Ahem... Further to my last post about 'media output' encouraging people to kill each other.
I noted that very few crimes come with the defense 'A book made me do it'. Suggesting that books don't have the same warping power on the imagination, in turn implying either that written fiction is a more benign expression of ideas, violent or otherwise, or that it somehow lacks the immediacy and imaginative 'mainlining' that a movie or a video game might have.
(NB - I'm talking fiction here, not some god-awful self-help tome or the like, written entirely to alter your behaviour.)
A book recently affected my thinking the way a movie would.
This book had me looking around my house for impliments I would need to bring with me should I find myself wandering through an apocalypse with my family in tow. After one fevered reading session of this visceral son of a bitch, I looked at the kitchen and took serious stock of the hardware opportunities available. What would save our lives? What would be a burden? What would I want to grab if I had two minutes to leave the house?
Most ridiculously (perhaps) I realised just how useful my belt would be. Just a belt bought for the purpose of holding up the old trousers, but also, I realised - an invaluable tool should nightmares drive us into the wilderness:
The belt has reinforced eyelets all around it and, when combined with my kitchen rack metal utensil hooks, becomes invaluable in the portability of utility. I worked out I could hitch up between six and eight hooks off which to hang: two large knives, one diamond steel (for sharpening the knives), one small frying pan, one pair of heavy-duty meat scissors, a water canteen, can opener-cum-bottle opener, one first aid kit and more...
I know this because I did this.
So written fiction can seriously affect behaviour. And clearly I'm a lunatic. But read The Road and you'll find yourself thinking the same. It's incredible. Just the scene where the protagonist runs the bath in the middle of the night - a tiny paragraph - but perfectly summizes the moment that the man suspects something had changed irrevocably while they all slept.
Article Dan
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