Culture Shock
When politicians and other public figures criticize video games on cultural merits (or a perceived lack thereof), many gamers shrug it off with a comparison to early reactions to rock and roll. Of course, a lot more than rock and roll has taken similar criticism for allegedly corrupting the minds and souls of fragile youth, and Wired has a short article up highlighting some of the more noteworthy ones. For example, on the subject of that great storytelling form, the novel:
"The free access which many young people have to romances, novels, and plays has poisoned the mind and corrupted the morals of many a promising youth; and prevented others from improving their minds in useful knowledge. Parents take care to feed their children with wholesome diet; and yet how unconcerned about the provision for the mind, whether they are furnished with salutary food, or with trash, chaff, or poison?"
- Reverend Enos Hitchcock, Memoirs of the Bloomsgrove Family, 1790
Read on for similar damnations of movies, comic books, and even the waltz. You can't make this stuff up, folks. (Thanks, Jason!)
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