The Philippines, a nation more accustomed to debating the sins of the flesh than those of the pixel, has suddenly decreed a ban on a video game following a high school shooting. The culprit, they claim, is not a troubled teenager with a gun but a piece of interactive entertainment. This is the sort of reasoning that would make a Roman emperor nod sagely before banning chariot racing. Across the pond, British school safety groups, sensing an opportunity to flex their moral muscles, are now demanding a review. One can almost hear the collective sigh from the Victorians in their graves: ‘At last, the children are safe from joysticks.’
The Philippines’ action is a masterpiece of misdirection. Instead of confronting the real issues: the availability of firearms, the breakdown of community, the erosion of meaning in a post-colonial society they choose to exorcise a digital demon. It is a policy as effective as banning the colour red to prevent bullfights. And the British response? Predictable. Our own safety groups, ever eager to prove that they care more about screens than streets, have jumped on the bandwagon. They demand a review, as if the problem were the game and not the moral vacuum that allows a teenager to see a school as a battlefield.
Let us be clear. I am no apologist for the games industry. Much of it is a cesspool of adolescent fantasies and cynical monetisation. But blaming a video game for a school shooting is like blaming the Iliad for the Trojan War. It is a category error of epic proportions. The Victorians, for all their prudishness, understood that the problem was sin, not the representation of sin. They banned bear-baiting not because it was a game but because it was cruel. Today we ban games because we are too lazy to fix the society that produces the shooters.
The historical parallels are delicious. In the late Roman Empire, the authorities banned gladiatorial games not because they caused violence but because they were a symptom of a decaying civilisation. Today, we ban video games for the same reason: we are looking for scapegoats. The Philippines and the UK are both struggling with a crisis of identity. Manila is caught between its Catholic roots and a globalised youth culture. Britain is torn between its imperial past and a multicultural present. Banning a video game is a soothing ritual, a way to pretend that we are doing something while the real decay continues unabated.
What should we do instead? First, we must understand that the shooter is not a gamer but a product. He is the result of a culture that celebrates violence in every medium while pretending to be shocked when someone acts it out. Second, we must stop treating video games as if they were a separate realm. They are not. They are part of the same cultural swamp that produces Hollywood blockbusters and nightly news reports. Third, we must address the deeper rot: the loss of community, the atomisation of modern life, the vacuity of our entertainment. But that would require actual effort, not just a press release.
The Philippines ban is a farce. The British demand for a review is a tragedy disguised as concern. If we are serious about preventing the next school shooting, we should stop looking for pixelated villains and start examining our own faces in the mirror. But that would be too uncomfortable. Better to blame the joystick. After all, it is easier to ban a game than to build a civilisation.
