The Hunger Games is a young adult fiction trilogy. It's set in a post apocalyptic world where America has been devastated by war and famine and then reborn under the guise of Panem, a pseudo-dictatorship that is separated into "Districts" which each specialize in a certain kind of industry. Because a bloody rebellion,seventy-four years previous to the first book in the series, the government of Panem, called "the Capitol", forces the districts to hold an annual lottery and select 2 children, one male and one female, between the ages of twelve and eighteen. The two "tributes" are forced to compete in a televised battle to the death with the other children chosen from the other districts.
Are you getting the picture? Needless to say, the book is extremely pessimistic and violent. In my mind it's a reflection of the depravity of the powerful. Now Solly's question is, should she allow her 10 year old to read this book. My response is of course yes. Demeter, they will bleet, " the material is to harsh for someone that age", "It promotes the glorification of violence!", "He won't be able to understand the allegory/metaphor". To all this I say, yeah well there are some people that live the reality of this. It's a story, but it reflects on the nature of humanity as a whole. Creating some fake insular world of fluffy bunnies and caramel kisses around a child doesn't make them any less likely to become a messed up person. It makes them more likely because that person comes to believe that this is how all normal humans interact. And sadly it isn't. Enjoying watching fictional violence doesn't preclude someone not being a violent person.
The point I want to make here is this: correlation does not imply causation. That is to say that, just because two things happen seemly together, does not imply a link between the two in the manner of one leading to the other.There are more important considerations than just coincidence.This is important in two ways for this conversation, the first is that people have conflated maturity with age. The second is that we have conflated watching or even reading violent material, specifically material that glorifies or normalizes violence, and being a violent person. And I think "normalizes" is the key here. This is the question that I think is most important; does the work attempt to make violence normal in our world or is it simply an illustration of how things could be or are? I think that in the case of the Hunger Games it is the later.
Let's take for example, a family in which violence is commonplace. Abuse and violence then become status quo, and non-violence or passivity become the aberrations. These are the moraes of the Hunger Games; loss, neglect and oppression have become so thoroughly ingrained into society, so integral to it's survival that no one questions why children are being sent to their death. No one, except the reader thus creating a bleak world in which violence and oppression have become the common denominators by juxtaposing it against our own world view. I see the book as almost a lithmus test of someones outlook on the world. Some might react with stark horror, while people like me who have first hand knowledge of how harsh the world can be don't bat an eye. However, this has nothing to do with the writing itself, this is the filter of the reader.
We come loaded with preconceived notions. Solly I wonder where I got that concept from? We are never blank slates, we always have our life experiences to color what we read and hear. So then the work is understood by what is already present in the mind of the reader, a posteriori. A person used to violence will see nothing wrong, a person not used to violence will be repulsed.
So then we have to look at the individual and what we think about their mindset. Why set an arbitrary age at which by some magically process someone is now mature enough to handle "sensitive material". Can we at least agree it's not a matter of age, but maturity and ability to cope with serious subject matter? There are some adults who probably shouldn't be reading the Hunger Games, because they mentally are not capable of seeing the meaning behind the violence.
In all my waffle, what I'm saying is that you shouldn't judge the work when asking should my kid read this. You should judge your progeny. Ask yourself, is my kid up to this with constrictions for age thrown to the wayside. I would say yes, but that there should also be a dialogue on the side between you and him about the themes of the book.
The point I want to make here is this: correlation does not imply causation. That is to say that, just because two things happen seemly together, does not imply a link between the two in the manner of one leading to the other.There are more important considerations than just coincidence.This is important in two ways for this conversation, the first is that people have conflated maturity with age. The second is that we have conflated watching or even reading violent material, specifically material that glorifies or normalizes violence, and being a violent person. And I think "normalizes" is the key here. This is the question that I think is most important; does the work attempt to make violence normal in our world or is it simply an illustration of how things could be or are? I think that in the case of the Hunger Games it is the later.
Let's take for example, a family in which violence is commonplace. Abuse and violence then become status quo, and non-violence or passivity become the aberrations. These are the moraes of the Hunger Games; loss, neglect and oppression have become so thoroughly ingrained into society, so integral to it's survival that no one questions why children are being sent to their death. No one, except the reader thus creating a bleak world in which violence and oppression have become the common denominators by juxtaposing it against our own world view. I see the book as almost a lithmus test of someones outlook on the world. Some might react with stark horror, while people like me who have first hand knowledge of how harsh the world can be don't bat an eye. However, this has nothing to do with the writing itself, this is the filter of the reader.
We come loaded with preconceived notions. Solly I wonder where I got that concept from? We are never blank slates, we always have our life experiences to color what we read and hear. So then the work is understood by what is already present in the mind of the reader, a posteriori. A person used to violence will see nothing wrong, a person not used to violence will be repulsed.
So then we have to look at the individual and what we think about their mindset. Why set an arbitrary age at which by some magically process someone is now mature enough to handle "sensitive material". Can we at least agree it's not a matter of age, but maturity and ability to cope with serious subject matter? There are some adults who probably shouldn't be reading the Hunger Games, because they mentally are not capable of seeing the meaning behind the violence.
In all my waffle, what I'm saying is that you shouldn't judge the work when asking should my kid read this. You should judge your progeny. Ask yourself, is my kid up to this with constrictions for age thrown to the wayside. I would say yes, but that there should also be a dialogue on the side between you and him about the themes of the book.
Maybe it's my glib pessimism about the world, or maybe it's testosterone induced madness caused by being a violence loving man. Either way, I think that aggression has a place in society, it's a part of the human condition and we will never be above it unless we discuss it. It harken to the discussion of abstinence only Sex Education in schools. It mutes the subtle nuances of humanity by trying to make them black and white. Nothing is good or bad. It's all about what we cull from the experiences we are given.Chemically speaking evolution itself is functionally promoted by the will to survive, and by proxy aggression. Only when we don't talk about things are they allowed to get out of hand and become something ugly.
No comments:
Post a Comment