#whump discourse

I’ve seen a lot of posts about purity culture and anti purity culture and while some of them are well-written, several boil down to insults, name-calling, or strawman attacks.

I wanted to investigate a more nuanced version of the argument to try and understand the heart of the issue.  In doing so, I present the steelman argument of purity culture.

Violent media is not consequence-free.

Now, it’s certainly true that the media you consume affects how you think.  Our perceptions, our beliefs, our biases are all constructions of the world around us, and these perceptions do not care if the world is fictional or real.  We empathize with characters in media, we cry with them, we laugh with them.  As anyone in any fandom can attest, we develop strong feelings about fictional characters, as though they are real people.  In empathizing with fictional characters, their pain is our pain.  An attack on them feels like an attack on us.

Argument 1: In hurting fictional characters, you can hurt real people.

Defense: Humans have an extraordinary ability to empathize with just about anything, from space-faring robots to household plants to rocks with googly eyes glued on.  If an act is judged by its effects on bystanders, we are beholden to the whims of everyone around us.  In practicality, this means nothing would ever get accomplished–everything in the world could be labelled wrong by someone.  An act is judged by its effect on its human stakeholders, and in the case of fictional characters, both the perpetrator and the stakeholder is the author themself.

Secondly, another argument can be made for violent media biasing its consumers to more violence.  This argument has been made numerous times with finger-pointing at things like violent video games.  Being fed a steady stream of any biased media can warp your perception of the world, and a steady stream of violent media would then follow to make your perception of the world a more violent place.  It can also cause desensitization and biases in how you treat real people.

Argument 2: Violent media causes people to be more violent.

Defense: This is a difficult one to either refute or prove because how do you quantify more violent?  If the argument is that first person shooter games make users more likely to shoot people, how many people, in the vast, vast audience that these games have, have ever fired a real weapon?  Would those people have fired a weapon without playing the games?  Media has become more and more ubiquitous these days, from the advent of easily available books and an increase in literacy, to the invention of movies and TV shows, to the popularization of video games.  And yet, I would argue, the world as a whole has learned more kindness.

Do I claim that the increase in violent media is the cause of increased kindness?  No.  Is it true that some people who have committed violent crimes have also consumed violent media?  Yes.  But I would argue that violent media gives users a safe place to vent out and cathart through negative emotions without hurting anyone.

And finally, the last argument is about the creators of violent media itself.  That to create such stories–to write and think and characterize such awful people, to create tragedies and failures and horrible things happening to good people–they must be, in some way, shape, or form, morally bankrupt themselves.  To imagine an act of violence is something no moral, good person would do.

Argument 3: Creating violent media means you are more predisposed to violence.

Defense: This is an accusation of every creator of dark themes that they are a person to be suspicious of.  That their morals and their agenda are in some way questionable.  That they’re not good.  That it is okay to vilify them for daring to create a scenario in which bad things happen.

For argument’s sake, let’s say that this is right.  Then what?  How many creators out there can you accuse of being pro-rape or pro-child abuse or pro-murder or pro-violence?  How many creators would be left?  How many of those creators have actually committed crimes?  How many of the stories and shows and games you love bring up dark themes?

Nature is, in and of itself, a violent place.  Violence cannot be eradicated from this planet.  What we can do is learn to think critically, to be aware of ‘dark’ and ‘problematic’ themes, even if they make us uncomfortable, to shine a light on the darkest parts of ourselves to better understand who we are, what we are capable of, and the consequences of those actions.

I believe that it’s in the confrontation of violence that we learn kindness.