Transcript Document

Who here knows how to drive?
What do you do when you see this sign?
Do you think?
No. You act.
You are conditioned.
What are you supposed to do if an
animal jumps out in front of your
car?
Hit it.
But, many accidents are still caused
when people swerve to avoid
hitting an animal.
Why?
Because human beings have a
natural aversion to killing.
•People have an even stronger aversion to killing other
human beings.
•In World War II the percentage of soldiers that fired their
weapons in combat situations was only 15 %.
U.S. Army Artist- Yank Magazine
The average and healthy individual…has such an
inner and usually unrealized resistance towards
killing a fellow man that he will not of his
own volition take life if it is possible to
turn away from that responsibility…At the vital
point [the soldier] becomes a conscientious
objector.
COL. S.L.A. MARSHALL
•By the time of the Korean war, the
military had increased that number
from 15% to 50%
In Vietnam the military increased its number of riflemen
willing to shoot at the enemy to over 90%.
How did the military make this change?
Operant conditioning.
•Desired behavior
•Positive reinforcement
•Negative reinforcement
B.F. SKINNER
What methods did the military use (and still use) to condition
soldiers (people) to kill?
•
Desensitization
• Talk of killing/injuring humans
Desensitization
• Cadences
• Chants
• Prayers
Load another magazine,
in my trusty M16.
Cuz all I ever wanna see!
Is bodies, bleeding bodies.
Throw another hand grenade!
Should have seen the mess I made.
Cuz all I ever wanna see,
Is bodies, broken bodies.
Stab em with the bayonet!
If he squirms you're not done yet!
Cuz all I ever wanna see,
Is bodies, cut-up bodies.
Call some more TACAIR.
On that bunker over there.
Cuz all I ever wanna see,
Is bodies burnin bodies!
http://www.infantrymen.net/cadence.html
The idea of me killing a person when I first
came down here just…you know, it was unheard
of, you didn’t do that…But once you came here
and they motivated you and just kept you every
day constantly thinking about it, and by the
time you left here…you’ve got it in your mind
that you want to do it so bad that you
actually go out and do it when you have to.
-Marine Corps recruit in 1968
We’d run P.T. [physical
training] in the morning and
every time your left foot
hit the ground you’d have to
chant, “Kill, kill, kill,
kill.” It was drilled into
your mind so much that it
seemed like when it actually
came down to it, it didn’t
bother you, you know?
- Marine Corps Vietnam
Veteran
World War II training
consisted of soldiers
shooting bulls-eye type
targets.
Training then progressed to
shooting at silhouettes
shaped like humans.
More modern targets:
Targets
Painted with enemy camouflage, or 3 dimensional, dressed
like a person, or drawn representation of a person
Photo-targets available for tactical shooting courses
Shooting is not the only method of conditioning soldiers to kill.
Aggression is rewarded. Violence encouraged.
Simulate killing lifelike
targets
•Shooting
•Bayonet
•Hand to hand
More simulated Killing.
New technology allows you to practice shooting actual living
people (MILES and Simunition)
Mass Media
Include:
Music
Film
Television
Video Games
Mass media perform the same
desensitization and conditioning on
youths.
Cadences, Chants
…This bitch tried escapin' the jack
Grabbed her by the throat, it's murder she wrote
You barely heard a word as she choked
It wasn't nuttin' for her to be smoked
But I slammed her on her back 'til her vertebrae broke
All I see is murder murder, my mind state
Makes it too late for cops in tryin' to stop the crime rate
All I see is murder murder, my mind state
Murder, murder, murder, and kill, kill, kill!
Marshall Mathers
Beautiful Anguish cast out by my
Now one that's Ageless I save my
I write my own laws with Death I
Killers are quiet when they come
race
own face
break bread
from my head
Slipknot
Violence in movies desensitizes youth…
Reservoir Dogs
Serial killer Nathaniel White described how he killed his first
female victim while imitating a scene from the movie Robocop II: “I
seen him cut somebody’s throat then take the knife and slit down
the chest to the stomach and leave the body in a certain position.
With the first person I killed I did exactly what I saw in the
movie.”
Television does the same…
Nine-year-old Olivia Niemi was
sexually assaulted with a
discarded beer bottle on a
deserted beach in San Franciso.
The four girls who took part in
the attack said they were
imitating a scene from Born
Innocent, an NBC television
movie they watched three days
before committing the crime.
Finally, videogames let children shoot life-like people, just
as realistic, if not more than military training.
From the video game “HITMAN”…
Videogame sniper training: Learning to kill efficiently…
The hero from “Grand Theft Auto III”, a street thug who uses
various weapons like this baseball bat to kill innocent men,
police officers, women and children…
Hand to hand violence. Aggression is encouraged through a
point system…(sound familiar?)
Realistic graphics improve training for players…
No detail is too small…
Many games are “First Person Shooter”, which adds to the
realism of the games-. These are the type of games Dylan
Klebold and Eric Harris of the Columbine Massacre, as well as
other school shooters, were “obsessed” with.
An Experiment (one of many):
•Fifth Graders randomly assigned to watch 15 minutes of baseball
or a crime drama that included several shootings and other violent
acts.
•Subjects were then put in front of a monitor and told to watch two
younger children (actors on videotape) and report to an adult in the
next room if anything went wrong.
•The children (actors) on the monitor then became engaged in a
violent fight.
•The children who had watched the crime drama were five times
more likely to fail to summon help.
•This proved that they had become noticeably desensitized to
violence.
Remember- these children had only watched fifteen minutes of T.V.
Imagine the effects of 2,3, or 4 hours a day seven days a week for
years must have.
The Human toll…
Feb. 2, 1996
Moses Lake, Wash
Two students and one teacher killed, one
other wounded when 14-year-old Barry
Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class.
Feb. 19, 1997
Bethel, Alaska
Principal and one student killed, two others
wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16.
Oct. 1, 1997
Pearl, Miss.
Two students killed and seven wounded by
Luke Woodham, 16, who was also accused
of killing his mother. He and his friends
were said to be outcasts who worshiped
Satan.
Dec. 1, 1997
West Paducah, Ky.
Three students killed, five wounded by
Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in
a prayer circle at Heath High School
Dec. 15, 1997
Stamps, Ark.
Two students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was
hiding in the woods when he shot the
students as they stood in the parking lot.
March 24, 1998
Jonesboro, Ark.
Four students and one teacher killed, ten
others wounded outside as Westside Middle
School emptied during a false fire alarm.
Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden,
11, shot at their classmates and teachers
from the woods.
April 24, 1998
Edinboro, Pa.
One teacher, John Gillette, killed, two
students wounded at a dance at James W.
Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14,
was charged.
May 19, 1998
Fayetteville, Tenn.
One student killed in the parking lot at
Lincoln County High School three days
before he was to graduate. The victim was
dating the ex-girlfriend of his killer, 18year-old honor student Jacob Davis.
May 21, 1998
Springfield, Ore.
Two students killed, 22 others wounded in
the cafeteria at Thurston High School by
15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been
arrested and released a day earlier for
bringing a gun to school. His parents were
later found dead at home
June 15, 1998
Richmond, Va
One teacher and one guidance counselor
wounded by a 14-year-old boy in the school
hallway.
April 20, 1999
Littleton, Colo.
14 students (including killers) and one
teacher killed, 23 others wounded at
Columbine High School in the nation's
deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18,
and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a
year to kill at least 500 and blow up their
school. At the end of their hour-long
rampage, they turned their guns on
themselves.
May 20, 1999
Conyers, Ga.
Six students injured at Heritage High
School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was
reportedly depressed after breaking up with
his girlfriend.
Nov. 19, 1999
Deming, N.M.
Victor Cordova Jr., 12, shot and killed
Araceli Tena, 13, in the lobby of Deming
Middle School.
Dec. 6, 1999
Fort Gibson, Okla.
Four students wounded as Seth Trickey, 13,
opened fire with a 9mm semiautomatic
handgun at Fort Gibson Middle School.
Feb. 29, 2000
Mount Morris Township, Mich.
One teacher and three students wounded by
a 17-year-old student.
March 10, 2000
Savannah, Ga.
Two students killed by Darrell Ingram, 19,
while leaving a dance sponsored by Beach
High School.
.May 26, 2000
Lake Worth, Fla.
One teacher, Barry Grunow, shot and killed
at Lake Worth Middle School by Nate
Brazill, 13, with .25-caliber semiautomatic
pistol on the last day of classes.
` Sept. 26, 2000
New Orleans, La.
Two students wounded with the same gun
during a fight at Woodson Middle School.
Jan. 17, 2001
Baltimore, Md.
One student shot and killed in front of Lake
Clifton Eastern High School.
March 5, 2001
Santee, Calif.
Two killed and 13 wounded by Charles
Andrew Williams, 15, firing from a
bathroom at Santana High School.
March 7, 2001
Williamsport, Pa
Elizabeth Catherine Bush, 14, wounded
student Kimberly Marchese in the cafeteria
of Bishop Neumann High School; she was
depressed and frequently teased.
March 22, 2001
Granite Hills, Calif.
One teacher and three students wounded by
Jason Hoffman, 18, at Granite Hills High
School. A policeman shot and wounded
Hoffman.
March 30, 2001
Gary, Ind.
One student killed by Donald R. Burt, Jr., a
17-year-old student who had been expelled
from Lew Wallace High School.
Nov. 12, 2001
Caro, Mich.
Chris Buschbacher, 17, took two hostages
at the Caro Learning Center before killing
himself.
Jan. 15, 2002
New York, N.Y.
A teenager wounded two students at Martin
Luther King Jr. High School.
Conclusion:
It is difficult to find indubitable proof because there are so
many variables that surround crime (such as economics and
family) but…
Consider:
If…
Desensitization and conditioning methods in the military are
equivalent to mass media exposure…
And
In the military, those methods caused an increase in the
willingness to kill from 15 to 90 percent…
Then…
Exposure of children and youths to similar desensitization and
conditioning will increase their willingness to kill to some degree,
a degree made obvious by the advent and horrifying number of
school shootings.
DESENSITIZAITON
+ CONDITIONING
ULTRA-VIOLENCE
AND
MURDER
Questions?
Works Cited
1. Davey, Graham, and Chris Cullen, eds. Human Operant Conditioning and
Behavior Modification. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1988.
2. Decker, Phillip J., and Barry R. Nathan. Behavior Modeling Training:
Principles and Applications. New York: Praeger, 1985.
3. Degaetano, Gloria and Dave Grossman. Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill:
A Call to Action Against TV, Movie and Video Game Violence. New York:
Crown Publishers, 1999.
4. Grossman, Dave. On Killing: The psychological Cost of Learning to
Kill in War and Society. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1995.
5. Levine, Madeline. Viewing Violence: How Media Violence Affects Your
Child’s and Adolescent’s Development. New York: Doubleday, 1996.
6. Murray, John P., Eli A. Rubinstein, and George A Comstock, eds.
Television and Social Behavior: Reports and Papers, Volume II:
Television and Social Learning. Maryland: National Institute of Mental
Health, 1971.
7. Overton, Willis F., ed. Early Childhood Television Viewing and
Adolescent Behavior. Boston: Blackwell, 2001.