Last week I put up a post about Steven Pinker’s assertion that violent video games have become popular in an era when we’ve seen a marked decrease in violence perpetrated by young males, the group most devoted to them. But is it possible that such fare encourages a particular type of shocking violence (mass shootings) that gets lost in the larger statistics? Perhaps blood-soaked video games have little effect on the average youth–maybe it even helps him work through impulses virtually that would manifest themselves actually without the games. But it’s possible the most damaged among us are inspired by such bloody visions. Even if it’s so, do we want to live in a society in which our culture is governed by a very small minority of crazies? There was long the thought that pornography would encourage viewers to become sex criminals, but the preponderance of online pornography has coincided with a steep decrease in sex crimes. Just correlation? Perhaps, but I would guess causation. Violent culture may serve the same function (for most of us).

Orson Welles briefly talking about the supposed link between violent entertainment and actual violence.