I would agree that there are many factors that are more influential on this subject, although I would definatly disagree with you about what those factors are.
You are free to disagree with the variables I brought up, but they are the product of research from within the social sciences. By contrast, some of the variables you suggested (such as "moral clarity") cannot be quantified and sound like little more than ideological abstractions.
The problem is we have a breakdown of social structures (lack of two-parent households, lack of moral clarity, etc.) that influence whether ther will be violent behavior.
Well, to address the examples you gave....
The correlation between single-parent households and delinquency is an artifact of socioeconomic factors also related to single-parent households. This includes both financial pressure on the part of the single parent, as well as time-management issues in regards to providing attention to the child. To put it succinctly, this is nothing intrinsic to single-parent households. Rather, it is a product of the pressures that society demands of single parents. Which, once again, is the point.
As for "lack of moral clarity", from a developmental perspective this is generally a sign of moral maturity. The more self-assured one is that one's moral choices are
the only acceptable ones, the less sophisticated the moral reasoning one is relying upon. Rather than "moral clarity", the emphasis should be on perspective-taking and critical moral thinking that encourages the child to rise above egoic self-interests.
However, seeing as that is becoming more of the case then not, video games, movies, and music act as sort of a surrogate parents. This is where children are learning their morality.
The fact that people expect the entertainment industry to "educate" children speaks volumes, in my opinion.
Honestly, I don't think that the issues you brought up affect children's though processes. Granted, they affect their lives, but only in distant ways. I think that if you ask most children about Iraq (and an increasingly larger number of adults), they would have no clue what you are talking about.
A child's conscious awareness of the contents of their psyche is irrelevant, as such factors generally occur on an autonomic or subliminal level.
I am speaking, of course, from the vantage of social learning theory here (which is itself something of an extension to Skinnerian behaviorism). Individuals observe the actions and repercussions of others, thereby assimilating the behavioral patterns that they associate with "positive" results and rejecting the behavioral patterns they associate with "negative" results. None of this occurs on the conscious level.
Regardless of what one thinks of social learning theory or behaviorism, there are direct correlations between socially-sanctioned violence and societal violence at large. That is why rates of violent crime upshoot whenever a country is at war or whenever a policy of capital punishment is in effect.
The Iraq War contributes to violent behavioral patterns among our children because it is society's way of telling them that violent behavior is an acceptable way of handling disputes.
This is true. But the increasing problem is that children are getting access to more violent movies, tv, video games, etc., at a younger and younger age. Below the age of ten even. this is due to lack of good parenting, not the war in Iraq.
It isn't either/or, they are both factors here.
Laterz.
