The Swiss government just doesn’t get it

A recent MCV article reports some rather worrying news:

With violent games currently causing a stir in Australia, closer to home it has emerged that Switzerland is now considering banning violent video games outright in the territory.

A resolution restricting the sale of mature games to minors has already been passed unopposed, according to Gamesmarkt, and will be now be presented in parliament.

It illegalises the purchase of any game not carrying a PEGI age rating and requires stricter rules on the requirements of ID, although both of these measures had previously been voluntarily introduced by retailers late last year.

However, more worrying is a second resolution that was passed — albeit with a split vote of nine-to-three — that could lead to an outright ban of violent and adult titles in the country.

Why should the interactive arts be given separate and special consideration? Following the same line of "reasoning" they're using with this piece of… proposed legislation, it should make just as much sense to ban violent movies outright. It would rid the country of movies like Fight Club and Kill Bill, true; but it would also rid the country of significant pieces of film like the Lord of the Rings series and Saving Private Ryan, which are unarguably violent. Violent traditional art should also be subject to the same barbaric reasoning, if they're to be consistent; even if it meant they'd have to remove all references to works like the Bayeux Tapestry from their art history textbooks, and purge any reproductions of such violent art from their borders. Violent books would also be no different. How many works of literature throughout history have inspired violent behaviour? Why not ban those, too, while you're at it? Of course, few pieces of literature in history have more violence in them than the Bible, and fewer still have inspired more violence. But if you're going to impose a ban on violent works of art, then certainly it would have to go, too.

This is not a "what's next?" slippery slope argument. The idea that it is acceptable to single out certain forms of art which happen to contain violence for censorship is ludicrous. I've said it before and I'll say it again: art has no responsibility but to be created. If you think that a given work of art is too violent, then the proper course of action should not be instituting a legal ban: it should be simply avoiding that particular work of art. Nobody is holding a gun to your head and telling you that you must experience a given piece of violent art. The power is always yours to simply walk away.