Rome is still Burning
Burn baby burn. Drill baby drill. Kill baby Kill. Pills baby Pills. Our digital world is the true mental reality of our citizens and youth. I played “Duck Hunt” when I was a kid. I cried when I killed my first bird with my Daisy pellet gun. I never killed again. They say the generation of soldiers in Iraq now are the best killers the world has ever seen. What does that mean? Rome is burning.
6 Comments
globatron
May 16, 2010Maybe the real purpose of evolution is to become the most effective killers we can be. If that is the case we are succeeding.
The next generation of soliders will not leave their bedroom. These games will be reality and they will be piloting droids.
logocentric
May 16, 2010or ‘drones.’ it’s already happening, as you know. my apologies to those who indulge in video carnage, but i don’t see how anyone can play these murder games and then claim to have their consciences in tact.
by the way, the dialogue with Robert Redford is one of the best in recent times. the movie is not so great; but the dialogue stands out.
globatron
May 16, 2010you are correct. we are definitely using drones to a degree that the average citizen (myself included) will probably ever grasp.
I did feel that dialogue with Robert Redford had great power. It reminds me of some of the dialogue we have here as well. the movie is so so.
What say you Akbar about first person shooter games as I know you are avid player. Do you think they have adversely affected our society. I do feel there has been an amazing amount of spree killings in the past couple of decades. I don’t remember that many when growing up but I might have been too sheltered and naive to no the difference.
akbar lightning
May 16, 2010innate in such debates is the idea that somehow killing remotely is a moral step in the wrong direction. such ideas were around with the invention of bullets, when humans stop struggling body against body to destroy one another.
you guys know me well enough to know, that i would gladly trade away all forms of violent imagery, in favor of peace, but i think this road can be strewn with truisms. for instance, what would i do with those beautiful paintings of Holofernes being beheaded by Judith?
at play in these discussions is the question of arousal, and whether or not the arousal of violence through imagination nurtures aggression. actually the studies come down on the side of this not being the case.
i would also like to bring up the game of chess, which most intellectuals consider to be a healthy game for the improvement of a young person’s mind. but it is important to point out that chess is a virtual battlefield, and in some way its a hi-definition experience..joke..
but seriously folks…you guys know that i play these games, and i am always left with the idea, after playing them, at the absurdity of armed engagement, that if one has any esteem for one’s life that nothing could better argue against the glory of warfare than a game that reveals the absolute powerlessness one has in a random exploding environment.
this is an issue that becomes more and more fascinating to me as i move forward.
for instance, here is another idea. imagine there was a game where one could engage in rape…horrifying, i know…but how does that relate to watching a movie where one is raped..because to watch the movie, one must accept the event, imagine it, and somewhat inhabit that space with a repressed sense of outrage…furthermore, to make a movie about a rape, a woman has to play the part, and a man must act out those horrifying acts, flesh to flesh, so to speak, in a virtual act of violation…
what do i believe? well, it’s super complicated…
my point is, the violence in culture has to do with factors way more powerful than the presence of these games…in fact, my boldest claims is that these games actually act as a pressure valve for building aggression…the violence comes from, in my opinion, a mixture of cultural chaos and a growing loss of economic control…
peace
globatron
May 16, 2010there are already rape games.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/30/japanese-rape-fantasy-vid_n_518891.html
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23803
the same argument that you have given to support violent games was given to support the rape games. rape games can serve as a pressure valve for sexual agression. interesting you would make that comparison and that rape games actually exist.
logocentric
May 16, 2010well, i’m obviously in over my head here. i think it’s absurd to support an industry that works with government entities to develop means of actually killing real people from a remote location. rather than denounce, maybe i should rejoice that smart people are figuring out how kill more efficiently–which is not to say they are putting it back on wholesale.
as for judith and holofernes, i can appreciate such things without forgetting that i inhabit a different place and time.