Tuesday, November 21, 2006
No Spin on Video Games?
Ah, Morgan, your man O'Reilly here is takin' his shots close to home now, innit he? 'Course, I ain't sayin' he's all wrong now, not at all, at all. I'm just thinkin' things must be slow down in the old No Spin Zone. Oh well, they say it's a free country, so I guess it's alright then ;-)
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5 comments:
I read the article, and I wouldn't go as far as to say that video games are the down fall of America. My kids play video games. They would spend hours playing video games, if I would let them. One thing I do have a gripe with is that kids don't use their imaginations like we had to do when we were kids. But, like all things, parents have to moderate what their kids do.
Yeah, imaginations... why, back when we were kids we had to imagine up crayons to color our black and white imaginations, and we didn't have any of these fancy 3-D memories, just four color comic book style imagination drawn by some lame non name artist who is filling in while the real artist is at ComicCon, yeah, just 2-D imagination of games that looked like Pong, and we liked it!
Well... Just like all of the pundits I listen to, I don't always agree with everything they have to say. And in this case, I can see a truth in some of what he has to say regarding the “machines” and I can also see where some statements would fall into the category of hype.
There is one thing… And Mormon Girl hit it right… Without the machines, our imaginations did have a tendency to expand and afford us as individuals to be more creative. Just witness most of our AD&D games… We didn’t have as much of a reason to sit inside developing carpel tunnel… At least we had to go to the local arcade!! So some exercise was involved.
I will say this… I think that American’s have gotten a lot softer over the past fifty years, in part because of the machines…and here I lump in T.V., VCR’s, etc. Does this make them the bane of humanity? I don’t think so… But is his diatribe worth contemplating for potential change? Yeah… I kind of think it is…
As a closing, I leave you a recent quote from William Shatner: “Life comes at you fast. Don’t stop to play video games…”
I don't disagree that machines make people soft. That, in fact, is their job: labor-saving devices. They do they job so well that we invent other machines to provide labor for physical health.
I agree that TV is part of the problem, which makes any TV media celebrity (cough, Mr. O'Reilly) part of the problem, not part of the solution. Sitting on the couch listening to sound bites is both physically and mentally lazy. We both know how people use to read and think and discuss issues. Now we let pundits to our reading and thinking and discussing for us, pre-chewed opinions for baby sparrows still stuck in the media nest.
Shatner's quote, and the context of it, are reminiscent of his infamous "Get a Life" quote. While clever and containing a kernel of truth, it's also disingenuous for someone who has made a career out of time wasting entertainment (yes, Trek for all it's vaunted depth and metaphoric application to real life is a time-wasting hobby for thousands) and who spends his own life in such pursuits as paint ball (yeah, that's a non-waste of time!) I don't deny Shatner the right to spend his days as he pleases, but by making clever quips about others' choices he tends to look a bit, um, hypocritical (as does TV celeb and subscription-based podcaster O'Reilly).
While hyperbole is an acceptable mode of discourse, when one is presenting one's self as "spin free" then perhaps a bit of modesty in one's conclusions is in order. I'm in a love/hate relationship with digital technology myself, but that makes me a bit cautious in my public endorsements and critiques of it.
Um... Some T.V. (and other media) I think are educational aids. If they cause you to think, to rationalize, to grow mentally, then I welcome them. And, likewise, the media that are useless except for the sole purpose of escape also have their place. I guess it all goes back to keeping everything in a proper perspective, doing things in moderation, and balancing what is good vs. not so good.
As for Bill Shatner, the context of that quote was during an interview for a new Star Trek game coming out this month. I think the question was something related to his strategy for having a successful life…
I can appreciate what he was saying… As you pointed out, his career has been in entertainment, and most of it was not exactly educational…although…some of it was thought provoking. I myself work in the Technology industry… I help to make things easier on the human race… I put into place machines that do for man, that think for man, so man can enjoy an easier work day, and life. Therefore, I help to propagate the softness, even though some of the technologies I deal with do great good. And, like Shatner, I do so for the purpose of monetary gain.
And every time I run into someone (usually a decade or two younger than myself) who can’t make change, or can’t figure out how to accomplish some task without the aid of technology, I find myself angry with their lack of enlightenment, and yet, I can’t help but think that I am part of the cause of their inability to perform what should be a simple task of the mind.
Maybe there is less “spin” to what O’Reilly was saying after all…
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