Streetlight Manifesto is the last, best ska band. This song is necessary for understanding the song at the bottom of the post.
See? totally worth listening to the first song. Incredible album, by the way.
a moment of violence
Written by:zach
As long as we're aware of our violent impulses and seek to control them through societal interactions (this, I think, can include teabagging corpses in codblops), we as individuals can lead healthy, productive lives. Apart from that is our society's disconnection from real violence. America still has two wars being fought overseas, while there are rallies and protests over only one or two dead here at home. So I think I agree on some of your points there. What I'm really curious about is your feelings towards videogames that take that disconnect and kind of invert it. Games like that rather horrible simulation of the JFK assassination where the real violence is kind of a subtext behind everything that goes on. Where the real violence is a bit less disconnected from your actions in-game.
If you don't mind me further commenting, I really do think that the urge to violence is one deeply rooted in our human origins. It's the same urge that propelled cavemen to murder each other and steal their wives and property that found Edison working in his laboratory to try and make the best new invention that'd sell better than his competitors.
If there was some amazing new justice system that forbade even the merest thoughts of violence, I really think you'd see the end of humanity as a whole. Taking away our basic urges takes away something deep within us that helped us survive as hunter-gatherers thousands of years ago as much as it helps us survive today.
comment away! comment thoroughly and frequently! 🙂
the kind of violence that disturbs me the most is the kind that picks up additional subtexts and uses it to "other-ize" the enemy. As much as I admire Modern Warfare's incredible scripting, the fact that the entire game is about slaughtering Muslims makes me really queasy when I consider the silent apathy the American population has towards that sort of action every day – in cases like these, where there's a clear connection between performance & the literal violence it represents, I really have trouble getting onboard.
So when it comes to JFK Reloaded… I mean, to me, that specific act of violence is kind of abstract. Horrible, but abstract. To my mom, that act is very literal. I think the rap music parallel is pretty useful here – I have no problem listening to Biggie saying "c4 at ya door", but when I hear Jedi Mind Tricks use "beat a fuckin faggot / until he ain't fuckin gay no more" I go – woah, what a second, that's super-fucked up, that actually happens really often! To me, to Jay-Z, "C4 at your door" is strictly performative – as trying to recreate the exact angle of the assassination of JFK is to me, a kind of winking commentary on "this shot is impossible, Oswald was a stooge". To my mom that's way more literal and she wouldn't be so considerate. And I haven't played the JFK game – nor I have I played Super Columbine Massacre (an event that is literal to me) – but I can totally understand the rap music defense of "but the BEAT is so good, the FLOW is incredible – just ignore the lyrics" aka how I'm able to continue listening to Jedi Mind Tricks. If the game is fun, I can understand the people whose privlege lets them overlook the specific violence embedded behind the gameplay. Do I think it's fucked up? Yeah, sometimes it's just a little fucked up, but sometimes when the line between literal and performative violence gets blurred it's much more inhuman to me. Do I think that these games shouldn't be made? Well.. probably. I don't think we need a 9/11 simulator, I wouldn't encourage anyone to make one. Would I ever tell a producer not to make a game? …nah. Will I say I think they're inhuman maniacs for making it? yes.
i just remembered there was some hubbub around Six Days in Fallujah that I wrote about here: http://hailingfromtheedge.blogspot.com/2010/03/getting-what-you-wish-for.html
and a little bit about the "we're not political we just want you to shoot muslims" stance a lot of developers take here: http://hailingfromtheedge.blogspot.com/2010/07/limitations-in-gaming-sphere.html
and a bit about some of the more outrageous "edgy" games created here: http://hailingfromtheedge.blogspot.com/2010/02/obscurity-is-not-artistry.html
…i should probably have links to those posts somewhere in the body of this one. OH WELL.
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i agree that violence is very innate, and probably not detrimental in the evolutionary scheme of things. this is kind of the same idea as Nietzsche's "will to power" when you take care (as he has) to strip the moral component of the discussion and only talk about it in strictly nihilistic terms.
AUGH BLOGGER COMMENTING SUCKS DONKEY BALLS WHY AREN'T THOSE LINKS LINKIFIED.
ANYWAY.
One last point I want to make here is that I don't think the demarcation between performative, individual violence and societal violence is really super-clear to me. Gamers kind of have this knee-jerk reaction to "games don't cause violence in gamers!" and while I think that's generally true, there is something to be said for a society that consumes violence on a daily basis being a bit more aggressive than a theoretical society that finds all forms of violence abhorrent and considers violent acts to be completely taboo. Michael Moore makes this point in Bowling for Columbine, and on a purely emotional basis I find myself agreeing with him.
Timely post, Zach, as we were discussing issues surrounding the military entertainment complex in class just yesterday. We arrived at a similar place as you: when wrestling with the question of the line between actual and virtual violence, wherever one chooses to draw that line we must accept that we culturally value violence. This value is very capitalist in nature: we buy it, sell it, and consume it. It has real value.
In a discussion of advertising in games, we touched on the point that an in-game billboard encouraging the purchase of a specific product is small potatoes next to the ability of games to brand (or re-brand) and market capital-C Culture to us, figuring us as consumers and our very ontologies as products. Violence is a crucial component of our current ontological brand.
That's an observation, not a judgment. I'm on the inside looking out just as much as anybody. Articulating the system doesn't confer any kind of immunity to its workings.
i think it goes beyond capitalism too. the anarchist line of thinking basically says that *any* form of Statehood – any governing body that needs to enforce rules – will inevitably result to violence in order to subjugate the population.
i think the particular brand of capitalism marketed at middle class americans happens to be this capitalist-realist class of violence where we can perform the perfect act of violence – the headshot, rapping the revenge fantasy, etc – that happens to line up with this idea of performative violence. and as you mention that ensnares us in a specific way. but certainly other economic/political systems have their own violences, even their own idea of *performative* violence. In many senses an act of terrorism IS a performance, where the violence symbolizes a larger struggle.
fuck you if this is a spoiler; I haven’t even played the game and I know this
Classy. I stopped reading there. If you don't care about other people, I don't care about your opinions.
fuck you if this is a spoiler; I haven’t even played the game and I know this
Classy. I stopped reading there. If you don't care about other people, I don't care about your opinions.