GrammNet Issue 6/22/99 Dear Friend, The following column appeared on page 4A of The Cedar Rapids Gazette on Thursday, June 17, 1999. With all the hysteria driving policy in the wake of the tragic shootings in Littleton, Colorado, I thought it was time for some good, old-fashioned, modern-age Reason. When I wrote the following column I thought that conservatives would be almost as likely as liberals to object to it. From feedback I've received, however, it appears that a surprising number of conservatives agree with me. It's nice to know that conservatives still respond to reason! Sincerely, David B. Levenstam -------------------------------- Sympathetic Magic By David B. Levenstam People in many primitive societies have believed in sympathetic magic, the practice of trying to control reality by controlling its image. Alter the image, they believe, and you alter reality. Sympathetic magic includes practices like sticking pins in a voodoo doll to try to hurt the person represented by the doll. Despite the utter irrationality of the belief, primitive people in many places continue to hold it. Fortunately, we Americans have progressed beyond such primitive beliefs--or have we? Apparently not. Even in the modern age--or perhaps because we live in a postmodern age which rejects logic and reason as the racist, sexist impositions of evil white men--some Americans actually believe they can alter reality by altering its image. While postmodernism appeals mostly to the extreme political Left, some people on the Right join in the postmodern rejection of logic in favor of a return to the superstition of sympathetic magic. As a general rule agreement between Right and Left represents the gravest threat to our liberty. The Right-Left alliance in favor of sympathetic magic offers no exception to the rule. The latest belief in sympathetic magic applies to violence: if only we reduce pretend violence in music, movies, TV shows, and computer games, we'd reduce real violence like the recent tragedy in Littleton, Colorado. Alter the image of violence, and you'd alter the reality of violence, insist today's practitioners of sympathetic magic. Never mind that the alleged link between pretend violence and real violence is based on the unproven assertion that viewing pretend violence causes some people to engage in real violence--that without pretend violence there'd be less real violence. Claims that pretend violence causes real violence are based mostly on attempts by criminals--and their postmodern apologists--to shift blame for their evil behavior from themselves to someone or something else. Yet throughout recorded history criminals have tried to shift blame away from themselves without getting taken seriously--except by people who've believed in witchcraft, possession and other magical superstitions. Long before humans had invented language, allowing us to record history--or create pretend violence--many humans regularly perpetrated real violence. Modern life with its proliferation of pretend violence contains only a fraction of the real violence perpetrated in nasty, brutish preliterate human life. Never mind also the fact that historically the relationship between allowing pretend violence and experiencing real violence runs opposite to the direction claimed by today's practitioners of sympathetic magic: the more harshly a government has restricted the depiction of pretend violence, the more widely it has perpetrated real violence itself, as demonstrated by Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and even South Africa under apartheid. Never mind further the fact that most men, and a good number of women, feel less violent after viewing pretend violence. Millions of Americans feel relaxed and happy after watching Arnold Schwarzenegger slay a dictator's murdering minions, or seeing Sigourney Weaver soundly thrash a would-be rapist. Nothing relieves our desire to do violence over perceived injustices in our own lives like seeing pretend villains suffer violent punishment. Yes, the more we see Luke Skywalker destroy the Death Star--along with ten thousand evil Imperial storm troopers--the less we feel the need to punch the next guy who looks at us cross-eyed. Never mind finally the fact that even as the level of pretend violence in the media has risen over the past twenty years, the rate of real violence in America has fallen precipitously--so quickly during the past decade, in fact, that the actual number of violent crimes has fallen while the population has swelled. As our population has aged, and as our modernist counterattack on postmodern blame-shifting has led both to tougher law-enforcement and to more law-abiding citizens legally carrying concealed firearms, America has grown less violent. Yes, never mind all the facts, logic, and reason which demonstrate the fallacy behind the claim that reducing pretend violence reduces real violence. After all, what need have we for the modernists' facts, logic and reason--not to mention our right to liberty--when the postmodernists offer us sympathetic magic?