No Gods or Kings: Objectivism and Ayn Rand in BioShock
kotaku.com
kotaku.com
"IN “BIOSHOCK”, a hit video game from last year that was heavily influenced by the libertarian philosophy of Ayn Rand, the main villain builds a fantastical city under the sea, where businesses can escape the stifling grasp of government. If you are an internationally minded entrepreneur looking to set up a small to medium-sized business, that is probably going a little far. But where should you set up shop?"
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=...
"It seems to me that he's misrepresented what Ayn Rand believes and her ideals beyond objectivism," he said. "He's setting it up to fail. He believes , based on what I've read, that any system that is absolutist is ultimately going to lead to disastrous effect. Any system of black and white, any system of ultimate morality."
I'm sure a system of "ultimate morality" would work just fine for me... if I was defining the "ultimate morality".
"I think its flawed logic in the sense that he thinks that people have to be flawed"
"I think there are great people and perfect people and I think we all should strive to be great and perfect."
To strive for perfection is a worthy endeavour, to assume that I or anyone else has achieved it, is naive, limiting and possibly dangerous. I'd like to know who Yaron Brook's puts in this category of great and perfect. Ayn Rand, I suppose would be one.
"Just plain scary?" A lot of people exaggerate like that. And what's the downside in thinking that people are capable of being perfect? What sort of a situation would have that leading to a downfall?
What are the downsides? Well without writing a thesis on the subject, basically what I have already mentioned. If one believes ones self to be perfect, then logically, there is no reason to continue to strive for improvement is there? Again by definition, you can't improve on perfection.
If one believes ones self to be perfect, then ones opinions/decisions/actions must also be perfect (i.e., perfectly correct) and therefore beyond doubt or compromise. I see such an absolute and unquestionable position (particularly if that position is held by a person in any kind of leadership role) having the possibility to lead to all sorts of unfortunate social consequences. History is filled with examples of leaders who believed their point of view to be beyond question or compromise, usually with bad results.
So if it's not Ayn Rand, who's perfect then?
I stand by my original comment.
The idea of humans being "imperfect" is not in reference to a Webster's definition, but in comparison to the religious notion of the deity's perfection.
If one believes that Mankind is not some imperfect reflection of a perfect deity whom he must serve, then any notion of perfection must be realizable by humans. So in theory a man or woman could be perfect.
Rand writes about these larger than life types of people. Most of us only see shades of them in ourselves or people we know, but it sure beats the idea of guilt/imperfection as a birthright thanks to original sin!
I bring this up b/c western culture is so heavily influenced by Christianity that it pollutes even people's secular understanding of what perfection means.
As I recall someone got a 10 at the olympics this year.
My concept of humans being inherently imperfect comes directly from and is directly in reference to the dictionary definition. I think I have already made my point about the attainment of perfection implicitly meaning that further improvement is impossible and how this can only be a bad thing for humanity. Who wants to live in a world where the best has already been?
If however, proponents of Objectivism wish to redefine and narrow the meaning of the words "perfect" and "imperfect" in order to make some point against certain misguided religious concepts, then that is their business. I could only suggest that perhaps they try using different words to avoid future confusion.
Someone got a 10 at the Olympics? Well done them. You may be interested in this story:
http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/06/1214234
But in any case, now it seems that you're switching back and arguing that the dictionary definition of "perfect" is attainable by a human. And it was a good argument too, untill it occurred to me that scores are assigned by imperfect human judges.
I don't see the human inability to attain perfection as a negative, quite the opposite actually. It keeps us growing.
However, that is not the impression that I got from Brook's quotes. The word "perfect" has one meaning, it is not a relative thing. If you don't actually mean "perfect" then use another word.
I still see a strain of absolutism showing through when you say "the "perfect protagonists" are the ones who always live life according to moral values without ever slipping"... Where do these moral values come from? Who agreed that they are the values worthy of being adhered to? And they live life true to these values "Without ever slipping"? Sounds like we're looking at the dictionary definition of "perfect" again... If there's one place where this kind of perfection could be achieved, I guess it would have to be in a fictional book.
Rand says in her works that moral values must come entirely from logic and reasoning, and that that's why her philosophy can be held as a moral absolute: because if it ISN'T logical, she encourages you to disagree with her. It's why people who agree with her seem to do so fanatically: because they're convinced by logic and nothing else that they are right.
And Rand admits from the start that her works portray ideals and nothing more. In her line of thinking if she portrayed only characters with flaws it would make her books subjective and less reliable as a philosophical guide. Nonetheless, there are people who try to live by her words, and many people who have succeeded immensely because of them.
You started out asking me what possible downside there could be to a person believing they are capable of perfection. After I answered, you took the fallback position that perfection isn't actually perfection. You seem a bit all over the place justifying your argument.
Sorry I'm just not buying it. And I'm sure if you were going to buy my argument, you would have done so by now. so I think we will have to just agree to disagree.
Leonardo da Vinci is quoted as having said "Art is never finished, only abandoned."
I see perfection as less of an absolute. It's a difference of definition on our parts.
What I'm saying is that even as it relates to aspects of people, or the actions they perform, based off whatever morality they follow, perfection is not achievable (see above quote from da Vinci). Greatness worthy of respect? Yes. Amazing deeds and ideas? Yes. But perfection? No. If you or anyone else has a different concept of what a word means than its actual meaning then that is up to you. But it doesn't make that concept correct and certainly doesn't make that concept easy to communicate to others who do not share your non-standard definition.
If one has to redefine the meaning of a word for ones philosophy to make sense, then maybe it's just best to use a different word and save everyone some time.
It appears that the meaning of the word "perfect" seems to be very elastic indeed, as it relates to it's use in Objectivism. One moment it actually does mean "perfect" as in "so good that further improvement is impossible" and the next it becomes this "relative" term, of fluid meaning.
Interesting.
I love the commentary too -- it's both an homage and a cautionary tale. Bioshock starts as a utopia and de-evolves into an awful dystopia.
Overall, I ended up incorporating elements of her philosophy into my world view, but rejecting other parts. I'd still highly recommmend her books to anyone, but really, if you're not willing to think about what the books say and blindly follow what she outlines as her philosophy... well. you've just become one of the sheep that she heaps so much contempt on in her books.
Ayn Rand didn't want people to form a religion, so please don't feel that you have to apologize for "agreeing" with some aspects of her fiction. Those who try to paint Rand's philosophy that way are looking at it through the timid, dark-ages lens of their religion, in which everything is black and white, the way George W. Bush's "good vs evil" nonsense is.
I would be interested in knowing how many are still under the baleful Eye as well.
Unfortunately, as it is difficult for Hollywood newcomers to avoid Scientology recruiters, a college freshman finds it difficult to avoid the Objectivist Club recruiters.
Thus, later in the same year I had a brush with Rand again. I tried reading "The Romantic Manifesto" and found it unintentionally hilarious, in the same way Sarah Palin's press conferences are hilarious.
If reading Atlas Shrugged is too much work for your taste, then I think the actual ideas contained in it would surely be quite distasteful to you, but I guess the world will never know.
What sort of "good parenting" created such a visceral aversion to Rand's philosophy? Or is it her prose style that you object to?
/tongue-in-cheek.
But even if you accept that as a fundamental limitation of the medium, most video games still have horrible stories. With the exception of Valve and a few others, it seems like no one's even trying. I don't think BioShock is the apex of video game development, but it's certainly a cut above almost everything else. That may not be much, but it's something.
People don't play games just because they want to see a story -- if they wanted that they'd just watch a movie and get a lot more story in a lot less time. In a game the main function of the story is to provide a reward for beating the last part of the game, and a motivation to beat the next part. Games can have quite simple, even cliched storylines (e.g. Prince of Persia Sands of Time, or the original Half Life) and still seem compelling.
On the other hand, a lot of games fall down in the quality of the storytelling. Bad dialogue, bargain-basement voice-acting, or just plain dull scenes can spoil a game pretty quickly. ("I fought a seven-headed monster for this?")
Bioshock may have a well-developed story for an interesting novel, but I'm not sure about the quality of the storytelling. I've only played the first couple of levels before getting bored, but so far most of the story has been pumped directly into my ear by some guy with a sepia-toned icon and a largely-incomprehensible monotonic brogue. Combine that with the fact that the levels and enemies so far have all looked pretty much the same, and I couldn't summon up the motivation to keep playing.
For instance, one of my favorite movies is Kill! (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063186/), which is a brilliant and quite funny re-imagining of the samurai flick. It's a pretty good movie in its own right, but what makes it truly masterful is how it subtly twists the norms and tropes of its genre. These little touches are not aimed at a broad audience, they're aimed at people who are predisposed to like samurai movies, and have already seen a few dozen samurai movies in their life. That's not cheating, either, it's just knowing your audience and giving them what they want.
As to the bad dialogue, voice-acting, etc. I think it's hard to break it down into anything so specific. A story is good if it allows you to suspend your disbelief. Bioshock didn't, but it wasn't necessarily because of any of the things you listed; you could just as easily have liked the game in spite of them. For instance, one of my favorite games of all time is Deus Ex, and it had absolutely laughable voice acting (check out http://ispeeeelmydreeenk.ytmnd.com/). Any great creative work is going to be more than the sum of its parts, and just because video games involve computers doesn't mean that they're somehow more quantifiable than painting or poetry.
Also, what story does exist is by virtue of how limited the player's interaction with his environment is: he can either kill things or carry them. If his actions were less discrete, or lacked real-world metaphors, there wouldn't even be a fan-fiction plot.
But, yes, what "story" there is is not emergent, and is injected by human authors, and the game can only really have two outcomes: death (about 95% of the time) or ascension and success (with a few bits of story line along the way based on your character class, race, and alignment). The joy is in the many amusing ways in which your character can die, rather than in the narrative.
The voice on the speaker in the beginning are particularly well-done. And if you compare Half-Life 2 to BioShock, I think you find that there's no real comparison: Half-Life wins hands-down.
B. It's not published by EA, but rather 2K Games. Which is owned by Take Two, not EA (which hasn't managed to acquire Take Two yet).
And you should, too. For those of us interested in videogames as an artistic medium, this is one of the most exciting games out there.
Portal, on the other hand, or Half-Life 2... Those games seem to get dismissed by the "games are art" crowd, or at least not brought up. I've never understood that. And Psychonauts, Killer 7, Shadow of the Colossus... But I think that the real innovative games don't get the same level of heralding because people who find those games know that games have been artistic since at least the NES stage. Final Fantasy II/IV, anybody? Zelda?
Portal was an extremely fun and funny game. What does Portal say about the human condition and how does it use the mechanics of videogames to convey that meaning? In what way is this use of the mechanics new and exciting?
I'm not going to get into a full discussion of the ramifications of Bioshock here, but they're not hard to come by. The game is far from flawless, but that's not the point. The point is that it uses the medium in a way that is fundamentally more purposeful than most games that people consider to be "great."
* Herein, a reference is made to a MASSIVE Bioshock SPOILER *
When Ryan reveals that the protagonist has been under Fontaine's control the entire time, and you look back at all the instances where your conditioning forced you to do something, it calls into question the very idea of freedom and choice in games. Because, while the game didn't compel you to perform those actions, the system (of the game rules and genre conventions) was set up so that you had to (unless you wanted to stop playing there, the meaning of which is the subject for another discussion). This forcing of your hand is itself a commentary on Objectivism and capitalist societies which put freedom first and foremost, but systematically pushes everyone to fill the economically "best" niche, a concept Ryan refers to as "the great chain." To reinforce this connection, you'll notice that the protagonist has a tattoo of the chain on his wrist. His wrists are literally chained by "the great chain" which in this case is a metaphor for the game's rules.
* SPOILERS over *
Now, before anyone tells me to get a life: I have a life. I make videogames.
Before you tell me that the game designers didn't intend this and I'm reading too much into it: I don't care about authorial intention. Lots of people have made art that they themselves didn't understand. If you doubt that, look for homosexual undertones in Victorian literature.
Aside from that, I welcome responses.
I have a different view of art than you do. I don't think that art must necessarily illustrate the human condition. Do Bach's cello suites make any sort of commentary whatsoever? Not to the untrained eye. They're just expertly crafted pieces of music. That, to me, is the core of art: not necessarily a statement about humanity but the practice of honing your ability with a craft. You can have the best idea imaginable but if you can't tell it well then it's not art.
I'm certain that BioShock DOES mean to do what you think it does. It absolutely attempts those route literary devices and it does a pretty good job of that. However, I would not for an instant call BioShock art, because it is not a movie. Its purpose is not primarily to tell a story. Its main role is to be a good game. And at that, it fails. It's fairly monotonous and while it has great ambience, the gameplay doesn't distinguish itself much. The story doesn't tell itself WELL. There were a few interesting moments from what I've played but that was it.
In my mind, the primary method of art in a game is that of the game itself. The best artists are the ones making the most fun games. That doesn't necessarily mean greater themes: Zelda is very black-and-white, for instance, in terms of story. However, a game doesn't require a story if it does its job well. Zelda doesn't, and yet THAT is what I consider to be the highest art. It's a beautiful, memorable game.
Portal? That's as close to sublime as you get. It DOES have a story, and it has a good one. And no, it doesn't have themes, any more than A Midsummer Night's Dream does. Which is to say, you can see themes in it, because they're there in both of them, but the main thing about each one is that they're enjoyable without focusing on the themes. Shakespeare isn't great because he told themes: he's great because every line he wrote was beautiful and absolutely fit whatever he was writing. The components have to fit together. That's what makes a good game.
Half-Life 2 has a story, and it tells the story well. The story is incredibly well-written, too, and it's told in the game brilliantly. The gameplay is surprisingly emotional: you get very involved in the gunfighting because of how slowly it develops. You feel extremely in the game. That's art. That's what gaming is all about.
Final Fantasy? It always tries to tell a story. And the stories are usually very thematic. I think it's slightly going downhill, but the one I mentioned (II/IV) was sublime. The graphics, music, gameplay was all very simple, but it was beautiful. It was evocative. The soundtrack in particular is stunning. The story was not particularly complex, but it was emotional and told itself well. That's art at its best. When I played it at 8 or 9, it changed my life. It made me want to become a game designer.
You're in the mindset that all mechanics have been done, and so art is just doing an old thing in a new way. That's silly! We're at the phase in video games where NOTHING has been done. We're like cinematographers in the 20s. We can do ANYTHING and it's new, and so we don't have to worry about exhausting old ground. Portal is art because it created a new game mechanic! It's something that was never done before. And not only does it MAKE the mechanic, but it polishes it considerably. It's tight, it's exciting for the entire game, and it's new. Art.
And Nintendo? They're making the greatest art of them ALL. I look at them like I look at the early silent films: they don't use an involved story, because they're busy focusing on technique, style. Every Mario game adds new ideas. It keeps on redefining the platform genre, adding new things to do. That's art. Nintendo takes the craft that Miyamoto started as a boy and continues to refine and perfect it. It's why I'd argue that of my favorite games, Nintendo's made about half. A handful of Zeldas, a few Marios, even Animal Crossing, Wii Sports, and every Super Smash Bros. They're not "literary" but they don't have to be. They don't need symbols. They're all about incredibly fun and radical new game ideas, and they're all the highest form of art.
tl;dr - BioShock's story isn't good enough to be considered literature, and it has mediocre gameplay. I think art means making fun games above everything, and BioShock is a big fail for that, even if it is pretty.
I'll admit, I don't think art must necessarily illustrate the human condition. I think good art often does, but it can also just be something that evokes an emotion. Of course, lots of things evoke emotions, so that's obviously necessary but not sufficient. I agree that the expert exercise of craft can be quite enjoyable, but that too is not sufficient to be artistically interesting or else all skilled workers would be artists (and if you feel that way, we really aren't talking about the same thing when we use the word "art"). This is already a debatably overly-limited definition of art, but my point was to unpack the idea that art does have various motives, goals, and effects on the viewer, as well as many ways to achieve them, and that is a fine thing.
However, I wasn't trying to debate what is artistic and what I not. I was saying that for those of us interested in games as art, Bioshock is an exciting game, and it's exciting because it does something new and it does it well.
I don't understand how you can get out of what I said that I think Bioshock's story is what makes it art. To say "ahh yes, but it's not a movie!" is to miss the entire point, (which may very well be the fault of my writing). The point is that it controlled me and I enjoyed it. The point is that it told me I was a slave AND IT WAS RIGHT. Because of things I DID. And it did it in a way that only a game could, not a movie or a book or a song.
I said Bioshock was interesting and I stand by that because it did something that none of the games you've cited do: the rules of the simulation and the rules of narrative played together to make meaning that as key to the game that couldn't be made in strictly simulation or narrative forms alone.
You say the "gameplay doesn't distinguish itself much," and if you mean the combat and other kinetic elements don't particularly stand out, I don't entirely disagree, but that's missing the point. When you say that Bioshock's story isn't well told, however, that's something I disagree with strongly.
I wish I had time to discuss each of the games you listed, because we agree on some points and disagree on others, but I don't, so I'll try to address some of the themes I saw.
You defend some Nintendo games for being something other than literary, and you and I are in agreement that that's not required to be interesting. Too many people think that a game has artistic merit if and only if it has a good story. There are a whole lot of good games without a story, or with a terrible story that they tell well (e.g. Half-Life 1). This isn't the point.
However, story and how it's told is important stuff in a lot of these games. But how do games tell stories? Like literature and movies, games have character development and pacing, but there are also aspects unique to each medium. Literature has the craft of writing, movies have framing and mise en scene. Games have other means of telling stories, and we're still figuring some of them out. Bioshock tells its story and evokes something in the player in a way I haven't seen before. That's why I said initially that it's one of the most exciting games out there. It's exciting because it's trail-blazing. It's exciting because it uses this to be an indictment of its own genre conventions.
Finally, you write, "I think art means making fun games above everything," a statement that honestly makes me rather sad. There are plenty of great things to do in terms of making fun games and finding new ways to make fun games. However, you make the analogy of games to film: do you think Citizen Kane was a fun movie? Should Kubrick have worried more about making Paths of Glory more fun? I don't think fun is bad, but to limit our definition of a good game to what is fun is to put on blinders.
tl;dr - Good literature isn't about plot and neither is BioShock. Good literature and BioShock, however, both use their medium well, and BioShock is exciting because it shows us a new way of doing things.