Games That Stick It To The Man 147
News.com has a piece looking at subversive games with social commentary. The article discusses some titles that hit back against some of the frustrating trends in the industry today. Anti-advergames, specifically one striking out at McDonalds, are mentioned. From the article: "'Behind every sandwich, there is a complex process you must learn to manage,' Molleindustria said in a statement. 'From the creation of pastures to the slaughter, from the restaurant management to the branding. You'll discover all the dirty little secrets that made (McDonald's) one of the biggest companies (in) the world.' Neither McDonalds nor Kinko's responded to multiple requests for comment" More commentary from Guardian Gamesblog on the subject.
Re:I have a game idea... (Score:4, Informative)
The means are irrelevant, except that they have become so grossly disproportionate. Their very goal - the suppression of speech they find disagreeable - is illegitimate in liberal societies.
Second, these images of Muhammad are as offensive to muslims as it would be to christians to depict the Virgin Mary getting fucked by a pig with the caption "Technically, she's still a virgin."
Yet, curiously, when confronted with such works as the piss Christ and the elephant dung Virgin Mary, Christians were told to suck it up and accept that as the price of living in a pluralistic society. And guess what? They did.
Re:A Game that Really Sticks it to the Man (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I have a game idea... (Score:3, Informative)
It is also completely indefensible.
Some religion had this saying in one of it's principal works. It was something along the lines of, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I take it you've never acted rashly out of fear or anger, especially while subjected to both terrible violence and mockery of your beliefs?
And anyone who would make excuses for it has their head up their ass and doesn't see that making excuses for violence is the reason we have so much violence.
I specifically did not excuse violence, but you're wrong. The reason we have so much violence is lack of understanding, caring, and empathy. The reason we have so much violence is lack of forgiving. If you don't understand what drives a person to violence and hate then you will never stop it. A bomb kills a child whose brother shoots a soldier whose parent endorses a war. A man plants a bomb which kills another man whose child plants another bomb that kills a child. If you don't understand why people act, how can you expect to end violence? If you drive a man to violence with violence and then act stop the violence with yet more violence, how can you expect to succeed?
The only thing these violent protests have accomplished is to make Muslims look like jackholes to people who can't tell the difference between extremists and honest Muslims.
And you're fundamentally failing to understand. "Extremists" are just people, like any other, driven by emotions and reasons. Villainizing them and dehumanizing them is failing to understand the real problem. That extremist may be an angry man whose son was senselessly killed by an american bomb. He thinks you are the extremist for giving money to the army and not doing everything in your power to protest flying around the world to murder his son. Maybe he thinks the only appropriate use for violence is to stop violence, just as you do; but he believes only by doing as much damage to the US as possible can he stop all of the US from murdering more of his people. Only by killing many people will it be driven home that people in his country are dying at our hands, for greed and power.
Now I'm not saying your point of view is valid and I'm not saying his is. What I'm saying is that unless you are willing to empathize and understand the perspectives of others, it will not end.
Re:I have a game idea... (Score:3, Informative)
Man, you've got a serious case of identifying with the violator here. On a certain September 11th, we (the US) were invaded by foreigners from another continent with another religion who killed many of us.
Yes, and those foreigners died. They were flying the planes. Then that was used as an excuse to invade a completely different country, one which was actually quite hostile to the organization involved. You do know Hussein was hunting them because they wanted to overthrow him too, right?
They distribute videos of our men being beheaded - worse than rape.
Yup, invading soldiers being executed. You act as though we did not kill hundreds of times as many of their soldiers and plenty of non-combatants as well. And why were we there again, killing these people? Why are we there now? They had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Aside from living in a country near where many of the hijackers were from (not even the same country) and being members of the same religion. They were not involved.
Of course all of this is completely beside the point. You're not even trying to look at things from the perspective of a person who lives in a muslim, middle-eastern country. They see invading people from around the world with a different religion attacking, killing, taking over, and mocking their religion. You don't expect them to react with hostility?
So if no one can find the cartoons, who gives a fuck? Why do they care so much?
The cartoons are easy to find. They were republished by other European news agencies who were duped into thinking they were genuine. It is the publishing itself, however, which is sacrilegious to them. You might as well say, sure someone yelled "I'm gonna shoot you right now nigger" but it turned out to not have been a KKK member at all so why did they react violently against our rally?
Actually, I'm pretty sure that if they did, our police forces would put a stop to it - unlike their police forces.
I doubt the police would be able to stop widespread rioting or violence. They have not done so in the past during numerous race riots. The truth of the matter is, you can't or don't want to understand the situation these people are in and why they have acted they way they have. You don't want to understand that they are just people who are frightened and angry with good reason, and much of that reason is the fault of the US. The truth is, the US has done a lot of harm, while most of the citizens have been completely mislead about what is going on and why. Most americans don't know and don't really care and would rather be prejudiced against all muslims and middle easterners and assume they are some sort of inferior, irrational people than face up to the truth that they are just people the same as any other. And when our bombs kill a son or daughter, brother or sister, or parent it makes people hate us. It makes people hate you, for being a christian american, just as many americans hate the Iranians for being muslim middle easterners. They think you personally are a violent war monger who thinks it is right to blow up their children, steal their wealth, and denigrate their religion. You see all muslims as mad bombers. They see all christians as mass murdering sexual assaulters. Hopefully they are as wrong as you are.
Re:I stopped reading after this... (Score:3, Informative)
Until I see "fatwas" or whatever they're called from the Islamic leadership or some other strong condemnation of these rioter's actions who call themselves Muslims, I will think that the Islamic people in this world condone the rioter's and terrorist's actions. End of story.
Not too many of the US papers have bothered to mention it, but muslim religious leaders as well as the heads of state of several predominantly muslim nations have spoken out against the violence, saying that while the cartoons are blasphemous and wrong, people should be tolerant and protest those who commit such sacrilege peacefully as the Qua-ran teaches.
Re:I have a game idea... (Score:3, Informative)
I want to add two points:
First, many of the Muslims who are being quoted in the media want apologies from or punishment given to the cartoonists themselves, not just the publishers. And that's completely out of line -- I can't imagine that it's actually consistent with most Muslim theological doctrine, either -- simply because a religion (any religion, take your pick) sets out rules for its own followers. It doesn't say anything about how other people should act. Jewish and Muslim people are proscribed from eating pork, but I've yet to have someone come up to me and tell me (a non-Jew and non-Muslim) that I can't eat pork. Likewise, Muslims are prohibited from making images of the Prophet, but I fail to see how that extends to others.
I'm not just criticizing Muslims here, I would make the same criticism in regards to Christians who try to apply their religion's idea of morality onto non-Christians.
Your religion applies to YOU. It doesn't say anything about what I can and can't do. I'd like to believe that the majority of Muslims in the world understand this basic point (I think they do).
Second, I have no problem with Muslims boycotting countries they don't like. I think it's stupid, because I happen to agree with the goverment and people of Denmark in thinking that free speech and a free press is a Good Thing, but people should be free to buy their goods wherever they want to. Likewise, the Danes and countries friendly to them (the rest of the E.U.) have a right to decide that they will stop buying or importing things from countries that boycott Denmark. In the end, we'll find out who wants whose goods more.
However, there is a fundamental difference between boycotting a country's goods and attacking their embassy. In fact, it's not just a 'difference,' it's a gaping fucking chasm. It's the same difference between holding a placard outside an abortion clinic, and taping some Semtex and nails to your chest and blowing yourself up in front of it. One is a civilized act, the other is indefensible.
And at the end of the day, that's the difference between a Muslim (or probably any kind of) fundamentalist's view of the world and the view held by the member of a liberal democracy, or a non-fundamentalist person: in one view, when you disagree with someone, you try to argue with them or failing that, just refuse to interact with them; in the fundamentalists' world, you try to kill them.