Bioshock and Objectivism

[Wuyabi]

I do not post in this guild often. This is largely because I am fearful of stating my view on the outlook that this guild holds most dear: Objectivism.
I disagree with it, and heartily at that. This article by feminist gamer mightyponygirl explains why I find it distasteful better than I ever could:

http://www.mightyponygirl.com/feminist_gamers/?p=296  

[bluecherry]

No responses? Eh, alright, here goes . . .

First off, the current guild owner doesn't have a policy of doing anything to members based on their stances about Objectivism (seriously, the place has entire member run subforums based on the subject of discussing religion for example) so your fears are entirely unfounded. Though as long as you believed this place and not just its owner was very much entwined with Objectivism, why stick around in the first place? I'd think if it was so tied up in something you so strongly disliked you wouldn't like the place and so wouldn't care if you got kicked out, maybe you'd even choose to quit all on your own.

Read the article, the writer has a poor understanding of what Objectivism's philosophy actually espouses. First off, though this has little to do with the criticism itself, from the first line of where the review starts I get a bad impression of the writer -- she read something she hated for the sake of getting to then later take pleasure in writing about her hatred of it. Does she have to review every single last game? Probably not, especially if she isn't getting paid to do so. So I would think it would be better from her perspective to just not read the book and move on without ever bothering to review that particular game. If anybody asks, just say the effort it would have taken to review that game wasn't worth it for you. Looking forward to the opportunity of putting things down rather than just avoiding things you don't like in the first place seems a bit sadistic. confused It's kind of like being somebody who is a fan of chocolate cake specifically going and eating a vanilla cake somebody made just so they can proclaim loudly to the restaurant that the cake they had sucked and they should serve chocolate cake instead and the chef and restaurant have poor taste. Reminds me a bit of the mindset of trolls. Not to mention, Rand isn't even alive to even have a chance to hear about this writer "ripping her a new one" (though she'd have been little bothered, if at all, had she been alive and seen it anyway.)

Anyway, more on topic: It looks like, from that article, that the writer and the game have presented only a strawman of Objectivism. No, Objectivism does not think there are specific people, as it implies in the article, that are just born the special people and nobody else can ever be so, they'll always be inferiors. Objectivism highly agrees with the idea of people all being born equals as people with everybody being capable of becoming someone great (or awful) based on the choices they make throughout the course of their lives (assuming these are your average people, not like somebody born with an extreme mental disability or being totally paralyzed so you can't even speak or blink or anything.) Also, they do not mean to imply being something like an inventor for being an inventor can do whatever they please no matter what it is from painting their house what may be seen by many as an ugly color to violating a law on recycling to becoming a serial killer for kicks. Objectivism doesn't support any and all laws and rules being followed just because they exist, it does imply a lot of laws suck, but it believes many rules and laws exist for very good reasons and should be followed. (Laws dealing with the respect for and protection of people's rights from violation by force or fraud by other people are the laws it supports and why it says we have governments for example. These are laws there that make society possible, that make it possible for all individual lives to have the optimum opportunity to go out and make the best of their lives.) As for human interactions, Objectivism supports people treating each other by trading for mutual benefit, not tricking and trapping or enslaving for one party's gain and the others loss. Bordeline personality? What? That is NOTHING like borderline personality. Here's what borderline personality is really like: link
Also, not every liked character is good looking (some are intentionally bad looking, like one construction worker, Mike Donnigan) and some of the characters that are ones Rand didn't consider good were not generally what would be considered to be generally "flabby" and/or very bad looking people (Gordon L. Prescott wasn't very out-of-shape.) Rand also FAR from hates women. First that would be ridiculous as she loves herself and was a woman, second she believed the sexes to be equal. Saying one or the other sex is inferior is unfounded and would make as much sense as being racist (meaning, none at all.) Ultimately saying one sex is inferior would just lead to holding back a lot of great potential, it would benefit nobody at all. That "bubble-headed socialites whose only opinion is that which will garner them the most admiration from their peers" thing applies to most characters male or female in the book. The writer just thinks it is specifically against females because as the title implies they're a very alert feminist, it isn't unlikely they're looking to see any badly portrayed females and focus on that, as if any negative character who happens to be female means the author is a bigot who hates all women. And those women were never illiterate who were writing those letters. The writer is just really making things up with that blatantly. Also as for the "rape" in the book, the first scene is not about sex, they're reading into that scene stuff that isn't there. Rand's writing are pretty straight forward, they mean what they say and say what they mean. As for what is the infamous "rape scene" -- though that one is frequently misconstrued as supporting rape, Objectivism DOES NOT support rape. Objectivism supports respecting people's bodily domain, seriously. The "rape scene" in The Fountainhead (the only thing that comes close to rape in any of her stories, every other time the participants are much more obviously willing from start to finish) is often taken the wrong way. The female character in question does seem to really make a lot of protests, but she does even during the act show signs of not really being opposed and later on she says herself that she knew she could have made him stop easily if she'd just shown she really was disgusted by it, but even knowing this, she didn't. She could have made him stop very easily, but chose not to. Considering this, despite what it looks like at first, can you really call it a true rape? As for any "mind games" he plays with her, she tried to play them with him too, just he wasn't as susceptible to them. She much more was the one who started playing the games when she purposely broke her own fire place's marble so she could hire him to fix it (and she of course said it was the result of an accident) and she could treat him as somebody she had there in her house close to her, but she was in the position above him with power over him and treat him like a random nobody that meant nothing to her and she would forget about in no time and had never considered much at all -- all the while believing they both knew this was far from the case. As for the evaluation of what the review writer thinks is Rand's "target audience" -- Objectivism supports specifically not obsessing over what other people's opinions are of you, not telling yourself "one day they'll see, they'll all see . . . " People who try to become great to "show them all" just end up like the book's character Gail Wynand, who did have a lot of promise and do impressive feats, but ultimately having done things in order to get power over other people and do a sort of "show them all" type thing, he ultimately suffers because he has to subject himself to doing things based on what other people think and want in order to keep them feeding his power and prestige. The one time he decides to go with what he really wants to as opposed to what most other people want him to do his news paper business takes a dramatic dive in popularity and loses almost all employees and barely keeps in business until he caves in an goes back to doing what they want. By aiming to get things in other's eyes he puts himself at their control. Beyond that, Objectivism does not think you have to be a "captain of industry" or anything especially dazzling for a career title at all. The guy I mentioned earlier, Mike, he's a good character who is just a traveling construction worker. That's as much as he does for a job, but there is nothing in the least wrong with that. He isn't admonished for "selling himself short" or not aiming high enough. He does good work in his chosen field and it is something he likes to do and other people need to be done (meaning, there are people willing to pay him for it, so he can make a living doing this as opposed to if he was stupid enough to try to make a career out of selling used napkins he'd eaten off of and nothing else,) so its all fine and dandy for him to choose this career and not aim for anything flashier. And except for defending yourself and what you care about from initiation of violation of rights, Objectivism does NOT support the use of physical force to get your way. As for some of the things listed later on, Objectivism supports no mysticism, so fortune tellers are out and they support people taking care of themselves, so the crazy amount of alcohol and (these days now that they are known likely health hazards) cigarettes are out too (Rand herself had smoked, but quit when the information about them being very unhealthy came out.) Also, Objectivism very much doesn't support being entirely against empathy -- as far as understanding people, it's a good thing to do that to make it easier to predict what they'll do and as for caring about their feelings, it does support that for people you yourself care about, just not for everybody and anybody, caring about the feelings of people who for no good reason hate you, people who are trying to destroy your values, people who just want to guilt trip you into getting you to do what they want, etc . . . As for the comment about there being "too many rounded edges in the architecture" -- at one point in The Fountainhead, the protagonist makes an entire structure with not a single sharp point, the whole thing is rounded. About the "little sisters" -- Objectivism, as I said, supports respecting bodily domain, so that entire thing would not have been accepted in Objectivism. (Seriously, the little girls for example may give you more adam now if killed then saved, but later on they could grow up and say, write your favorite book. Wouldn't that be worth the little loss in adam now? There is good reason not to kill the girls from the standpoint of Objectivism. Plus, trying to kill them they'd likely try to defend themselves and you could get hurt and/or other people would see you as dangerous to potentially violate their rights and want to put you down before you hurt them and to give the little girls justice. )

(I'm busy lately, so if I don't get back to any responses right away, that's why, but I will eventually.)

 

[lotusvoid]

Firstly and most importantly for your purposes, no one in this guild who really understands and shares the values of objectivism will attack you or be angry with you for stating a reaction you feel to be true. The most likely response you would get would be a clearly stated response in which they would point out where they believe your information to be flawed and point you in the direction of better information. In the event that did not evoke a reasonable response, even disagreement, from you they would simply leave you be.
Do not be afraid to share your own views here, you will benefit far more from discussing those than you will from borrowing the biased opinions of others. Regardless of wether you agree with this particular philosophy or not, there is always something to be learned by the exchange of ideas between two willing and open parties.  

[noob2deth]

objectivism; it isnt a bad thing, nor subjectavism, people who attempt to be objective (myself included) try to find perfection in seeing reality as it is, not as how we please. people who are subjective attempt to find perfection in reality as they see it, both are valid options, neither is wrong nor right, its all about your outlook on life.
note: i didnt mean to make it seem as though i am favoring objectavism, so if you feel you understand my point and would like to rephrase or reiterate feel free.