In this essay Bartell highlights the most extreme examples
of videogames that are themselves immoral, antisocial, or psychotic, and
players who approach “normal” games with the rage and stupidity of their hate-filled
ideals. These players, as the author says, commit acts of violence in games
based on their own immoral, unethical values. “The moral relevance of our
actions toward mere images is dependent on our attitudes and motivations.”
I would hope that the majority of violence enacted in video
gaming is “morally innocent,” undertaken “for purely strategic reasons having
to do with the competition.” Enacting violence is how you win.
Other “innocent” enactments of violence—for the author says
that there are “many reasons why players commit acts of violence in games”—are unrelated
to the rules of the game: “because the violence offers a challenge, is novel,
and is aesthetically rich.”
It’s a slippery slope for me, personally. I dislike games
that would ask me to role play a thief or shoot a policeman, or even a war
game. Yet I’ve come to love a cartoonish-looking multiplayer “paintball” game.
A good friend hates the game because he feels uncomfortable targeting human
players, especially friends. But my experience of “good gameplay” is that some
strangers and I, when we are being mature, get a kick out of each others’ skill
in dodging, shooting, hiding, and so on. We laugh and congratulate our opponent
when they get in a good shot on us. There’s no hard feelings. (Hard feelings
are reserved for the emotionally immature adults who respond to my good
shooting with a string of profanities, but I’m learning to tell them to “bite
me” with confidence.)
What of the violence I enact upon a zombie in gameplay? Yes,
even in Virtual Reality the zombies can seem cartoonish, but still frightening
because their sole focus is upon taking me down. I have no qualms about
defending myself against their blatant attack. Of course, sometimes I get tired
of the repetitive play and say “bite me” with a bit more sincerity.
Still, I may have to question whether or not violence in
video gaming is good for me. At my weakest moments I justify my pleasure in
shooter games (targeting zombies, robots, alien soldiers, demons, orcs) as
practicing a “skill.” I’ll probably never have a chance in real life to see if
I can shoot an arrow or fire a bullet into the head of a zombie, and for that I
am grateful. But still, is it healthy for me? Psychologically healthy?
When I am shooting away the cartoonish-looking zombies in a
game such as “Drop Dead,” I admit to moments of discomfort when one of the
figures looks like me. A younger version, and thinner, and, well, deader, than
I am. But it is me. And the cartoon attackers recycle, so on a good day I shoot
myself over and over again.
My point is that even the cartoonish zombies signify human
forms, which then sends my brain through the uncanny valley of the shadow of
undeath to a land of milk and honey where real people exist, and I am not sure
I would be capable of harming another individual. Unless I was insane with rage
and blindly protecting myself and those I love by lashing out. Call that
instinct.
Is it healthy for my psyche to be killing, to be pretending
violence? Am I more than a stooge for the sports-competition industry and
training myself to accept the universal military culture’s romance with
aggression, dominance, and death? Should I be playing these meaningless and
even boring games? Might I not be better off reading Buddhist scriptures,
humming gospel tunes, murmuring mantras to Ganesh, Hanuman, Shiva and friends?
Yes, you ought to interject at this point and ask about
horror films, especially zombie films, and our consumption of them. You should
ask about the cinemagoing experience, whether we so totally identify with one
side or the other that we are, in some way, acting as if we are playing a
videogame.
OK, ‘nuff said.
Here’s the link to the Aesthetics for Birds essay by Christopher Bartell.
Read it yourself and let me know, politely, what you think.
