No
Being caught in the middle of the headlights is always a tough spot to be in. Facing exposure from all sides, lacking in allies, wandering if the issue to set to stain and stick to your shiny expensive career suit you've invested a lifetime into. Maybe if you stand there and face the music, the screaming cries of the accusing will burrow their way past your ego and cut into the fleshy soul of your fragile spine, shattering all that faux-confidence you use like a crutch and leave you a gibbering weeping mess of the thing you used to be. And maybe, in that instance, it's easy and cleaner for everyone to totally divert elsewhere, throw your dart in the crowd and hope you hit a valid scapegoat. That's why I think there is little act more revealing and image disintegrating in the modern age than to point your sword at an obvious misdirection, and today that target is gaming.
It feels like it's always gaming, doesn't it? But why shouldn't it be- An apparent permanent scar on society perpetually representing that amorphous concept known as 'youth'. In the mirthless and ceaseless war against ourselves the lines of youth versus experience are something of a trite and over-explored battleground, which in turn makes them safe retreat conflicts when serious and consequential trials would otherwise be in question. When the NRA was asked to account for the way that the gun polices they defend allow dangerous tools to easily enter the hands of those unfit to wield them, somehow the conversation turned to video games. When actual violent loss of life was inflicted in a particular crime by an individual seeped in innumerable systemic developmental issues, somehow the games they played was the only topic that made it to the headlines. Young people don't work as hard as the older generation did. Young people don't respect their elders! Young people are lazy and hedonistic. Hmm, no don't think about the sixties; we're apparently ashamed of the movement for 'peace and love' now.
Why are we here today? To talk about one of those situations that transcends the typically inconsequential topic of this blog because it touches on the death of a real person. A teenager who was shot during a traffic stop in France by the police. Such occurrences are always a tragedy when they arise and it grates at the spirit to not exactly find it shocking. To be fair, I haven't heard of such incidents in France before. That doesn't mean they don't happen, it's just that America is usually the go-to. This particular moment happened to be caught on camera, and according to the news spread to the point of becoming viral. (Presumably across France Social Media, I haven't heard anyone mention this in the rest of the world.) And what proceeded next were riots.
Those are scary movements, city riots. I still remember living through a major one occurring less than an hour away from my home, wandering if the mob chaos would spread our way. Even from that distance you could taste the ash particulate, it was a grim few days. But such events are not, we must remember, natural disasters. These aren't unpredictable acts of god that come and go with force and ferocity that can only ever be survived, never quelled. Riots spark from a place of frustration and overwhelming helplessness, sometimes in response to supreme and unpunished injustice. There is also more behind a riot than violence for the sake of violence, and understanding that feels like it should be an innate place of being, but it somehow proves not to be just about everytime we get in the middle of another one.
The reason we are here today is because Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, took to the history books in his public address regarding the effects and causes of the riots in question. Of course there are significant cultural divides that split all the world up and their understanding of one another, but even with that in mind there's little to excuse the pathetic nature of the response. When talking about the riots, the majority of which is manned by younger individuals around the age of seventeen, Macron seemed to think it wise to psychoanalysis the upset. He claimed that they wander and destroy like they "Walk the streets of their videogames, which intoxicate them." Of course, that's Sky News' translation but everyone seems to agree with the spirit of his divestment of blame, and let's talk about that.
Now something that people really need to settle into their brains is the fact that games are not real life- that is to say it's increadibly hard for a single individual to become so lost in the world of fiction that they confuse the real world with the fake one. The act of smashing a car window in Grand Theft Auto and doing it in real life are literal worlds apart, the cuts all up one's arm would be testament enough- so can we not pretend that video games are some 'Martix-style' mask we wear over our faces which totally erases all connection to the outside world? Because that's asinine. Dissociative perception is a disorder that afflicts some people, most commonly attributed to those with schizophrenia, not anyone who has picked up a controller in their life.
But we know what's really being said here, don't we? Macron is blaming the immorality behind games and gaming for the utter conduct of the rioters, as though the personal fibre of France's youth is befuddled and befouled by the influence of violent video games and the idolatrous 'worship' of them. A common refrain you'd usually expect to hear from Christian advocacy groups out of middle America, but Macron has surprised us all today. Obviously such stances come from places of extreme ignorance on the topic at hand, from people who still believe games are arcade style 'murder simulators' rewarding points for hedonistic acts of brutality. Ignorance of the stories that can be told, the emotions that can be broached, and the fact that the only ultra-violence loving games out there typically oppose either Demons or Nazis. Is Macron upset about youths being taught to dislike Demons and Nazis? Thought not.
When it comes to the meat of the matter this is a scapegoat issue with no mistake. A target that Macron does not know personally, and so won't feel bad for victimising, which he can hide behind. Actually hear the accounts of these rioters and you'll come back with cries for social reform. Destitution brought on by lack of opportunity and government support, discrimination against the migrant class, and just calls for basic accountability for the aggrieved. These are real issues that demand a real reaction. Just shrugging and saying "video games" isn't just a limp response, it's actively damaging towards the already thin relationship of trust between a people and it's government. But hey, what do I know? I ain't a French President.
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