Monday, February 21, 2005
Why do people want to spend their time "killing" each other as a pastime?
A reader writes:
Dear Major Fun: Why do people enjoy meeting in cyberspace to engage in simulated warfare, with games like Halo and War Craft? Why do people want to spend their time "killing" each other as a pastime? I just don't get it. Are these games really an outlet for aggression, or do they perpetuate even more aggression in our society? What do you think? Please share. No one has been able to answer these questions for me, maybe you can.
Major Fun responds:
- we play war because we need to play with it - there's no other way to integrate such an awful reality into our understanding of the world. it is too ugly, too irrational, too stupid for us to grasp in any other way.
- we know we're not really hurting anyone or anything, we know that we can't really die, and without that knowledge, we couldn't have fun
- we can trust each other if we all know that we're trying to kill each other, that the very worst in us is not hidden or subsumed by any other attempts at being human, so when we meet, we can meet above all that
- it is remarkably clear, war imagery. we don't have to worry about double-meanings, about the "real" agenda. nothing else is as vivid. no interpretation required
- play fighting is fun, as long as it is play. it's a very basic form of play, in all playing animals. it's safer and clearer than sex play, but in many ways, even more intimate
Major Fun, the reader continues, do you think it's hardwired into our genes?
Major Fun continues: I do. The capacity for violence, as well as the capacity for love. I think they are maybe necessary to each other. We also have the capacity to choose. And therein lies the fun of it all.
Dear Major Fun: Why do people enjoy meeting in cyberspace to engage in simulated warfare, with games like Halo and War Craft? Why do people want to spend their time "killing" each other as a pastime? I just don't get it. Are these games really an outlet for aggression, or do they perpetuate even more aggression in our society? What do you think? Please share. No one has been able to answer these questions for me, maybe you can.
Major Fun responds:
- we play war because we need to play with it - there's no other way to integrate such an awful reality into our understanding of the world. it is too ugly, too irrational, too stupid for us to grasp in any other way.
- we know we're not really hurting anyone or anything, we know that we can't really die, and without that knowledge, we couldn't have fun
- we can trust each other if we all know that we're trying to kill each other, that the very worst in us is not hidden or subsumed by any other attempts at being human, so when we meet, we can meet above all that
- it is remarkably clear, war imagery. we don't have to worry about double-meanings, about the "real" agenda. nothing else is as vivid. no interpretation required
- play fighting is fun, as long as it is play. it's a very basic form of play, in all playing animals. it's safer and clearer than sex play, but in many ways, even more intimate
Major Fun, the reader continues, do you think it's hardwired into our genes?
Major Fun continues: I do. The capacity for violence, as well as the capacity for love. I think they are maybe necessary to each other. We also have the capacity to choose. And therein lies the fun of it all.
Labels: Major Fun
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