(Jewish) Ethics In The Book Of Judges Session 3: Judges 7-9

Question we'll explore in this session:

When should/shouldn't children be exposed to violence, real or virtual (news, video games, etc.)?

There is broad scientific consensus that virtual violence increases aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
PEDIATRICS Volume 138 , number 2 , August 2016

The character ethics strain of Jewish law, however, leads us to maintain that Jews should not play violent or defamatory video games... Thus on a personal level, playing violent or defamatory video games is inappropriate, not in keeping with the Jewish ideals to which all Jews should aspire. This is not, therefore, a prohibition that is derived from established law or precedent; it rather is a ban that derives from the moral norms and theology that are the underlying context of Jewish law. This is not a legal prohibition; it is rather a moral one in the realm of what one should not, or ought not, do rather than what one must not do.
This applies especially to impressionable and vulnerable children and teenagers. Such games, after all, glorify violent attitudes towards others, especially women, police, and minority groups, thus teaching players values that are contrary to core Jewish commitments.
Violent and Defamatory Video Games
Rabbi Elliot Dorff and Rabbi Joshua Hearshen February 4, 2010
EH 21:1.2010

This paper was approved on February 4, 2010, by a vote of twelve in favor (12-0-1). [Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly]

Recently, Derek Kreager, an assistant professor of sociology at Penn State used a national database of about 7000 students from 120 schools to examine a variety of issues, including popularity, self-esteem and propensity for violence. About the last factor, Kreager wasn't interested in murderous thoughts as much as dangerous actions and thus used scholastic records of prior fights to measure this.
He didn't limit his study simply to athletes and non-athletes, instead analyzed his data using everything from participants in team sports like baseball, basketball and football, to participants in individual sports like tennis and wrestling. What he found was that football player ands wrestlers have a 40 percent greater chance of being involved in a serious fight than all other athletes.
And for those football players and wrestlers who only associate with other football players and wrestlers that propensity towards violence have a 45 percent chance of getting into a serious fight (as opposed to say tennis players who hover around 10 percent).
"Are Sports Making Our Children More Violent?"

Psychology Today July 14, 2008

psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-playing-field/200807/are-sports-making-our-children-more-violent

"Screen violence, particularly when it is real but even if it is virtual, is quite traumatic for children regardless of age," said Dr. Dimitri Christakis, director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Research Institute... It is not uncommon to see increases in nightmares, sleep disturbances and increased general anxiety in the wake of these events.
CNN Health July 18, 2016