Today, we want to consider a question that often emerges in our cultural discourse in the wake of mass shootings or cases of domestic terrorism: is actual violence caused by virtual forms in games or in film? The same question is often raised in another form, when people imagine that religious belief is often at the root of violence, insofar as scriptures encode violence in the name of God, theology authorizes distinctions between good and evil, and religious rituals often perform traumatic violent acts (such as the execution of Jesus).
Rachel Wagner connects the analysis of violence in video games with religious ritual in particular and with sacred space. As you read her chapter, be able to answer the following questions:
What is the "magic circle"? Based on the definition, are there any that you enter on a regular basis?
How are video games and religious rituals similar? How are they different?
What is procedural rhetoric? Explain how a game's process can make an ideological argument, and why the Church of England was so upset with the shootout scene set in the Manchester Cathedral in the video game Resistance: Fall of Man (clip below).
Assigned Readings
Secondary: Wagner, Godwired chapter 7 (Camino); online class prep
Rachel Wagner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Ithaca College in New York. Her courses and research center on the study of religion and culture, including religion and film and religion and virtual reality. She's published pieces in Halos and Avatars: Playing Games with God (Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), God in the Details (2d ed.; Routledge, 2010), and Resisting the Place of Belonging: Uncanny Homecomings in Religion, Narrative and Art (Ashgate, forthcoming).
Poremba, Cindy. "Critical Potential on the Brink of the Magic Circle." Online Proceedings of Situated Play, University of Tokyo (September 2007) 772-778. Available at Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA), online, http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/07311.42117.pdf, accessed 1 December 2015.
Salen, Katie and Eric Zimmerman, eds. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006.
Links
Jaron Lanier - The web site of one of the founders of virtual reality and leading computer philosopher.
Left Behind: Eternal Forces - The official trailer for this video game that Christian actor Stephen Baldwin sought to distribute to U.S. troops in Iraq during the Iraq war (Wagner, Godwired 164-7, 169-70). The best-selling Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins imagines the world after the rapture of righteous Christians, with the good "Tribulation Forces" arrayed against the evil "Global Community Peacekeepers.".
1.14
Resistance: Fall of Man - Manchester Cathedral Shootout - A short clip posted on YouTube by Gamesradar Archive Channel. Wagner describes how the Church of England was upset at the uses of images of the Cathedral, despite the fact that the procedural rhetoric of the game imagined the church as no longer a site of worship and as a site that players were defending (Godwired, 168-9, 172).
2.56
Super Columbine Massacre RPG! - The official trailer for the game created by Danny Ledonne and produced by Emberwilde Productions; be forewarned that the trailer contains disturbing images from the actual massacre and from the game. It also includes reactions to the game that replicate the ethical concerns raised by Rachel Wagner in today's reading (Godwired, 180-185).
Today, we want to consider a question that often emerges in our cultural discourse in the wake of mass shootings or cases of domestic terrorism: is actual violence caused by virtual forms in games or in film? The same question is often raised in another form, when people imagine that religious belief is often at the root of violence, insofar as scriptures encode violence in the name of God, theology authorizes distinctions between good and evil, and religious rituals often perform traumatic violent acts (such as the execution of Jesus).