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This one thing I know: external stimulus is secondary to internal motivation.

Of the multiple millions of dollars made every year off the sale of violent video games the percentage of people who buy those games and then actually commit acts of violence is marginal at best. Yet, on the reverse side, gratuitous acts of violence are more often perpetrated by people who have no access to video games or movies at all . . . third world countries, terrorists, and dictators.

So why don't teens who spend their afternoons blowing up cities on the T.V. act on the that stimulus, but children in the middle east will strap explosives to their bodies without having ever played a single video game in their life?

External stimulus is secondary to internal motivation. The old Nature/Nurture dichotomy gives us the key. A rock is a rock. No matter how you shape it, it will always be a rock. A kind, merciful, peaceful person will always be that regardless of the stimulus they encounter. Granted people can change, but statistically that number is diminutive. Yet take a violent individual whose soul drips with hate and bitterness and set them in front of "Sesame Street" and they will still exhibit violent tendencies. In fact, stimulus that is antithetical to a person's nature will most often exacerbate their natural condition instead of changing it.

As a martial artist for 15 years, when I saw "United 93" I was infused with rage. But that rage was aimed at evil. Had I been on that plane I know I would have joined the attack on the terrorists. But the terrorists attacked us first . . . and they didn't do it because they played too many video games.

Learn more about this author, Kevin Olsen.
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