What is it about violence in games (not
just video games) that causes it to be so prevalent? A large
percentage of video games that fall outside the “casual gamer”
category involve violence in one form or another. Most sports
contain some aspects of direct conflict over some limited resource
(even those that do not include physical contact work this way).
Card games get called “cutthroat” all the time (cribbage, bridge,
poker). Go and Chess are direct simulations of war, as are most of
their simpler derivatives. Even pure athletics largely derives from
attempts to learn and improve physical skills for their application
in battle, from sprinting to the biathlon.
So why is it that we seek so many ways
to simulate something that we know we don't really want to do? Why
is it that even indirect, implied, simulated violence stirs us? Why
is it so rare that we find something that is not merely another
expression of this?
The fact is, we got to where we are
because we are violent, ruthless, practical thinking machines. We
don't enjoy killing and destruction because we are immature, we enjoy
it because it's how we rose to be the alpha mammals of the world. We
enjoy it because it is our success story, because it is what makes
the world change to suit us, instead of the other way around.
That is why we enjoy it. That is
exactly why we must learn to leave it behind.
Ask a surfer. Or a hiker. Ask a
photographer who waits for six hours so that the light works just
right. Ask a nurse who spends her days cleaning the bodies of people
who are sick and dying.
There is something in us beyond
violence, no matter how necessary it has been for us. We will never
be able to lay it down completely, but we can find the finer aspects
of ourselves. The parts of us that see a forest and simply
experience it instead of cutting it down. The parts of us that have
cared for our children for two million years. The parts of us that
look at the stars and name them, so that they are not strangers to
us.
Violence is seductive and powerful and
valuable. But it is not the only tool we have.
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