Why We Fight

AsiNisiMasa writes "The Contrarian in this week's The Escapist is a brutally honest and exceptionally disturbing piece entitled 'Why We Fight.' It examines the underlying mentality behind our affinity for violent behavior in games, citing the desire for efficiency at all costs. From the article: 'Your people face famine, plague, poverty and unrest. What policies would you enact to solve these problems? (Fans of Tropico, you know how this works.) My friend's solution? Death camps. Round up the sick, the lame, the infertile, the ignorant, the useless, the unproductive and execute them.'"

Comments

The Managed Utopia

[Kismet]

We need the ignorant, the useless, AND the unproductive people for our economy to work properly.

If we had intelligent, productive people, they wouldn't buy things they didn't need. They wouldn't tolerate useless sinecures, bureaucracies, or government jobs. They wouldn't be satisfied working for somebody else, or taking charity from the State. Useful, productive people don't need mass-produced goods made identically by machines, because smart useful people won't work in mindless jobs operating and managing the machines of mass production (whether they be hardware machines or social machines which are comprised of humans, yet lack humanity).

Intelligent, productive people have art and culture in their blood, and they release it by creating things with their own hands by the virtue of their particular genius. Intelligent, productive people are energized by other intelligent productive people, and as individuals and communities, they can take care of themselves.

Intelligent, productive people aren't born, but are made. America was once a land of such people, but now you look at yourselves and see what you have become, and you hate it. That is why you fight.

And you know what? Your manner of fighting is completely useless. It's only a way of hiding from the problem. We treat our symptoms and ignore our problems. But that's what the Managed Utopia is all about: leveling the masses and robbing them of real courage to stand up and make changes.

Do you think if America had stayed faithful to her original Dream that her armies would now span the globe? That her Senate would echo the politics of George III's parliament? That places like Wal-Mart would even be possible? I walk the isles of Wal-Mart and see full-grown men playing games on the demo XBox console. This is what America has become.

Intelligent, useful, productive people don't have time for video games.