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In Praise of Violence

Gerard Jones on why children really need to kill make-believe monsters.

Oct 7, 2002, Vol. 8, No. 04 • By JOHN PODHORETZ
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Killing Monsters
Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence
by Gerard Jones
Basic, 261 pp., $25

THE OTHER DAY, Joe--my fiancee's five-year-old nephew--decided to let me in on something. "Can I tell you a secret?" he asked. "My grandma bought me a special present." He paused. "It's called a gun."

I knew full well his grandmother had bought him no such thing. Joe isn't allowed to play with guns. "She bought you a gun, did she?" I said.

"It's a real gun, with real bullets," he said. "And I'm not kidding." "Oh," I said.

Then Joe added: "But grandma told me I could only shoot things that are already dead."

Earlier in the day, Joe had told me stray cats had been leaving droppings in his grandmother's flower bed. She was angry about it. Joe decided these acts of feline trespass were an outrage, and he said he wanted to kill the cats. In response, Joe's aunt told him that it wasn't right to kill living things--and Joe put it all together.

His hunger for a gun gave rise to the fantasy of being presented with one by his gentle and giving grandmother. But he didn't want the gun without conditions. He wanted the gun to come with moral strictures and boundaries.

Gerard Jones's "Killing Monsters" is an original and surprising new book that tries to cut through parental and societal hysteria regarding childhood play to explain why Joe's fascination with guns and his hunger for a moral framework are complementary impulses. Jones's work comes with the year's most provocative subtitle: "Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence."

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