4/23/08 – “Video Shootout” by Noreen Herzfeld

Herzfeld, Noreen. “Video Shootout.” The Christian Century, May 4, 2004. 22-23. Available at: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3049.

This 2004 article by Noreen Herzfeld argues that violent first person shooters (FPS) are linked to real world aggression, as exemplified in school shootings. The article begins with the case of a fifteen year old boy killing shooting tow of his classmates. Herzfeld emphasizes that the National Institute of on Media and the Family reported “96 percent” of boys grades four through twelve said they played video games on a regular basis. The article goes on to describe the increasingly violent and particularly bloody nature of the first person shooter from the early 80’s to today. The article cites a Japanese study which found a direct link between video game playing and aggressive thoughts.

Herzfeld then focuses her attention on the “training module” status of the FPS shooter. America’s Army’ a game published by the U.S military, is used as a recruiting tool, and is available for download from the army’s website. The author quotes Dr. David Grossman in concluding that that “Video games are strong on quick reaction to threats and weak on reasoned response” and that it emphasizes a killing spirit.

The author then imposes a philosophical argument into the real harm done by these games. Herzfeld notes that from a “Kantian of utilitarian ethical perspective, one has neither used nor hurt another person.”

The article concludes with a final point on the world of video games being a lonely place, citing the tendency for video games to emphaisiz3 ones need to survive on their own, and deemphasize collaboration.

Reaction:

While this article brings up various sound statistical reports, the authors is unable to convincingly attach them to her argument, and while much of the philosophical content of the article is intriguing and insightful for the most part this article is mostly speculation. The article also seems out of date technologically for its time, having been published as recently as 2004. The grasp of online multiplayer FPS environments is lacking, as it fails to comment on the highly tactical aspects of some online shooter environments. I agree with the attitude that FPS emphasizes a killing spirit and the “shoot first ask questions later” agenda. However, I don’t think this establishes a link with violent action in the real world, or Herzfelds argument that it desensitizes one to real violence.

4/21-Physicality within the Magic Circle

The writings of Gill and Laird serve as acute examples of the emotional and cognitive impact of ritual within a religious or social environment. When incorporated with the writings of Penny, there are similarities between the physicality of a ritual and the performance within a virtual space.

It is helpful to begin in charting how these separate authors approach examining the real world and its interaction with ritual space. It is striking how Penny and Laird’s draw similar lines when delineating the separate approaches to looking at ritual. Penny is speaking of course of examining “digital social practice” within a virtual environment. He describes the machine-centric and user-centric outlook. The machine centric aspect focuses on the autonomous aspects of how responses can be mechanically derived, while the user centric approach focuses on the behavior and experience of the user. Laird draws a similar line when approaching ritual therapy within a family setting. The first approach is machine-centric, with the therapist working to “prescribe a ritual to be enacted by an individual or family members without necessarily calling upon their interpretations, meanings, or cognitive understandings of their own ritual life”. This approach is not interested in the user’s behavior or experience. The next approach echoes Penny’s user centric outlook, as it is concerned with “exploring and interpreting [ones] ritual life”(Reader in Ritual Studies, 363).

Having drawn these similarities in analytic approach, one is now able to examine the joint impact of a ritual climate within a virtual environment, and how physical inaction within this space ha a profound impact on the effectiveness of realism within the space. Gill describes disillusionment as playing a significant role within many male adolescent initiation rituals. Many of the boy’s fears and beliefs are played upon and revealed as an illusion to them. This enhances their awareness of the real world application of their religion, and the importance of their role within the religious community. The must swear not to unveil the secrets of their rituals to the uninitiated, and must themselves then carry on and conduct the often violent and frightful ritual. Boys go from a state of reverence and fear of the unknown to a responsibility for upholding what the traditions of what they now know to be false, as within the Hopi religion. This relationship between the real world and the magic circle of a ritual space is discussed in Penny’s work on the physicality of a virtual space, observing the “degree of literalness of simulation depends substantially upon the precision with which bodily behaviors germane to the task in the real world can be accommodated and measured in a simulator environment”(First Person, 78). Both of these example place great importance on the accurate physical representation of the ‘real’ within the virtual or ritual ‘unreal’ environment.

4/9 The Spiritual Cyborg

THE SPIRITUAL CYBORG by Erik Davis explores the spiritual synthesis of man and machine, and two spiritual approaches to looking at the human mind as if it were a computer. These two religious movements or ideologies are Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way and Hubbard’s Scientology.

Davis lays groundwork of the article by discussion the history of mechanization and the role it has played in religion, discussing specifically automata, mechanized gods of ancient and medieval times, to current neuro science and gene work. He summarizes that what we view as the world and our ideas of free will may be completely obliterated as man becomes more like machine.

The bulk of the article discusses two separate religious theologies surrounding the idea of man as a machine. The first analysis revolves around Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way; based around the axiom Man is a Machine. Gurdjieff incorporated modern psychology and synthesized Buddhist and other esoteric works to create this new way. He believed the human soul was detached from the mechanized human form and could be separated and fully enlightened, but feared that man has “lost their potential for recognizing and realizing the deeper levels of consciousness”. Davis explores the sense of no-self here within Gurdjieff’s writings, and it’s similar to the Buddhist belief of there being no atman, or self.

Davis then goes on to discus scientology, and the formation of the texts surrounding it. Scientology also looks at the human mind as a computer, which when running optimally thinks rationally and solves problems logically. The mind computer fails to function when clogged with memories and thus needs to be auditing, coming to a state of “clear”.

Reaction:

Discussing the symbiotic relationship between man and machine brings up many spiritually driven ideas. The section of the article which I though worked towards this greater discussion was when Davis toted neuro-scientists as the trailblazers in a new way of looking at the body. The thought that the entire human body could be reduced to a procedural simplicity could indeed change the way one views the concepts of life death and free will. Davis notes Nietzsche’s meaningless void created by modern society.

I have much more to say but NO TIME to say it!

4/7 Readings, Symbols.

The readings this week deal generally with the human reaction to words as symbols, and how an emotional reaction is generated by the symbols involved. The readings dealing with virtual reality explore how entering these text based programs into the human space, whether it be through simple animation or a complicated installation art piece, enhances or changes how a human reacts to them.

The Turner reading, in ritual study, informs these more artistic or theoretical readings with some social science observations, and are able to give greater depth to the relationship between visual stimulation and the meaning within those symbols and the greater impact they have within a ritual.

Turner observes what he calls the ‘dominant symbols’ as having constancy and consistency throughout a ritual or many rituals. They create a constant from which more specific characteristics can be derived or attributed. The dominant symbols create a baseline. In modern virtual spaces, a dominant symbol is a necessity. There needs to be a link from the created virtual space to the real world environment in which the user sits. The symbol could be a simple avatar or a username in simple applications where little performative action is needed to progress. However, a more complicated system requires a more complicated use of symbols to accurately and effectively depict the environment.

Such a symbol could be what Douglas introduces as ‘the Fifth Business” the character one meets within a game who serves as a guide. These characters are rarely fully developed complex narrative characters, but rather play a flat role with implied significance placed upon them by the user. An example observed in class is Navi, the small fairy which guides Link trough “Zelda”.

There is a dependent tow way relationship between the user and the fifth business. The user is dependent upon the character to provide meaning and initiative within the new foreign virtual space, and the fifth business character is dependent upon the user to perform in order for the symbol to have any use or any meaning.