Virtual War Rocks
November 23rd, 2006 at 06:37pm mlinchik
As a little connection, I thought Scarry’s “language of agency” or as we can now call it, analogical verification, to be relevant in the discussion of the “Rape in Cyberspace” text since in this case, instead of being a means of expressing pain, it could be seen as the only means by which pain has been inflicted. The victims in the online world have only read words- they have not been physically harmed, but they claim to have experienced pain. I know Scarry is talking about physical pain and not pschological, but I’m not sure it works to separate them because they are so tied together. The cyber rape and cyber violence are an excellent example of how objects that often produce pain become so laden with the meaning of pain in our minds that they produce visceral effects when spoken or written about.
Also, I’m not sure how different the situation that the victims found themselves in is than that of someone reading a book that has a graphically violent scene. Obviously it is different because someone was directing it personally online, but don’t we all experience the things that happen to the characters in books in the same sort of way, taking on their persona, especially in first person narratives? Sometimes these passages make me actually feel a glimmer of pain, just by reading them.
I agree wholeheartedly with what both Joe and Fan noticed- that even though the idea of a virtual world presents the possibility of transcending, subverting, altering or completely ignoring the RL world in which we live, these online RPGs and MDPMUUU or MOOPEYMOPMOOPS often just recreate the same RL experience we all have. Ok, in Second Life, everyone can fly. What else is different? I can earn money, and the point of doing that is to go buy things to alter my appearance or to buy property. And the point of property is to be able to sell things or create things that help one sell or to “look cool.” All sounds pretty familiar; pretty “all that was once lived has become mere representation.”
For me, an interesting thing about the Dibbell article was how it outlined little artifacts of the social controls that were later incorporated into messaging and chat systems for the mass public. The article was filled with cool archeological internet fossils. @boot was the first aim “warning,” for example. Remember those? You could warn someone so many times that they got kicked off for a while?
As for Dibbell’s desire for “an end to flame wars,” I say bring em on (Dibbell 260). Indeed, emotions are on the line when walking the “tightwire between …reasoned text and the emotional immediacy of conversation”, but I welcome the advent of a flame world of warcraft,.. Hangry diatribes across sounds like a lovely alternative to the ever more popular technique of strapping bombs to oneself or hurling bombs. Bring on the virtual wars, I say. Since Joe started the reminiscing train by thinking back to how he wished school was like a video game, I will follow. It is vacation, after all.
As a child – and particularly after reading Ender’s Game, which I highly recommend – I always wished war was like a video game. I’m sure many have had that thought. If we have the technology to have both sides looking at screens and never really seeing each other, couldn’t we just have a full-scale virtual war to see who would’ve won? Wouldn’t that deter everyone from the real bombs? Why waste the money when a simulation could tell you so much? And cheating would be fine- hack away, I say! May the best programming country win! Obviously this would never work, but it just sounds so cool, and much kinder to the people who always end up fighting the war.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Entry Filed under: Week 13 - New Media
