THIS MORNING, ON MY WAY to a dentist appointment, I was listening to an NPR report on a video game—apparently one of the most popular of its kind.
We shared that we were both impressed by the natural empathy of children—by how they seemed to care from an early age about others.
The game, called America's Army, is actually a U.S. military recruiting tool aimed at 13 to 21 year olds.
In the game, they can learn to use a variety of weapons, and practice shooting non-Americans on the battlefield.
It turns out that the game, along with a set of graphic novels, has been surprisingly effective as a recruiting tool.
I arrived at the dentist's office, and was shot full of Novocaine, or whatever the modern equivalent is.
While we were waiting for the shot to take effect, my dentist and I chatted about children and grandchildren.
We shared that we were both impressed by the natural empathy of children—by how they seemed to care from an early age about others.
Inspired by that topic, he shared a recent experience of his own: jury duty.
He told me how he had almost been seated on a jury for a murder trial—one gang member was accused of killing another—and how absolutely surprised he was to find that he was emotionally overwhelmed by the prospect of dealing with a murder case.
In the end he wasn't chosen, but the experience had left him deeply impressed with both the seriousness of the crime, and his own questions about how a human being could become capable of killing another human being.
He mused about the fact that guns are more available than ever, and that fights which in the past would not have led to a fatality might be more likely to now that guns are easier to get.
I told him about the story I had heard on NPR—about how young people might have actually been trained in the use of weapons through a video game provided by the U.S. military.
Much of what we humans do is the result of former training.
We love expertise.
We love learning to do difficult things—that's why we go out of our way to invent absurdly difficult things to do: golf, baseball, curling.
And, once we have the expertise we find those activities increasingly attractive and increasingly easy.
If the skill is useful, this is a very good thing.
Some of us can't pass up a chance to play a musical instrument, or fix a broken faucet, or teach someone something.
But others among us have skills which do them no good—the same dynamic may make it difficult for them to pass up a chance to con a sucker, or to rob a 7-11.
If they want to go straight, they have to curb the very natural human tendency to do that which one knows how to do well.
So we should be careful which skills we teach.
When one of our kids gets into a dispute with someone else's, it might be a good idea if the NRA hadn't made sure one of them had access to a gun, or our own military hadn't made sure that he had practiced killing people with it in a video game.
At least, that's what I think today.
