Emerging Video Game Trends, Culture, and the End of the Hero

Since I've been on the topic of how society reacts to modernistic alienation, I came to think of some emerging trends in the medium of video games to be of interest to this discussion. An old model that has been used in video games for the past many years; likely since it became popular, has been to place an individual hero type against impossible odds. Most games, especially action games, tend to use this model where the power to save humanity is found in the one, singular hero.

With the coming rejection of modernity and its alienation therein, as well as with the events of 9/11 which arguably humbled the nation and changed its culture to seeing the real relevance of the dangers of a service-based economy that relied upon other cultures and nations, people have had to struggle with the structures that modernity has left. So, even though the postmodernists largely reject the previous culture for those reasons and the modernist choices that created the service economy, they still must confront the structures that have been left in their wake.

Confronting these alienating and proven dangerous structures (ala 9/11), video games merge into this with some of the emerging trends we're seeing now. As stated, the modernistic video game structure tended to focus on the power of the individual. A more postmodern view then tends to put more focus on the power of society, for the reasons just stated. An example of this is the game, Left 4 Dead. The game isn't quite the postmodern social game ideal in that it confronts these problems, but it is a step in the right direction. The game can be described as a zombie horror multi-player game. The relevance is that the symbols of human civilization; the unaffected humans themselves, are fighting a human, but unhuman force that is both confusing to understand and powerful. Both of these can be applied to having to confront a force that one is alienated towards because of a lack of understanding, and hence deals with the current cultural discussion.

Now, Left 4 Dead could be an important and used piece of media to discuss these cultural issues, and it may do it better than zombie multi-player attempts of the past. I'm not saying that past attempts were invalid, its just that Left 4 Dead may be getting significantly closer to the goal. The reason for this is that the opposing force, that which the players are alienated against, can be controlled not by humans, but by a computer. This is important because a computer can follow pre-described purposes and action relentlessly; just the way that these forces genuinely appear to do so in our current society. Human-based opposition is much less powerful because it can be seen that humans, even in the MMORPG world, have little sense of purpose and duty; they are listless and cannot focus strongly enough on much of anything enough to resemble something close to actual purposed pursuits.

And so, the emerging trend in the medium of interactive media (video games), seems to be that of putting together a group of players communally and pit them against a force that they are alienated against and that is relentless in its pursuit to destroy them. If you can't wait for Left 4 Dead, a game that may work similarly, is the Half-Life 2 mod, Synergy, where one can play as a team through the entire Half-Life 2 game, where of course, there is also a zombie-like force present; the Combine.

The Industrial Age of Government and Economic Systems

After watching a recent episode of South Park, in fact the latest one as of this date, I came to think about how it might be that a fear based on a distant, alienated understanding of some aspect of life, might come to be within the areas of economic and governmental systems. That is, how it might be that one can be frightened by an force of some kind because of a lack of understanding of that force. A good example would be say, people's natural phobia of aliens, if they came among us. As such, an force in which we have alienated understanding of, is frightening, and even more dangerous then is such a force that is malevolent. All these relations can be seen if one looks at the latest episode in how it comments on the recent economic meltdown, the nature of the United States' economic system being service-based, 9/11, and more details than I can think of.

Now, after considering how this alienation of understanding and subsequent real threat is tied to governmental and economic systems, I came to see that the Industrial Revolution not only applied to the sciences and production methodologies, but also to governmental and economic systems in America. The idea of modernistic alienation is an impression in the United States that existed after the Industrial Revolution took place. Typically in my exposure, this has been shown to have been applied to material goods and the sciences; the alienation is caused essentially by making the production of goods and progress in science dependent upon machines rather than actual humans. One cannot see as easily that which came from a human (production of goods) or can comprehend with the human senses (atomic sciences) that which is before them; it appears to be from machines.

The same impression of alienation exists in the United States' economic and governmental systems because the process of industrialization was applied also to them. For government, the leaders structured it such that it became highly reliant upon a system that allowed greater number of people to be governed using less actual people. A couple of illustrations that reveal how this was expressed is, first the increase in internal structures of organization in how government was handled (bureaucracy), second the increase in importance of citizens of following laws. These two expressions caused man to follow dutifully the intricacies of detailed organizational procedures and caused the populace to not be as governed by actual people, but by laws.

The industrialization of economic systems followed the same mentality of streamlining how a nation approached economics such that making profit, liking making products for the factory sector, was streamlined using highly mathematical systems. The need to keep progressing (a value strengthened greatly by the Industrial Revolution) is now so intrinsic within the United States' view of economics that it isn't acceptable to have a level market; but rather one that is always increasing. And so, of course, it is a crisis that a market would turn in an opposite direction, as it is now.

An important extension to the industrialization of economic systems that one should note, is that it led to the creation of the service economy we now have. This is due to the fact that people were already comfortable with an alienating system; a system that becomes more reliant upon people far away is less daunting. Of course, that sneaky alienating force that is built within such a service will make some people frightened, and rightly so, for we are reliant upon others who could easily destroy our way of life because we are so strongly tied to them; a modern Republican-esque belief. This extended idea could really be gone into more fully in a separate posting all together.

Cultural Foundations of Truth: Comparing Western Europe to Central Europe

I recently began to think more about some of the friendships I've had in the past and the characteristics of the various people I knew. Something that's been on the back of my mind for a while has been the idea that White people, or those of European descent, are more predisposed to enjoy and gain friendship with those that share the region in Europe their family came from. Previously, I had considered most White Americans to be fairly similar, but over time this question has crept into my mind as a possibility in explaining some of the strange differences and causes of tension that I couldn't put my finger on.

Recently, I had some thoughts as a result of reading some partly unrelated literature that seemed to confirm greatly that this does in fact exist more than I previously gave credit. In reflecting, I was able to see at least one regional distinction with people of European descent. This was the division between those that have heritage in areas of Western Europe that at least include England and Ireland, and those that have heritage in areas of Central Europe that at least include Germany, Italy, and probably France. This distinction was addressed in my mind primarily by each group's tendency towards how they acquire truth.

The following are the distinctions I noticed, each bullet generally is paired in idea with another on the other list according to order:

Central European (German, Italian, perhaps French)

• Will to Power
  
• Determination yields results
  
• Right person in the right place can make all the difference
  
• Materialistic reality is full of tools for taking action

Western European (England, Ireland)

• Phenomenal Enlightenment
  
• Sudden awareness gives ability for power
  
• Correct combination of various, random facts brings creative power
  
• Materialistic reality is fuel / entropy for this "enlightenment fire"

Each of these pairings should be explained and given example in order to understand more fully.

The Will to Power idea can be understood such that truth is known by the person who has taken the action to resolve the issue in question. It isn't the idea that comes first to solve the problem, but the action in progress or completed successfully that reveals the answer and hence the truth. Phenomenal Enlightenment differs from Will to Power in that the truth is known based on what emerges from a collective pool of many concepts. Once a pattern rises almost by no direct provocation, the answer is known and hence the truth.

The next category can be understood as a comparison of how each sees power. Central Europeans tend to think that power comes from having a determined spirit; a person who seeks by direct action or experimentation of possible solutions, is seen as likely powerful. Western Europeans tend to think that once one has become enlightened almost by phenomenon with the answer to the problem, that they have then great power to take action successfully.

The next category covers the environment in which each group tends to see truth come from. The Central European is highly existential in that they tend to believe that the right person in the right situation can produce great results. As such, if the person is not "right" or of a determining demeanor, or if the situation does not contain the necessary material tool base, truth will tend to not be found. The Western European sees a truth-bearing environment as one that is surrounded with many ideas; many not related to the problem at hand perhaps at all. Out of this seemingly chaotic environment tends to emerge the truth that the person is seeking. And so, one must typically expose oneself to numerous sources, potentially unrelated, before one will be able to see the solution to the problem at hand.

The last category covers each regions view towards materialistic reality and culture. The Central European sees material reality as a place of potential tools to solve problems and discover truth, as they tend to use the objects around them to resolve what works and what doesn't. They tend to see the material culture that builds up in society as only the outpourings of what comes from man's actions in using the tools he has. Power is in the person and determination. Modern Science was born from Central Europe and as such, it has many traits attributed to the culture that created it. The Western European sees material reality as a great source for gaining enlightenment; the entropy that feeds an "enlightenment fire." They tend to see the material culture that builds up in society as not just tools. They see a tool-based mentality towards material reality as sterile and a wrong way of using one's material surroundings. Materialistic reality tends to be powerful in itself in that it is "culture."

Historical and Symbolic Thinking, with Deconstructionism

After going through a week of difficulty due to my old apartment catching on fire, I was able to return to where I left off in my thinking. Recently, I've reading through a book which looks at the Western mindset and society in regards to its views on history. It has been one of the most interesting pieces of work I've read lately, though I'm not done with it, so I'm not sure if I would recommend it yet to anyone. Anyways, reading and thinking, I came to see an association between the physical nature of man and the necessity of being able to think historically and symbolically. Recently, I have tied to this modern history's views on deconstructionism and how that has had implications on modern man's ability to think in these ways.

First off, history is relevant to man because on a physical level, man cannot escape his memory, past experiences, and past knowledge. By the very way his brain is wired, man tends to think in these manners. As such, having an ability to think historically is valuable for it builds upon the physical nature of man.

Second, symbolism is relevant to man because if man is to know any sizable number of things and will be able to retrieve these things quickly, the brain must build cross-idea associations which create symbolic intuition.

The opposite of this; a perspective that eliminates one's ability to think historically and symbolically has repercussions that one must be aware of. As a note, since we're speaking of the ability to think based on physical reality, I'm assuming that man is able to have a brain constructed in such a way that limits it to be used in ways highly contrary to its construction. Taken this way, a way of thinking that doesn't allow historical and symbolic processing tends to cause man to be unable to progress in building tendencies. Non-historical thinking means that man has built his mind such that he is a stateless machine; he can process pieces of data at any time regardless of context. Non-symbolic thinking means that man has built his mind such that data is stored in his brain so that either there are repetitive data (ideas, even though they share sub-concepts, must be compartmentalized / isolated) or retrieval of isolated ideas takes a long time because one must filter off associated ideas that don't belong to the idea being sought after. Assuming that the brain has a limited capacity by its limited number of neurons, both a-historical and a-symbolic ways of thinking may cause man to be unable to delve deeply into ideas without foregoing being able to go deeply into other ideas; historical and symbolic thinking are more efficient in storing ideas, but they do not hold the benefits of being able to think more freely.

Deconstructionism comes into this because it is a way of thinking that seeks to eliminate historical and symbolic thinking for the sake of freedom from tendencies. Since this is freedom from tendencies, any attempt at making assumptions is fought against. As such, if a society stays in deconstructionism, it and his mankind will not progress, but will only continue to spin on its shallow mess of assumptionless thinking. To anyone who knows of deconstructionism, it is a historical movement that began some time in the mid 20th century as an attempt by Western society to free itself of what it saw as mass injustices it was predisposed towards. Since as we've seen, a-historical and a-symbolic thinking keep man from building tendencies and foundations of sorts, it seems to be a way of thinking that accomplishes this, and could arguably be one of the reasons Western society has been in the process of deconstructing itself for the past few decades.

So if man is to build any foundation, he must at least approach thinking more historically and symbolically; to not do so continues a cycle of deconstruction and arguably antifoundationalism. Emerging thought seems to be that this past of deconstructionism shouldn't be continued much longer; that reconstruction should begin. Why this change has occurred is for another article, but the fact of its existence is the reason this article is relevant.

Male Gender Roles in Leadership, Then and Now

The other day, I was thinking about the period of the 60's and 70's and the topic of gender roles. It seemed interesting because of the potential reasons why the sexual revolution of that period took place. The specific aspect I'm going to focus on, is the period's stance towards gender roles, and why perhaps the roles in gender shifted from previous years. Flashing forward, I'm going to also try and address the impact this is having on current generations and why that's interesting.

From what material I have exposure to, it seems that during the 60's and 70's, for one reason or another, it tended to be that male leadership in the home was weak, whereas female leadership was strong. Now, this state of leadership didn't appear to exist prior to this period; the 60's and 70's were a transitional period where male leadership had been strong before, but now was becoming weak. Why exactly male leadership weakened, is a topic that won't be broached here, but it is certainly important. Now, following this transitional period, women began to take on more responsibility over the home; for the men were becoming less. For some reason or another, it doesn't seem like the society of that age criticized men that much, even though many of them were giving up the degree of responsibility they once held. Some could argue that the reason criticism was held back was because people had accepted that females were to be given more power over the home; more delegated, egalitarian power structures. Based on what I've seen, there were people who understood and accepted the change, but there were also many who didn't understand and were confused by what was going on around them; some even men themselves who were following society though confused as to why things were falling apart for them. Perhaps it is because the period was such a flux point in the culture, and so this caused inability to discern whether men were in the wrong for foregoing responsibility (whether they accepted feminism or not).

I contrast this response to lessened male responsibility with that of today's culture. There has been in popular thought, for the past 3-4 years at least, the idea that the typical modern male's sense of responsibility is lower than it should be, and therefore it is wrong. This is seen in that men are portrayed in the national media as being weak, irresponsible, impractical, too emotional, and baby-like. An excellent portrayal of this is in the film Knocked Up. Before, it seems as if men who held these qualities weren't seen as in the wrong, whereas now, it seems all over the national media, that men like this need to change. Not that I don't disagree, I tend to lean towards being more responsible, but why exactly this is happening now, is the question.

A few reasons that I can think up now could shed light in future thoughts: first, that the 60's and 70's were so tumultuous that no one really knew what was going on and whether it was right or wrong, thereby correcting the mistakes of the past. Second, that criticism now has only come from the Gen-Y crowd because they have been brought up to believe in the gender roles that existed before the 60's and 70's. Third, that the Gen-X crowd is trying to correct Gen-Y's veering towards such male gender roles because Gen-X doesn't see any real reason for Gen-Y's adoption of such cultural ideas other than men likely indulging in truly wrongful irresponsibility. In other words, they haven't sought these roles out of necessity, but out of selfish gluttony.

The Kingdom of God and History

Oftentimes, I am compelled to consider the future path of civilization. From my thoughts about "essentialism," I began to consider the future projections for a society that follows such a way of thinking. Most conclusions that I've been reading about and thinking about, lead to a societal decay on a large scale to some degree or measure. When I considered what this decay could look like, I began to see many ideas come together to form a couple of potential outcomes. By many ideas coming together, I mean that a new idea was entering my thoughts that largely depended on other ideas pre-existing, which seems seems like a good cognitive method to begin to see relations between ideas that may actually exist, but not recognized before.

Back to the point. The importance of coming up with these two resulting outcomes that entered my mind was that they hinged on whether a certain belief in my mind was one way or another. And this is important because one's stance on this belief is likely due to what time of history one is ascribing the stance in. Particularly, one stance is from the early 20th century, and one stance is much more recent.

The generated outcomes of "essentialism" and all the issues within that historical progression were the following. The first is that Western society will undergo a cycle of first falling apart, then rebirth where the new society will take what truths the last society discovered, but will throw away much of the culture and false truths that existed. This occurs in a cycle and each society as it rebirths, builds upon societies prior; thereby increasing societal stability with each passing age. The second outcome that came to my mind was that Western culture will be accepted throughout the Earth as a unifying culture for all mankind. However, when this society falls apart, there somehow isn't as much availability for rebirth. It is similar to the Tower of Babel event, where all of mankind was divided. However, this time, this may not be the outcome, it could something else.

Both of these ideas hinged in my mind on some of my Christian beliefs. This makes all good sense, because I am a Christian and my mind should hinge on my beliefs. The particular belief it hinged on was what my view was on the future of the "Kingdom of God," which is discussed often in the Bible. One popular viewpoint is that the Kingdom of God will come in a dramatic, earth-shattering (so to speak) event. Followers of this idea could commonly be referred to as believers in the "New Earth, New Kingdom" dynamic. A second popular viewpoint is that the Kingdom of God will come when society on Earth progresses to that point, at which Jesus will come back to Earth and rightly become King. Followers of this idea could commonly be referred to as believers in a "Progressive Kingdom." Believers in the "New Earth, New Kingdom" dynamic would likely interpret the future of Western society in a fashion that will bring the dramatic event that changes the world quickly. Believers in the "Progressive Kingdom" dynamic would believe that Western society will indeed fall apart, but that a new society that is better than all the last will be built upon the ashes.

The historical importance of these two views, is that the "New Earth, New Kingdom" concept has existed at least since the early 20th century. Popular allusions to this idea can be seen in some of the art of the day, such as in the film of Metropolis. The "Progressive Kingdom" concept is an idea of at least the past ten years. Noticing this difference that is based largely on which belief one holds that is from which era is important as it signifies more as to who one is compared to who one thinks one is, and that is the relevance for it to me. As far as to why the "Progressive Kingdom" idea has been gaining a lot steam lately, that is for another posting.

The Blog That Won't Die

Greetings to any of you who haven't read this blog in a while, or read it at all before. The above title isn't meant to be arrogant or boastful, but something I hope to keep based on what I've learned in the past about keeping a blog going. Originally, this blog died off during the college years due to a number of aspects I have tried to address.

Now, I say tried, because this blog in its current incarnation is not new; I've been blogging for about two months. I did this so as to not make any promises that I couldn't keep.

When I first started this blog in college, I did it mostly as a way to express thoughts through writing to the public. There were two large problems with this. First, my motivation to keep going was highly dependent upon people reading the blog. Blogging, as well as Facebook, are applications where people can perform actions without being noticed by anyone. As such, it seems that most people, even if they did read, didn't do anything to mark their passage. Since I was dependent on knowing that people actually valued what I did, the blog shut down. Now, I've tried to make this blog with less dependence upon needing others to read it; I write because I need to, and because I feel that it would be good to have it available to the public although I'm not dependent upon that factor very much. The second main problem with the original blog, was that I didn't have much free time in college outside of what I already had commitments to. Now, especially since I'm living far from most of everyone I know from college and early life, I feel that keeping such a portal of deep thoughts is important.

Now that this blog is going, and I hope it go on for a long time, I'm excited for what's coming up. Aside from content, which is mostly centered on cultural, sociological, and identity analysis, I've been working through some thoughts about how to better keep track and thereby understand the ideas I write about. One has been through keeping visual maps of what ideas I consistently think about. These maps would essentially link different articles to articles by association of what the articles talk about, so that I can form a visual representation of where my thoughts are going and what the different facets appear to be. The creation of these "idea maps" will allow me to review and reflect upon what I've thought about before; very useful if somehow I've gotten off track or forgotten some of my central purposes. To anyone who has tried to keep journals, it should make rummaging through them to remember what they were about substantially easier.

So that's where things are going. Again, I encourage you, if you are going to read this blog consistently, to comment with your own thoughts or drop me a line; it should help each of us to understand each other better, and I look forward to any furthering of that.