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REYNOLDS |
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Should I play Grand Theft
Auto?
by John Mark Reynolds [author,
academic] 5/13/08
Bottom Line: Much
as I love gaming, I personally cannot justify playing Grand Theft Auto. This
post is an attempt to get people who will thoughtlessly pick up this game
to at least consider whether it is a good idea to play. I understand the
desire to play, but cannot make it work for me. Here I rehearse my (initial)
thoughts to provoke conversation. I am of course willing to change my mind
(as I did on the value of Buffy).
The Argument:
What is the justification
for playing Grand Theft Auto?
The easy answer: “It
is fun.”
Contributor
John Mark Reynolds
John
Mark Reynolds is the founder and director of
the Torrey Honors Institute and Associate Professor
of Philosophy at Biola University.His
personal website can be found at www.johnmarkreynolds.com and
his blog can be found at http://scriptoriumdaily.com.
[go to Reynolds index] |
Fun is a good reason to
do a thing, but not good enough.
My own religion teaches
that joy is a great good. I plan on spending eternity in bliss.
Fun is a good sign that
there is something worthwhile about a thing. Of course, many things mix worthwhile
parts with enough worthless harms to ruin them. Some good does not justify
even more bad.
Does Grand Theft Auto have
enough “fun” in it to justify any harm it might do me? Is there
some fun there, some deep joy of soul, that I cannot get other places without
potentially harming self?
I loath the attitude of
some that being fun is a good reason to worry about a thing, but I equally
worry that in our consumerist culture, we might justify too much in the name
of fun.
The Puritanical are not,
after all, particularly powerful or popular in most of our entertainment
culture. Surely we should consider whether it is possible to go too far in
the other direction and become libertines?
My life has been a sad
story of making such mistakes and I don’t want to make them any more
if I can help it.
All these questions suggest
that further justification is needed beyond a game being fun.
It also doesn’t cut
it to say “the game is well made as a game” since such a statement
is as irrelevant to the morality of the game as the efficiency of a murder
plan is to its moral status. That does not mean the game is immoral,
just that saying it is a “great game as a game” or beautifully
made tells us nothing about its moral status. The notion that doing a thing
well means you should do it is hard to defend.
Fun can be bad and as Achilles
shows being good at a thing doesn’t mean you should keep doing it.
An easy response is: “Well,
it is very fun and hurts nobody.”
Let’s assume that
making the game hurt nobody. (That in itself is questionable.)
The essential problem for
a player is not whether the game hurt the makers, but whether playing the
game hurts us . . . and by hurting us hurts those who love us. Does playing
such a game make us less loving, more apt to spew hateful crudities, decrease
intimacy, makes us more likely to objectify men and women, more prone to
detach our emotions from our experiences?
Looking at reviews of the
game makes these “harms” seem possible.
Isn’t it worth asking
those questions?
If I lightly pick up the
game, then harm will be done.
The next easy answer is: “It
is art. It is by far the best game ever created in terms of complexity and
depth.”
As a long time gamer, I
am sympathetic to that argument.
I would love to play Grand
Theft Auto just because it looks cool and would test the limits of
my gaming system. I must ask myself, however, if Grand Theft Auto is
really in the same class as a great book, work of art, or film.
I seriously question this,
but let me assume (for the moment) that it is to avoid missing a good out
of snobbery or being a reactionary.
Does my participation in
virtual acts that everyone agrees would be wicked in the “real” world
find justification by my participation in art?
Since some bad behaviors
(such as hate) take place mentally, simply saying that the art of Grand
Theft Auto is in “virtual reality” is inadequate. Some bad
(or unhelpful) things to a person take place in the mind. Years of bitterness
are not good for one, even if (or especially if) one keeps the bitterness
to oneself.*
Of course, the mere presence
of difficult material in a work of art (like a video game) does not mean
it is bad. Gamers like to respond that the Old Testament or Hamlet contain
violent themes and images in order to justify Grand Theft Auto.
True enough, but too facile.
Let’s all agree that
dealing with difficult topics . . . even showing the raw side of life does
not make a thing bad. It seems the relevant question is how that evil is
presented. A film that presented genocide in a favorable manner would not
be good for the culture. A film that showed the ugliness of genocide would
be very, very hard to watch, but might be good for me.
The Book of Judges in the
Bible has horrific things in it, but they are presented as the hard truth
about evil.
In fact, the “cultural
commentary” defense has become the chief means that corporate flaks
use to defend the indefensible. If you make a movie that exploits women,
then you can slow down criticism by arguing that you are attacking people
who exploit women. Let’s all agree that showing evil to attack it is
hard to do well . . . and runs the real risk of glorifying the thing you
said out to condemn.
It takes a great artist
(see Shakespeare) to condemn a thing while being entertaining.
In the case of Grand
Theft Auto much of what is shown in the game is so egregious that
makers have resorted to this defense. If so, then I can only judge that
they are artistic failures if reading player comments on the game is any
indication. If the suits meant to teach a deep moral lesson, players are
missing it.
It seems absurd for anyone
to argue that Grand Theft Auto presents an argument for a moral
universe or condemns ugliness by showing it. Instead, the thoughtless “non-politically” correct
violence and sexuality is what most gamers I read praise about it. Grand
Theft Auto is either a monstrous artistic failure or corporate types growing
rich off the gamers are merely trying to distract attention from the game’s
content by posing as thoughtful artists.
Does Grand Theft Auto encourage
bad mental (or virtual) dispositions?
I can think of at least
three such mental harms that are a part of Grand Theft Auto : lust,
crudity, and detachment from experience.
First, one will have to
decide what one thinks of pornography since it is no more virtual in Grand
Theft Auto than anyplace else.
Does pornography harm the
soul? If so, then Grand Theft Auto is bad for a player. As someone
who wants (however difficult it is) to have a great love and share intimacy
with just one person, my answer is “no.” The pornography in Grand
Theft Auto is not virtual. There are, if the favorable reviews are to
be trusted, scenes that warrant the “mature” label on the box.
Some will say that worrying
about the “soft” porn in Grand Theft Auto given the
freely available content of the Internet is silly.
However, the fact that
there are worse things one can do to the soul does not mean that this highly
popular means of distributing porn is good.
Is porn harmful?
If one is a romantic, then
the answer must be “yes.” Keeping some things intimate, between
the beloved and the lover is impossible in a “porn” relationship.
Forget a Jane Austin marriage.
If one is a Christian,
then the answer must be “yes.” God reserves sexual expression
for persons who are married. Traditional Christianity has always thought
porn spiritually harmful.
Scientifically and culturally,
we have never had such an explosion of availability to porn in the life of
a culture. It is a complex behavior and so (it seems to me) it is difficult
to make a definitive case that will convince skeptics at present. There is
after all good reason for skeptics to want to challenge the evidence. However,
initial evidence does not look good for porn use for our culture.
The response that a player
is so jaded that the level of suggestiveness in Grand Theft Auto cannot
stimulate should worry the player. Is being jaded good for us?
My initial conclusion is
that participation in porn and lust in Grand Theft Auto is not virtual. Players
should consider moral objections to porn before playing. If one thinks porn
is bad (or generally bad) as I do, it is bad to play Grand Theft Auto.
Second, the crudity of
the game is real and not virtual. The foul language and the ugliness are
part of nearly every moment of the game.
I live and work in an urban
area. When I am abroad in L.A., the level of “swearing” and “crudity” is
nothing like that found in Grand Theft Auto (in clips I have seen).
Even in the most difficult communities in L.A. there are havens of civility
not present in the game.
My exposure to the crudity
is real and not virtual in the game. Does it impact me? Of course, it does.
If innocence and gentleness of spirit are good, then games like Grand
Theft Auto make such attitudes hard. It is sad that adults must face
crudity and evil. We gain a certain worldly wisdom, but such lessons will
come in time. Forcing myself to this tired wisdom seems like intentionally
aging my soul.
Why would anyone do this?
It is a perverse culture
where we Botox ourselves to recapture the innocent look we have helped destroy
by becoming jaded.
Third, one will have to
consider the impact of “virtual violence” on the soul. Again
studies are mixed, but (in my judgment) do not look good for virtual violence.
There is cause for serious concern. Just as nobody should lightly start drinking
given the potential for harm, evidence suggests that nobody should lightly
pick up a remote and play violent games.
Given this, it is hard
to see how engaging in virtual acts of violence for fun is worth while .
. . given the plethora of other ways to have fun. Do I really want to think
mugging an older woman is “cool” in a game?
Fourth, is the worry that
at best gamers like Grand Theft Auto encourage distancing oneself
from ones own experience. Gamers frequently say that highly realistic games
do not make them killers or thieves. This is true. It does, however, encourage
(like the consumption of all media) distancing oneself from what one sees
and hears. How much of this before one is harmed?
Gamers often say to me
that they play just for the challenge and because the game is a puzzle that
needs to be solved.
This does not seem sufficient
to me. Is it good for a person to be able to distance himself from material
that was designed to draw him into a virtual experience? Of course, it is
necessary if one is to justify this game, but is it good for other relationships?
I am not sure anybody knows,
but surely the “distancing” in a healthy person playing a game
like Grand Theft Auto should and will be greater since the acts
are worse than in a game like Brawl.
As the game violence becomes
more realistic, the distancing must also be greater in order to maintain
mental health.
Do we really want to make
ourselves distant from our experiences? What if we cannot “turn off” the
distancing mechanism?
I don’t know the
answers to these questions, but it seems to me that gamers should at least
worry about them.
Once the harm is done,
after all, one is not going to get another soul.
Finally, I worry that games
like Grand Theft Auto encourage false beliefs about society . .
. particularly about urban society. My fear is that these ideas are likely
to encourage racism, ethnocentrism, and stereotypes of urban people already
too prominent in our culture. Of course, one need not be a gamer to have
those attitudes. Many older people have them without ever being exposed to
games.
That doesn’t mean
I rejoice that there is a new way to get them.
Games promote a different
kind of false stereotyping. It is no better to “admire” the imagined
behavior of “the other” (which is not real) than to fear it.
Many gamers weirdly “enjoy” the
negative stereotypes of urban culture. They emulate what they believe is “real.” This
reality is cynical, crude, and violent. I fear that this very “admiration” may
harm poor persons by encouraging behavior that traps them in poverty. By
this I do not mean, violence (I will assume games do nothing to encourage
this), but anti-intellectualism, crudity, and attire that, as Dr. Bill Cosby
has been pointing out, put a person at risk of missing the benefits of American
culture.
Nor is it good that Eastern
Europeans and Slavs are stereotyped in this manner. As Arabs and Italians
can tell you, it is not good to be on receiving end of constant media stereotypes.
Of course, persons of color have received this stereotyping for centuries
in the United States, but spreading the bigotry is a funny sort of improvement.
(”Now that we can
stereotype everyone, nobody is harmed by it!”)
Isn’t it possible
that for every person who gets rich exploiting these stereotypes, there are
thousands who are trapped by them?
Grand Theft Auto teaches
players what “reality” is like without being real. Don’t
believe me? Go read the comments on Amazon from gamers. People praise the
games realism . . . and they don’t just mean the graphics.
However, the game is not
realistic both in terms of portrayal of life in the inner city and in terms
of the “wages of sin.” Since the “hero” has no soul,
he does not experience the degradation of the life he leads. He does not
(so far as I know) experience the mental contraction and physical decay that
his behavior would bring to a normal person.
Treating people as “means
to an end” and not as ends” is not good, but rewards are based
on the bad behavior and not the good.
There is one common complaint
about such worries as those I have expressed.
Isn’t my concern
like the terror raised about the old role playing games of my generation,
such as Dungeons and Dragons?
Of course, asking questions
or working out moral concerns will always look similar.
The fact that some people
over react to everything is no reason not to think about our choices.
(”Somebody thinks
everything is bad, so I will never think about whether anything is bad.” This
would not be a good attitude to adopt.)
The flexibility of the
old role playing games (dice and paper) allowed one to enjoy their complexity
and community without being forced to participate in anything one thought
objectionable in the rules.
The game were easily modifiable.
Computers games are much less so. There is no way to “get saved” and
open a street mission in Grand Theft Auto. Can you get married and
reform and still have fun?
You could modify a game
of D&D to fit any moral vision. That is not true of computer games (at
least yet). They are far less flexible.
People were right to worry
about some ways of playing games. I doubt that they were helpful to the players
. . . but one was not forced as a player to behave in certain ways. One had
more moral choices.
Finally, there are more
important problems in culture (surely) than this game. Too much should not
be made of it, but still it seems like a potential bad that is ignored because “it
is just a game.”
Nearly anything is justifiable
in American culture by the claim that it is “just for fun.”
If you worry about it,
especially if you are over forty, then your concerns are dismissed thoughtlessly
by the claim that “you just don’t get it.”
I think these attitudes
are mistaken and that thinking about everything (including my own dispositions
and attitudes toward entertainment) is always good.
As far as I can see, Grand
Theft Auto would be bad for me and not something I would welcome in
my house. That does not mean I am sure it is bad for everyone in all cases,
but does worry me for my friends. My goal is to encourage other people
to think about their entertainment choices with me.
*(Not all unhelpful mental
dispositions are or should be illegal so law is a bad way to judge whether
a thing is good for me. Not all unhelpful mental dispositions are even “sinful” in
and of themselves. What might provoke righteous indignation in one person
might provoke snobbery or self-righteousness in me. It is of course easy
to kid oneself.)
**(Important Disclaimer
I: My thoughts are based on reviews of the game. I have not played it. That
limits my ability to comment on the game and opens up the real possibility
I am missing something “good” about it. Since however reviews
of the games seem to agree on the content relevant to this review, I feel
justified in writing it. I am open to emails that suggest I should reconsider
this decision.
***(I am not in favor of
censorship. People should have the ability to make the game, but should also
consider whether they should. I have the right to worry about the impact
of playing on self and on my culture. I don’t favor banning the game
or access to the game for adults.
I do think adults should
be able to discuss whether playing a game is good for them without screams
of outrage. Most gamer magazines never seriously engage these questions.) ExileStreet
copyright
2008 John Mark Reynolds
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