thousands of other teens and adults. It's a social game with guns and grenades, strategy, arcade quickness, extra points for headshots, and casual banter. It's bridge or chess with fake blood. And I'm happy for it because, although Borowitz doesn't realize it, there is a difference between FANTASY and REALITY. When my son grows up he'll know enough to practice that distinction.

The real danger isn't the game, it's Borowitz. It's the underlying presumption that he and other like folk are the official Decent People obliged to protect the rest of us. THEY know violence when they see it. THEY are immune to its effects. THEY alone can see its evil. And THEY must censor for our safety's sake.

Remember your Emerson: "For every thousand people willing to hack at the branches of evil, only one will hack at the root." Slack thinking is at the root. Not knowing the difference between fantasy and reality is slack thinking.

We've seen statistical studies on video games and violence, who's going to do one on people who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality?

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