People base their politics off their material conditions not their media consumption
Most of these are way lib-ier than people give them credit for. Bioshock wasn't about how Libertarianism is bad, it was a misanthropic screed about how the purity of Libertarian society is ruined by the inherent corruption of human bias. It was also very "both sides" and people routinely forget that the real bad guy of the game is Fontaine and his pro-union uprising
People base their politics off their material conditions not their media consumption
I would argue that one's material condition informs one's media diet. And the material conditions of the artists inform the content of the media. These aren't independent attributes.
Agitation is, at its heart, about producing compelling media that resonate with an individual's material condition. And video games that are relatable can provoke a reaction in the player that encourages sympathy toward a certain group or cause.
I do not think it is a coincidence that so many Americans have a visceral distaste for both Fascism and Communism (often even conflating the two) given the volume of media they consume that portray these ideologies as Evil.
It was also very “both sides” and people routinely forget that the real bad guy of the game is Fontaine and his pro-union uprising
The character Fontaine voices token agitation while simultaneously exploiting and betraying his accomplices. The protagonist has the opportunity to repeat the cycle of violence - overthrowing Fontaine as Fontaine overthrows Ryan - or break it, with his treatment of the weakest and most exploited characters playing a pivotal role in that decision.
Isn't saying "the purity of Libertarian society is ruined by the inherent corruption of human bias" a longer way of saying libertarianism bad? Also that's a bad take on Fontaine, IMO. 95% of the game Ryan and rich people are the bad guys and when Fontaine is revealed he's presented as a gangster, not "unions bad." I'd have to replay it to be sure, but it was a piece of anti-capitalist gaming much more than it was a "both sides" shit you see in The Last of Us 2.
My point is that the game often presents Libertarianism as conceptually sound but flawed in implementation rather than conceptually flawed to begin with. These games are deeply nihilistic in the same way an Elizabeth Warren socdem is, condemning all the consequences of capitalism but never upending capitalism itself or providing any kind of alternative. Fontaine is a gangster using worker frustrations over their exploitation to his own end and is presented in the exact same way Bane in The Dark Knight Rises is.
People base their politics off their material conditions not their media consumption
Most of these are way lib-ier than people give them credit for. Bioshock wasn't about how Libertarianism is bad, it was a misanthropic screed about how the purity of Libertarian society is ruined by the inherent corruption of human bias. It was also very "both sides" and people routinely forget that the real bad guy of the game is Fontaine and his pro-union uprising
I would argue that one's material condition informs one's media diet. And the material conditions of the artists inform the content of the media. These aren't independent attributes.
Agitation is, at its heart, about producing compelling media that resonate with an individual's material condition. And video games that are relatable can provoke a reaction in the player that encourages sympathy toward a certain group or cause.
I do not think it is a coincidence that so many Americans have a visceral distaste for both Fascism and Communism (often even conflating the two) given the volume of media they consume that portray these ideologies as Evil.
Bioshock 1: The history of Rapture and the character of Andrew Ryan is loosely based on Rockefeller's story. He also considered that many of the characters of Rapture were all people who were oppressed once before in their lives and now free of that oppression, have turned around and become the oppressors, a fact he felt resonated throughout human history. ... However, as Levine worked on the story, he started to incorporate the ideas of dystopian and utopian thinkers from the twentieth century, including Ayn Rand, Aldous Huxley, and George Orwell, and considered their ideas "fascinating". He brought in the ideas of Objectivism that Rand primarily outlined in the book Atlas Shrugged, that man should be driven by selfishness and not altruism, and used this to inform the philosophy behind the city of Rapture and Andrew Ryan's work, viewing them as quite ludicrous, and primed to be applied to an antagonist, tied in with his previous observations on Rockefeller and his writings. This was extended to the use of the little girls as drones (now Little Sisters), particularly the question whether the player should try to save the girls or harvest the ADAM for their benefit.
I don't know how you read that any other way.
The character Fontaine voices token agitation while simultaneously exploiting and betraying his accomplices. The protagonist has the opportunity to repeat the cycle of violence - overthrowing Fontaine as Fontaine overthrows Ryan - or break it, with his treatment of the weakest and most exploited characters playing a pivotal role in that decision.
Isn't saying "the purity of Libertarian society is ruined by the inherent corruption of human bias" a longer way of saying libertarianism bad? Also that's a bad take on Fontaine, IMO. 95% of the game Ryan and rich people are the bad guys and when Fontaine is revealed he's presented as a gangster, not "unions bad." I'd have to replay it to be sure, but it was a piece of anti-capitalist gaming much more than it was a "both sides" shit you see in The Last of Us 2.
My point is that the game often presents Libertarianism as conceptually sound but flawed in implementation rather than conceptually flawed to begin with. These games are deeply nihilistic in the same way an Elizabeth Warren socdem is, condemning all the consequences of capitalism but never upending capitalism itself or providing any kind of alternative. Fontaine is a gangster using worker frustrations over their exploitation to his own end and is presented in the exact same way Bane in The Dark Knight Rises is.
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when I played it as a kid, I came out thinking Libertarianism is a good idea.
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