So, I’m going to try and add more content beyond my main feature, and add some more media-related stuff. For today, I’ll discuss the game Bioshock. Massive, massive spoilers contained within, so if you haven’t played it, do so, now.
Instead of hanging around, you SHOULD be getting a job.
Bioshock has received many positive reviews, as it should have. It’s a beautiful game with an interesting story and contains wondrous graphics, luscious sound, and tight controls. Furthermore, its willingness to engage in a political-social ideal is rather bold, especially in this day and age when that very same ideal is being somewhat discussed throughout the media.
That ideal would be Ayn Rand’s Objectivism.
I’m not an objectivist, mind you. Hell, I’m not even sure what the details are within the overall concept of objectivism. Wikepedia helps, but like most “–isms,” it’s hard to put into words; it’s something that’s more embraced in the broadest sense via like-minded individuals. From what I gathered, BASICALLY, objectivism believes that a person’s worth is SOLELY based on their contribution to society (specifically, the “free market workplace” since our society is capitalistic), and that any interference from government, religious, or other social structures is automatically “bad”.
Cribbing from that possibly-woefully diminished definition, one can certainly see how Bioshock is playing into that definition; however, I would argue that it really isn’t giving it due credit. Or, more accurately, isn’t giving the idea a playing field in which one can experience it fully without understanding it in mere black and white terms.
For example, let’s consider Communism for a moment. Once viewed as an abject evil in the 1950s, and despite the misguided attempts for certain people to combine Democratic beliefs with the malevolence of the connotation of Communist ideas (not the ideas themselves), nowadays, its seen as a viable possibility, even though its inherent problems are clearly and evidently obvious—see, China. We sure as hell wouldn’t be borrowing money from them 60 years ago.
My issue with Bioshock in this regard is that we’re presented with an after-the-fact, automatic failure of objectivism in action, and I feel as if this may not be a truly fair assessment of the concept. In America, our liberties are derived from the fact that anyone can believe in anything, even in the things that may be antithetical to that very liberty, so to see this game present objectivism as an out-of-control, free-for-all of market forces; well, I’m skeptical.
The story, if you think about it, really has nothing to do with objectivism at all. Mind control? Making tough choices over the fate of children? Corruption? You can take all those ideas and plug them into a democratic, capitalist (and most-likely sci-fi) story, and no one would know the difference. Heck, if the story of the game is a critique of the failures of objectivism, then every movie/game ever made about corrupt businessmen and lawyers are critiques of the capitalist/democratic system. And more likely then not, they have “good endings”, with the heroes exposing the evils of these socio-political monsters, and ensuring the system is fixable, if flawed. Bioshock? Not so much.
It fell apart, miserably, and you’re wandering the once beautiful deco-era landscape with gun in hand, trying to keep away the oppressed crazies. Really, it’s a means to an end, a deep but still easy excuse to make an FPS. I kind of wish the game took place during the midst of Fontaine’s rebellion, where you can see the process actually fall apart, where his and Ryan’s tenuous partnership collapsed, and the beginnings of Ryan’s paranoid genocides. I’m a sucker for a good political thriller, made-up or real, and I can easily see a game where you play a morally ambiguous character playing both sides as Rapture starts to crack. After all, in some form or another, objectivism WAS working—I mean, it can’t be easy to build an entire, self-functioning underwater utopia AND give normal citizens superpowers, even in 2K land. I’d even be THRILLED if in such a hypothetical game, you had the choice to save Rapture somehow… but of course, that may be too much (and, uh, anti-American? Better start tea-bagging!)
In the end, I didn’t get the idea that objectivism in itself is ultimately flawed; rather, I got the idea that really crafty con-men can exploit any system (even in our society, whether for the poor, like welfare and food stamps, or for the rich, like Enron and Bernie Madoff). I guess what I’m saying is I’d like to see more political systems in action and more of the effects of those systems in games than the aftereffects.
Now, would you kindly post your thoughts and comments down below?
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