Tigers, spiders and crows
― But
why? you
would say. Our son has
a lot of toys.
His room is full of
them, plastic and metal.
Just yesterday his
uncle bought him a real robot,
which walks, has
flashing eyes and shoots.
I agree.
Toys, yes he has.
But does he play?
Let's see how long he will really play with this robot.
If he knows how to play, and if
the robot is suitable for playing.
Of course he will show it to his friends to make
them jealous, he will let it run a couple of times,
but afterwards he will get bored.
The robot can just run and shoot.
You can't do anything else with it.
If you know how to play,
you do not need the robot.
A nutcracker is enough.
It can be a robot, or a
crocodile, or a crane,
or a spacecraft, or whatever
you want.
If you know how to play.
I have the impression that our
children are playing less and less.
I no longer see them playing, either in the
gardens
or on the streets or the squares.
I see them of course in the bus when they
are going from one school to another.
Each one is holding a small box with a mini screen
and a few buttons.
If you press a certain button, then you shoot
a "death ray" that eliminates some villains
who
suddenly jump up.
And I know that in the evening, staying up late,
they play similar games on their computer.
Games that require speedy reactions,
that are full of tension and excitement
(if you see the kids playing, they
do not even breathe properly)
and whose purpose is
to kill as many enemies
as possible.
That's education and
that's training.
Training in the most
terrible act of all.
Training in murder.
I myself have played such a game, and I know.
They have such beautiful graphics and such vivid
sound,
that you think you're in a movie and that you are the
hero
of the adventure you experience.
I hear that in the newer, more advanced games,
the picture has improved to such an extent
that the blood of the victims gushes out and
splashes around in a very natural way.
And the victims are not always necessarily the bad guys.
They could just be some passers-by. But worth
killing,
because apart from the pleasure which the act itself of
hunting and killing gives, you collect points when you
kill.
You increase your score.
The "collateral damage" also has its good side.
This education is exactly
what the system requires.
Each child sits all alone at his computer,
against a world full of enemies, or at least
people worth destroying.
The young pilot, who by pressing a button launches
a missile which eliminates an entire family that has
gathered to celebrate the marriage of its daughter,
must have started his
training
at a very young age.