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The United States has great economic inequality, but the American narrative is that upward mobility is not only possible but the normal order of things. This narrative has many components. One is the idea that each generation will (or should) do better than the previous. Another is that individuals can use their talents, gumption and a bit of luck to rise from humble beginnings. This general narrative is typically accompanied by specific anecdotes, such as the popular tales of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

While narratives and anecdotes can be interesting, they are not a substitute for evidence. After all, anecdotes can and often are about cases that are unusual rather than what is supported by statistical evidence. This is why there is a fallacy called anecdotal evidence. This fallacy is committed when a person draws a conclusion about a population based on an anecdote (a story) about one or a very small number of cases. It is also committed when someone rejects  statistical data supporting a claim in favor of a single or small number of examples that go against the claim.

Unfortunately, the United States is a high inequality and low mobility country. Years ago,  Esmé Deprez appeared on CNN to discuss a Bloomberg report on this fact and other researchers have been discussing the matter for some time. Since then, things have only gotten worse.

42% of the men raised in the bottom 20% income remained there as adults, which matches poorly against Britain (30%) and Denmark (25%). 8% of the men in the bottom 20% were able to reach the top 20% while this rate was 12% in Britain and 14% in Denmark. 65% of those born in the bottom 20% stay within the bottom two-fifths. Of those born in the bottom 10%, 22% remain there. In Canada, the number is 16%.

The news is, as always, better at the top: about 62% of those raised in the top 20% remain in the top two-fifths. For those in the top 10%, 26% of American men born there stay there. Canada fares worse here: only 18% of Canadian men born into the top 10% remain there.

This mobility from income class to income class is relative mobility.  It is relative in that the movement is defined relative to the person’s class of origin. So, for example, someone born in the bottom 10% who moves on up to the top 10% would be upward relative mobility.

Another type of mobility is absolute mobility. This measure involves a comparison of incomes rather than economic class. Looked at in terms of absolute mobility Americans seem to be doing well: back in 2012 81% of Americans had a higher income than their parents because the United States was richer in 2012 than it was earlier. This is, of course, changing and we are seeing the youth on track to make less than their parents.  No conversation about economics in the United States would be complete without mentioning the middle class, which is said to be vanishing.  

As far as why the United States has limited mobility (especially upwards), this is a matter of dispute tainted with competing political ideologies.

Years ago, Rick Santorum claimed that the poor in the United States are more likely to be raised by single mothers relative to other countries. This is taken by some to be a factor in the lower mobility and as something to be utilized as a premise in arguing in favor of the traditional family.

Another factor is that the United States leads the world in the percentage of its citizens who are in prison. Being imprisoned is a major economic impediment that impacts the rest of the person’s life. As such, the high incarceration rates reduce economic mobility by trapping people in poverty. This seems intentional, so is a feature of America rather than a bug.

A third factor is the great economic inequality in the United States such that the distance between economic classes is large. To use an analogy, the lowest economic class starts out at the base of Mt. Everest while the top class begins at the summit. Working up from the bottom or even in the middle requires a significant change in income and wealth.

A fourth factor is that the economic playing field is obviously not level. Some people have great advantages (such as starting wealth, family connections, political influence, and race). To use a sports analogy, moving up is like running a marathon in which some people start at various miles along the course, with the poorest starting at the very beginning and the rich starting miles closer to the end. Catching up to folks who have such a huge lead might not be impossible, but would at best be very difficult.

One advantages people have is education, which is one of the many reasons the Republican party has been focused on this area. While people in the lower classes can attend college, this is more difficult in terms of paying, being prepared (wealthy areas tend to have the best K-12 schools while poor areas have the worst), and having the connections needed to get into the better schools. The trend is to cut public education spending that benefits the lower classes which hurts poorer families more than wealthy families and this will lower mobility.

A fifth and controversial factor is unionization. While the fantasy narrative of the right is that unions are job killers and economy destroyers, lower rates of unionization lead to lower wages and reduced benefits, thus reducing the ability of workers to work their way up. Interestingly, the lowering of wages is sometimes seen as a good thing since it increases profits and it is claimed that this leads to more jobs. However, some see the creation of more lower paying jobs ass less than ideal.

A sixth factor and one that might seem odd is the obesity epidemic in the United States. While the exact impact of modern obesity will not be known for some time, it is known that being obese increases health care costs and generally has a negative impact on success. Some of this impact is due to the health impact of obesity that can cause a person to miss work and be less productive. Weirdly enough, the United States might be less mobile because of obesity.

 

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As a fan of science fiction and fantasy, I know the female breast is a frequent guest in many works of the genre. Honesty compels me to admit that, as a straight male, I am not fundamentally opposed to such nudity. However, there are some reasonable grounds for objecting to nudity in works of fantasy and science fiction, at least in certain contexts. The first is ethical and the second is aesthetical.

A stock moral objection to nudity is that it is inherently wrong, perhaps because it is seen as dirty or filthy. This view is often based on a religious view that sees nudity as shameful. Some base this view on the story of Adam and Eve in which they learn to be ashamed of their nudity and this seemed to set the stage for a persistent puritanical view. There is also a feminist tendency to cast female nudity as being especially bad—there is an abundance of feminist literature addressing this point and hence I will not expand on this here.

Some people take a different view, claiming that it is men that are the problem and the moral weakness of men entails that women must always be covered. However, the result is ironically similar in that female nudity is seen as a moral threat.

While this sort of view is popular, it is not one I subscribe to. As far as the religious foundation is concerned, there are two obvious replies. The first is that the burden of proof rests on those who make this argument—they need to prove that God exists and He thinks the human form is “dirty” and his creations should be covered in shame. The second is that the human form does not seem to be dirty and although some people might stand some more time working out, there does seem to be a beauty to the human body—as the ancient Greeks and others believed. Thus, while the shame argument is not without merit, I do not find it convincing, and it is not the foundation of my dismay at gratuitous nudity.

A second stock moral objection to nudity is based on Plato’s criticism of art, namely that the portrayal of lustful behavior can corrupt the viewer. On this view, it is not that nudity itself is bad; rather it would be the lustful behavior that is typically associated with nudity. As such, the concern about nudity would be secondary, although the display of nudity would presumably augment the alleged corrupting power of art.

This argument does have some appeal. After all, what people experience (even fictional experiences) does help shape how people think and behave. Hence, exposure to nudity and lustful behavior in art could shape people in negative ways. This is like a common argument against pornography based on it alleged ability to corrupt. Of course, the nudity in science fiction and fantasy is supposed to be secondary whereas pornography is supposed to be focused primarily on nudity and sex.

While this argument does seem reasonable, the corrupting power of the occasional breast or other nudity in science fiction or fantasy seems limited. To use an analogy to radiation, the amount of exposure does generally not seem enough to provide a dangerous dose of nudity (and this assumes there is a dangerous dose). As such, the corruption argument does not really motivate my criticism of gratuitous nudity.

A third moral argument is a specific variation on the corruption argument and is one that is sometimes presented by feminist thinkers. The idea is that female nudity of this type demeans women by presenting them as mere sexual objects. This is harmful to both females (who are demeaned and objectified) and males (who learn to demean and objectify) and hence wrong.

This argument has some appeal. After all, looking at the  stereotypical demographic targets for science fiction and fantasy that includes nudity it seems likely that nudity is there to attract and titillate male viewers. Women are being exploited as objects for the amusement of men. This does work—I recall, as a young guy, people talking about seeing certain movies specifically for the nude scenes.

Even then, this struck me as a bit odd—I recall asking a friend why he didn’t just get a Penthouse or Playboy if he wanted to see nudity (this was long before the internet). The internet now serves up nudity and porn 24/7 and this seems to make gratuitous nudity make even less sense. My suspicion is that this is like how people used to say that they got Playboy for the articles and perhaps people do the same thing with science-fiction and fantasy works that feature nudity—they can say they are watching it for the story and that the nudity just happens to be there. Maybe this works in a way like the psychology that allows a person to feel that they are dieting when they have a diet soda with their super-sized meal.

Getting back to the main subject, this line of argumentation does have merit—most cases of nudity in such works seems to be there to appeal to the target demographic and clearly seems to be objectifying and demeaning women. This does not, of course, even consider women being cast as sexual victims (prostitutes, rape victims and so on) in such works.

That said, there is a reasonable concern that this sort of argument can bring one into the moral territory of the other two moral arguments. After all, if it is claimed that nudity demeans a woman and presents her as a mere object, then this might seem to entail that there is something wrong about the female body, which seems problematic from many feminist perspectives. The easy reply is, of course, that it is not the woman’s body that is wrong, but rather the way the woman is being treated and the specific context. This seems a reasonable reply.

In my own case, I do admit that this is part of the reason that I often feel dismay at such nudity. It is not so much the nudity itself, but the way it is used and the context, which is often demeaning. However, the moral aspects of the matter do not exhaust the issue and there remains the aesthetic aspect.

When it comes to aesthetics, I am something of a traditionalist. To be specific, I draw much of my aesthetic theory from thinkers like Plato and Aristotle. While I have already mentioned Plato’s argument, I will now borrow a bit from Aristotle.

When I teach my students how to write the paper for my classes, I discuss the matter of deciding what should and should not be in the paper. I base this discussion on Aristotle’s view that a work should be a complete whole as defined by the purpose of the work. I tell my students that there is a simple test to decide whether something should be left in or left out, which is to leave it out and see whether this improves, worsens or leaves the work the same. Obviously, if leaving it out makes the work worse relative to its purpose, then it should be retained. Otherwise, it should be removed. This same sort of principle can be applied to nudity in works of science fiction and fantasy.

While a discussion of the purposes of science fiction and fantasy would go beyond the limited scope of this essay, it does seem reasonable to accept that their primary purpose is not to serve as a platform for displaying nudity to men. That is, of course, one purpose of pornography. As works of fiction, their main purpose is to present a story (at least as Aristotle would argue) and that should be the focus. Sticking with Aristotle, the display of nudity would typically seem to be part of the spectacle rather than part of the story. The nudity does not (in almost all cases) advance the plot in a way that is probably or necessary in order to achieve the purpose of the work.

Science-fiction and fantasy have a long tradition of gratuitous nudity that has no connection at all to the plot. For example, in the movie Moontrap there is a completely gratuitous stripper scene that has nothing to do with what little plot the movie has. I use this example because the image of Chekov (Walter Koenig) in a strip joint has stuck in my mind since 1989. Obviously, gratuitous nudity by its nature lacks aesthetic justification.

Interestingly, some movies and shows have attempted to merge plot and sex, creating what Myles McNutt called “sexposition”, which is when characters present exposition while having sex.

Not surprisingly, merging sex and exposition seems to be an aesthetic failure. First, it seems odd to have people engaged in lengthy exposition during sex. While I am not an expert on what most people do during sex, it seems that is not something that people would do. As such, this makes the scenes less in accord with what is probable. Second, the nudity still seems to add nothing to the plot—the exposition is doing all that and hence the nudity is gratuitous and would seem to have no aesthetic justification. But one could argue that it is keeping the audience’s attention during the exposition dump. But that assumes the audience is, obviously, listening to the exposition. Also, if a sex scene is needed to keep the audience’s attention, then that is a flaw in the work—some other way should be used to inform the audience, perhaps by showing rather than telling.

In addition to not adding anything to the story, the use of gratuitous nudity has two other flaws. The first is that it can be seen as an insult to the audience—that they will only retain interest in the work if they see nudity. Of course, this might be true in some cases. Second, it would seem to show a flaw in the work.  After all, if the story cannot sustain interest through aesthetic means and they need to throw in nudity to keep people interested or to fill the visual space while characters are engaged in lengthy exposition, then they would seem to be lacking in their craft. Of course, it is fair to keep in mind that a show or film is subject to many influences and creators and that the nudity stuck in a work might not be the idea of the writer or director. For example, some of the famous nudity and sexposition in the Game of Thrones might not be what Martin envisioned.

These arguments do not exclude all nudity from  works. After all, there can be cases in which it is warranted on aesthetic grounds. For example, the nudity in a scene might be required for realism and the scene might be an important part of the plot. That is, removing the scene or the nudity would result in an inferior aesthetic result. I am sure that there are such cases, but none comes to mind.

As another example, nudity might be an important part of the experience the work is supposed to create. For example, the horror movie From Dusk Till Dawn could be seen as intentionally embracing the stereotypes of a genre that must, of necessity, include gratuitous nudity. As such, nudity could serve a legitimate aesthetic purpose in that work and other similar works. One could draw an obvious analogy to violence as being a necessary ingredient in certain subgenres and styles.

 

 

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One of the main arguments against heat safety regulations is based on a general profit argument: regulation will cost industry money. On the face of it, this seems intuitive: surely safety regulations would impose costs, such as the cost of providing shade, water and breaks. At the very least, if workers are taking breaks, they are not working in those breaks. So, the regulations will cost money, and the owners will lose profit.

If we suppose that this is true, given what we know about the harm of heat exposure (such as death), then opposing such regulations would be evil because it values profit over human well-being. Obviously, those who are willing to hurt (even kill) other people for profit will disagree with me. However, the fact is that effective safety practices increase profits.

The most popular example of this is how Paul O’Neil became the CEO of Alcoa in 1987 with the goal of zero worker injuries. O’Neil knew that improving worker safety in the right ways would also benefit the bottom line and was proved right.

In general terms, good safety practices can improve profits by reducing downtime and lost productivity. They can also reduce the costs imposed by damaged equipment, hiring, retaining and insurance. In general, good safety practices provide a positive return on investment per dollar. But what about heat safety? Would that help the bottom line?

Heat and dehydration reduce productivity for obvious reasons. For those who doubt this, it is easy to test by heat suicide: get out in the heat and do hard work without breaks or hydration to see what happens. Do not do this since it could kill you. Heat and dehydration also cause confusion and impair thinking; this leads to more accidents and bad choices that can impact the bottom line. There are also medical costs with heat exposure (which businesses try to pass on to workers, of course) and the fact that needlessly harsh working conditions lead to labor shortages as people do not want to work in such conditions. This is one of the many reasons American businesses often like illegal migrant labor: they can coerce them into working in dangerous conditions and pay them less. But getting back to why heat safety is good.

Hydration and shade breaks allow workers to recover and work at an overall higher efficiency than if workers were forced to push through heat. Again, you can (but should not) test this yourself. Given that safety practices improve profits, why would business leaders fight even good regulations that would make them more money?

While motivations can be difficult to prove, a reasonable inference would be that causing suffering and harm is the point. After all, if they would make more money by following good safety practices, then they are not being motivated by money. A good hypothesis would be that they are cruel, and evil given that they would be doing cruel and evil things. But when confronted with such claims, business geniuses have some replies.

One stock reply is that they are not evil, they are just operating withing the present value bias (discounting the future). A business leader might know that good heat safety practices would make more money in the long term, but they might claim that it is more profitable right now to not follow those practices. While this is still evil, it also seems untrue in the case of heat safety: heat safety now yields profits now. As such, even the short-term profit argument fails. So, a business leader would need to be either ignorant or extra evil (or both).

Another reply is the “someone else will do it, so I should too.” One could try to justify not following good heat safety practices by claiming that complying will put a business at a disadvantage against those who do not comply. One could, of course, apply that to many things that are regulated. This is like someone arguing they should sell cocaine or murder their business rivals because someone else will do the same. Also, heat safety practices give a business an advantage over those that do not do this; so opposing effective heat safety just reveals one is ignorant or evil (or both).

 

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Living in my adopted state of Florida, I have become accustomed to heat warnings and the local radio station providing advice on how to keep kids from being killed by the heat. Based on my own experience as a runner and doing work outside in the summer, I know that the Florida heat and humidity quickly take a toll. This is also backed up by science and anyone who doubts the effects of heat can do a proof by heat suicide test, which I recommend against for obvious moral and practical reasons.

Florida and other states are experiencing what was once considered unusual heat and a few years ago Miami-Dade County considered a rule that would require 10-minute shade and water breaks for outdoor workers on very hot days. Recognizing the danger, the state legislature leapt into action, passing House Bill (HB) 433 which forbids cities and counties from enacting local laws requiring employers to provide heat exposure protection to outdoor workers. As would be expected, the state legislature did not pass any statewide laws protecting workers and deferred to the federal OSHA regulations. Unfortunately for workers, OSHA currently lacks specific heat regulations and instead relies on the General Duty Clause. While one might argue that the generality of the clause suffices in providing heat protection for workers, in practice the vagueness makes enforcement difficult. For example, since the law does not define “excessive heat” or specify the exact number of minutes for rest a business can argue that the law is being applied unfairly if they are cited for violations. As would be suspected, industries with outdoor workers affected by heat generally oppose specific standards.

The main argument given in favor of HB 433 was that it would prevent a patchwork of local regulations that would hurt industry. This argument does have some appeal and a business that operates in multi jurisdictions would face difficulties in being aware of and complying with the various laws. That said, the Republican backers of this law profess to favor local control. As one would suspect, they favor local control when the locals are passing laws they like but oppose local control when they dislike the laws. One can say the same of Democrats. This is like the use of states’ rights arguments—people favor states’ rights when the states are doing what they like and the Federal government is not but oppose them when the opposite is true. The abortion and migration issues provide a good example of this as Republicans favor state rights for limiting abortion but oppose it when states oppose Trump’s migration policies and actions, such as when states complain about ICE agents killing people.

To be fair and balanced, the issue of local control is one that can be debated in good faith. As a general principle, I do favor local control based partially on my agreement with a principle of autonomy that provides a presumption of choice at the individual level and requires justifying each step up in imposition. But these step ups can be justified often because of what seems to be a paradox of liberty and rights: liberty and rights require placing limits on liberties and rights. While this might initially seem Orwellian, it makes sense when you consider examples. For example, your freedom of expression requires limiting the freedom of others to silence you. As another example, your right to life requires limiting the rights of others to keep you safe. To use a silly example, I support a general law against murdering people and not allowing individuals, cities or counties to pass laws allowing murder. For social policies and laws, I also usually operate using the principle of utility—judging these by the harm and benefit.

Getting back to the heat safety issue, one could argue that heat safety should not be left up to cities and counties because allowing such regulation would cause too much harm. This would certainly make sense if Florida had statewide heat laws or if the national law was effective. But this is not the case. As such, the effect of the law is to prevent local governments from protecting workers from the serious dangers of heat. It is thus not surprising that Florida is exceeded only by Texas in the number of workers killed by heat exposure. Does this mean that the state legislature is morally accountable for the injuries and deaths caused by the lack of regulations? The obvious answer would be that they bear some responsibility by failing to provide protection and preventing local governments from doing so. One might wonder why industry leaders oppose such regulations. Well, not much—I am sure everyone immediately thought “money.”

When I was younger and more naïve, I tended to think business leaders did evil things because they value profit more than the well-being of other people. This would at least make some sense; they were hurting people to get something they wanted. But the more I learned about business, the more it seemed that business leaders sometimes acted in ways that hurt people but also resulted in lost profits. This would seem to mean that these business geniuses were either ignorant and evil (doing harm, thinking it would profit them) or extra evil (doing harm despite knowing it would cost them profits). As a philosopher and not a politician, I cannot just make accusations without evidence, so let us work through the arguments.

While the arguments against safety regulations about heat do focus on heat, they also follow a standard template used to argue against regulations on general. One stock argument is to claim that regulation would impose a “one size fits all” standard that fails to consider important differences. While this does have some merit, this problem arises for almost any law, and the challenge is to write laws that address this concern. If this argument had merit, then it would also apply to almost any law—which is something that could be accepted (some anarchists, for example, might buy this).

A second argument is that regulation results in micromanagement that will waste time and money. As someone who just had to use my own money to complete four hours of continuing education training and engage in extensive record keeping complying with the new Florida laws regulating homeowners’ associations, I get this objection. I am an uncompensated volunteer HOA director for my neighborhood because the law also requires three officers and everyone else was sensible enough to avoid the headache, cost and annoyance of complying with hundreds of pages of laws.

As a professor who heads up the GENED committees at my university, I am compelled by the state to spend hours completing tasks to ensure that we are complying with all the new laws micromanaging education. So, I feel this objection and feel that it has merit every time I have do some paperwork that seems like imposed nonsense because of  the Republican culture war against “wokeness” and “DEI.”

That said, the problem is not requiring people to comply with a law and provide some documentation. The problems are defective laws and excessive paperwork. In the case of heat regulations, the solutions to heat exposure are simple and well understood (shade breaks and hydration) and documentation could and should be minimal. So, saying that there are laws that impose too much work is a criticism of those laws, not law in general. Unless, once again, one is an anarchist.

A third argument is the “we’ll be good” argument. The strategy is to argue that regulation is not needed because businesses will act well on their own, perhaps because they allege to care about their workers. This can have some appeal in that if people will, in fact, behave well without laws, then laws are not needed. For example, when states pass bathroom bills alleging that transpeople will attack women in bathrooms, they are passing a law that is not needed because transpeople generally do not attack people in bathrooms and laws already exist to protect people from being attacked. But we know from history that enough businesses will do bad things that they need to be regulated, just like we know that sexual assault and theft are enough of a problem that we need laws against them.

A fourth argument is the classic appeal to small business. Big industries with big businesses often argue that a law will hurt a small business and then use this to argue that the law should not be passed. This can be a fair point. For example, I am a director for a tiny HOA with under 20 houses that barely has any money for expenses and yet I must comply with rules designed for larger operations. To be fair and balanced, the HOA law does divide HOAs into two main groups (three in some cases) that allows smaller HOAs to be less burdened by the law. While this example shows that someone can be annoyed by a law applying to a small business, it also shows that laws can be crafted to account for the difference (and usually are). So, if a heat regulation destroyed small businesses, one could argue for exemptions. But there is the obvious question of whether such laws would be harmful. I’ll address this in the next essay.

 

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In the previous essay in this series I discussed the culture war tactic of criticizing something by alleging it is a waste of time. This is perhaps the mildest culture war tactic with the stronger ones focusing on allegations of serious harm. During the 1980s culture war against gaming, there were such allegations.

While some people might see historical value in looking back at the 1980s gaming culture war, there is the question about why this matters today. The reason is that culture war never changes and culture war never ends. These same tactics are used today and will be used in the future, so discussing them is still relevant. It is also useful to see that culture wars and moral panics follow the same patterns, although it would be a mistake to assume without evidence that a criticism must be mere culture war nonsense or a moral panic. These alleged harms can be divided into three categories.

The first was that gaming would, crudely put, make people stupid. This was usually not applied to tabletop games but was used against video games. The second was that gaming would cause psychological harm. The third was that gaming would cause moral harm by corrupting people. In this essay I will focus on the claim that gaming would make people stupid.

While the 1980s might seem like a long time ago, the idea of attacking technology because it will make people stupid is truly ancient. As philosophers love to point out in debates about AI making people stupid, the Phaedrus includes Socrates expressing concerns about the negative effects of writing. Jumping ahead, people famously worried that television and calculators would make people stupid. Being a bit more specific, the accusation that technology will make people stupid usually takes one of two forms.

The first is general harm, that the technology will somehow cause a cognitive decline. This could be due to the technology distracting people from activities that would improve their cognition (like the waste of time argument) or inflicting cognitive damage. As an example of a distracting technology, when handheld video games appeared in the 1980s, my teachers were worried they would distract us from our lessons. One of my clever classmates learned to wire a switch that would turn off the sound of these devices, so kids could play them during class. These gave us a tiny taste of what smartphones would later bring to the classroom. There were also concerns about arcade games and computer games, with the worry that they would also distract people from their studies and thus make them stupid.

Alan Bloom (yeah, that guy) claimed the Walkman (really) would damage people, writing, “As long as they have the Walkman on, they cannot hear what the great tradition has to say. And, after its prolonged use, when they take it off, they find they are deaf” (Bloom, 1987, p. 81). While he was obviously wrong, this does serve as an excellent example of the repeating unfounded moral panics over the danger of technology. There were also concerns that video games would cause, in addition to physical harms (“Space Invader’s Wrist”) various cognitive harms. I’ll discuss the alleged psychological and moral harms of gaming in later essays.

The second alleged harm is that using the technology will result in the loss of a skill or ability through atrophy as the technology does the work for humans. Socrates expressed this concern about writing and (since my dad was a math teacher) I remember people worrying that calculators would weaken people’s math skills. While they did put an end to slide rule skills, the fears proved unfounded. The slide rule example does show that while a new technology can render a skill obsolete, there is the question of whether this should be seen as harmful. That few people can use a slide rule today does not seem to be cause for alarm or concern. Jumping ahead to today, there is the fear that AI will cause skill atrophy and, as a professor, I am trying to sort out what skills we should preserve in the face of AI and which skills fall into the slide rule category. This is, as you would imagine, a matter much debated among academics.

While video games, like any activity, can distract people to a degree that is harmful, the culture war and moral panic over video games in the 1980s was proven to be unfounded. As Michael Z. Newman (2017) noted, the videos games of the 1980s did not ruin our lives. Which I already knew, having fought though that culture war and moral panic. In fact, video games are now claimed to various positive benefits for cognition, although any claims from people trying to sell you a game should be looked at critically.

As a takeaway, I’d like people to see that culture war never changes and never ends. When the next moral panic occurs, perhaps over VR, it would be wise to reflect on these past moral panics. But I would be remiss if I did not say that it would be a mistake to dismiss criticisms of technology as mere moral panic or just a culture war fight.

To use the obvious example, AI does present real dangers and although we should not fall into a panic, we do need to assess how it is impacting people—especially the youth. As an example, many students are using AI to generate their papers and thus not working on their writing skills. If a student does that in all their classes, they will not develop critical skills and will thus be harmed. But one could reply that writing skills are slide rule skills—skills that we will no longer need. I think that is wrong, but I am obviously aware I could be caught in my own unnoticed moral panic…think of the children! Seriously, we need to think about AI and its impact on kids. And the environment. And the adults. And future generations.

 

References

 

Newman, M. Z. (2017, May 25). Children of the ’80s never fear: Video games did not ruin your life. Smithsonian Magazine. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/children-80s-never-fear-video-games-did-not-ruin-your-life-180963452/

 

Plato. (1995). Phaedrus (A. Nehamas & P. Woodruff, Trans.). Hackett Publishing Company. (Original work published ca. 370 B.C.E.)

 

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While I am a fan of fantasy, I’ve only seen a few episodes of the original Game of Thrones  and its spinoffs. One reason for this was and is practical: streaming services are expensive. I also resisted watching the series because some of my friends gushed about the grittiness and were enthused over the evil of most of the characters. Other friends condemned the shows for the same reason. While my experience with the show (and spinoffs) is limited, my friends were right and I understand why some liked it and some loathed it. I ended up in the “meh” camp, not liking it enough to make an effort to watch more but interested enough to watch episodes when they were available for free and I had nothing better to do at the time. Or episodes were inflicted on me.

Having taught aesthetics,  I know that practical aesthetic taste is like one’s taste in food: what one finds too bland, another finds too spicy and so on. I am also mature enough to recognize that what I dislike might be liked (even loved) by others and that there might be merit in such things. But I do not subscribe to aesthetic subjectivism so I do not accept that aesthetic discussions end after one has expressed one’s like or dislike. As such, I will endeavor to present a rough discussion of fantasy and evil.

To set the stage a bit in terms of my own biases, my love of fantasy was shaped primarily by writers like Tolkien and by games like AD&D, which is usually called heroic fantasy. While such fantasy worlds do contain evil (such as Sauron and Orcus), evil is of a different sort than that of Game of Thrones.  In Game of Thrones, the evil of classic fantasy is wedded to perversion, depravity and other such horrors that are seen as making evil “gritty and real.” This is, of course, not limited to this series. The idea of presenting evil characters in this manner is rather common and a case could be made in its favor.

When I first watched some episodes of Game of Thrones , I thought it broke the rules of the fantasy genre by presenting and seemingly glorying in this sort of evil. This was one reason I was not drawn into the series. To be fair, one criticism made of my view was that I liked fantasy as an escape from the nasty evil that exists in the real world and this is a defect in my character. This took me back to my youth when I was criticized for reading fantasy and sci-fi as a form of escapism; presumably it was assumed that people should stay engaged with boring and awful reality until it killed their soul or them. But I digress.

There are two easy and obvious replies to this alleged problem. First, heroic fantasy is but one of the many legitimate sub-genres within the fantasy genre. While the genre does require fantasy elements to be present to a degree greater than zero, it can be argued that there is no moral requirement that needs to be met to classify as a  proper work of fantasy. Obviously, this series is not heroic fantasy, but it seems sensible to say that it is still legitimately fantasy. After all, it does include the seemingly supernatural white walkers and dragons (unless they are non-magical aliens or something) and the technology is at the sword and bow level (although guns are now a common weapon in fantasy and one should not forget the sci-fi fantasy of Shadowrun).

Second, the evil portrayed in the series is taken from the real world. So, the series  meets Aristotle’s view that characters and actions should conform to what is probable. As Aristotle argued, what has occurred is obviously possible. It could even be argued that this series and others that embrace gritty realism are better than the more classic works because they are more realistic. This could form the basis of a counterattack, namely that it is heroic fantasy that is defective because presents the powerful characters (humans, at least) in a way that is improbable (that is, being mostly heroic and good rather than mostly depraved and evil).

One response to this argument is that fantasy works by their very nature need to break with reality. After all, if they are strictly realistic, they are not fantasy. As such, by presenting humans in what is taken to be “gritty and real”, a work is failing to be a work of fantasy and instead is realism, only with a monster or two thrown in to create the appearance of fantasy.

This raises the obvious concern about what sort of realism a fantasy work should include and what it should reject. While traditional fantasy typically rejects much of the reality of evil, it can be argued that this merely defines that sort of sub-genre rather than defining the entire genre. As such, a work can be very realistic in some ways, if it contains at least the necessary conditions for being a work of fantasy. In the case of Game of Thrones, it can wallow in evil while also being legitimate fantasy.

While I obviously prefer my fantasy with less evil (or at least with less of the sorts of evil in the series), I must concede that the inclusion of such evil is compatible with the fantasy genre, though obviously not with the traditional heroic fantasy. Interestingly, I have been told that my own preference for classic heroic fantasy shows that I am lacking in maturity and adult sensibilities. That is, it is a defect on my part to not prefer the gritty realism and evil of Game of Thrones to works like The Lord of the Rings. My self-righteous reply is that I prefer good over evil, which brings me to a second point, namely the matter of corruption.

In Book X of the Republic Plato argues that art is dangerous because it appeals to emotions and encourages people to yield , in harmful ways, to these emotions.  For example, someone who watches works filled with lust and violence might become more inclined to yield to lust and violence in real life because of the corrupting power of art. This is the foundation for most censorship arguments, such as Hilary Clinton’s attack on video games. No, Hilary, I will never forget that. But lest anyone think I favor censorship, I do not.

While I have known about Plato’s arguments for years, I found them unconvincing until I played Grand Theft Auto III.  Unlike the usual violent games I had played, GTA III casts the player as a bad person doing bad things for bad reasons. I am not sure how many police cars I had burning in the street or how many hookers I had killed before I felt the corrupting influence of the game. I dropped the controller, popped out the disk and never played that sort of game again. I did, however, continue to play violent video games.

When thinking about Game of Thrones and similar works in the context of my old GTA III experience, I knew that it was not the violence that bothered me. After all, I enjoy violent video games, I play D&D and I like fantasy novels that are replete with battle. In the case of Game of Thrones (GT), my analysis is roughly the same as that I made of GTA III.

In heroic fantasy, the heroes are trying to save the world by fighting evil. There is a clear moral purpose, even though violence is the usual means to the moral end. In the case of Game of Thrones, the focus seems to be on characters doing bad things for their own selfish ends, or (in some cases) simply because they are psychotically evil. So, in heroic fantasy, the heroes are acting in the right way towards the right persons for the right reasons. In the “gritty and realistic” works, the characters typically act in the wrong way towards the wrong people for the wrong reasons. As one might gather, I find an overabundance of evil unappealing, and I am concerned that exposure to such material can (as Plato argued) have a corrupting influence on people. After all, what people watch and experience shapes their cogitative processes and being exposed to an unrelenting tide of virtual evil would seem to have an impact on people. On the other hand, one could say that it is just a show and it would be silly to think that media can affect how a person thinks and acts.  

Since I am a proponent of freedom of expression, I always feel odd arguing against artists doing as they wish in terms of the ethics they present in their works. However, I have never held that artists are exempt from morality (which, I am sure, would be vigorously argued against by someone like Oscar Wilde). I do, as might be suspected, agree with Aristotle that “things are censured either as impossible, irrational, morally hurtful, contradictory, or contrary to artistic correctness.” I did like the two episodes of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms I saw while flying to and from my home state of Maine. But this was mostly because Dunk seems to be a good person and thus offsets the evil of the other characters.

 

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Misrepresenting facts and lying have long been a part of politics. However, it was claimed facts died  on April 18, 2012. On this day Representative Allen West of my adopted state of Florida claimed that about 80 congressional democrats were members of the Communist Party. This was not true, but West decided to stand by his remarks. If facts died that die, one must wonder what has happened since then. Can facts become more dead?

As a gamer, this situation reminds me of the death rules in D&D. While in some versions characters die when they are beaten down to zero hit points, in other versions a character could keep taking damage beyond zero and end up with negative hit points (usually dying at -10). Facts seem to be like that—although they seem to have died in 2012, they kept taking damage and are now very dead. One might even say that Trump and his ilk have turned facts into the undead: horribly distorted versions of once living things. But some people retain hope for facts.

While this might come as something of a shock, people are often not very rational—especially when it comes to politics. When people get information that corrects a false claim they believe, they are even more likely to believe the false claim.  For example, if Republicans and Democrats read an article that claims that a Democrat did something bad and then learn that the article was mistaken, the Republics would now be more inclined to believe the original article even though it had been shown to be in error. The Democrats would be more inclined to reject the original article. In short, it seems that corrective information is generally only accepted when it corrects in a way that matches a person’s ideology.  This has unfortunate effect that correcting an error in an ideological context will only correct the error in the minds of those who already want to believe it is an error and will probably not change the mind of those who want to believe.

In addition to the obvious problem, this tendency also means that people who are wrong (intentionally or unintentionally) usually will not suffer any damage to their credibility among their own faction, provided that their errors match the faction’s ideology. As such, the consequences of saying things that are not true seem to be generally positive, at least from a pragmatic standpoint. After all, if the claim is properly ideological and is not called out, then it will be accepted. If it is called out and shown to be in error, the criticism will generally serve to incline those who agree with the claim to still believe it. As such, presenting an ideologically “correct” falsehood (which need not be a lie) seems to be a win-win situation.

Since I teach critical thinking, this worries me. After all, a large part of my job as a philosophy professor is trying to teach people that they should base at least some of their beliefs on evidence and rational argumentation.  One stock response to my concern is that people are this way “by nature” and there is little point in trying to teach people to be critical thinkers. Trying to overcome this tendency and solve the problem of ideological irrationality would be as futile as trying to solve the problem of teen pregnancy by trying to teach abstinence (after all, people have sex by nature).

On my bad days, I almost agree. After all, I often see people who are rational in non-ideological areas lose this capacity when it comes to their ideology. However, this is not true of everyone. After all, there are clearly and obviously people who can do a reasonably good job of objective analysis. While some of this might be disposition, much of it is due to training. While everyone might not be trainable, most people can learn. To use an analogy, just as natural tendencies can be overcome by other forms of training (such as military training), this allegedly natural tendency to just go with one’s ideology could be overcome. I know this because I have seen it happen. Albeit rarely.

Of course, there is also an artificial barrier. Some bad people benefit from being able to (consciously or not) manipulate people. As such, they have a vested interest in learning how to do this while also ensuring their targets are left as defenseless as possible. While critical thinking skills are in demand, our education system is largely designed to not create such skills. One example is that very basic critical thinking classes are not taught until college. While some educators wonder why students do so badly at critical thinking, this is an obvious part of the answer. Imagine the math skills of students if they took their first actual math class as a college freshman. While it might be countered that critical thinking is too hard for kids, this is not true—the basics could be taught as soon as kids were being taught the basics of math and probably even earlier. In short, I would say that much of what is attributed to human nature is the result of education—or the lack thereof.

 

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While high fructose corn syrup (usually a blend of fructose and glucose) was a ubiquitous food ingredient, it now has a bad reputation. For example, the bottle of syrup I used on my pancakes proudly proclaims, “no high fructose corn syrup!” As consumers turned against high fructose corn syrup, the Corn Refiners Association tried to get the United States FDA to allow them to rename the syrup “corn sugar.” While there are serious health concerns about sugar, it is generally looked upon more favorably than high fructose corn syrup. The FDA denied this request because the syrup did not meet the definition of “sugar” and thus, using an argument by definition, it follows that high fructose corn syrup is not sugar. According to the FDA, sugar must be “a solid, dried and crystallized food.” High fructose corn syrup, being syrup, obviously does not meet this definition.

The Corn Refiners Association did try to convince the public that high fructose corn syrup is a form of sugar and is comparable to table sugar. Not surprisingly, the Sugar Association responded with a lawsuit.  Battles over names in the food industry is nothing new or particularly unusual. For example, there was a battle between the producers of dairy milk and the makers of soymilk over whether soy milk should be legally allowed to be called “soy milk.” As you can see in your local supermarket, soy milk is still legally milk.

It might, of course, be wondered why food names matter. In the case of high fructose corn syrup, the most likely reason was noted above: while high fructose corn syrup has a bad reputation, sugar still has a better reputation (deserved or not). As such, replacing “high fructose corn syrup” with “corn sugar” on ingredient labels could cause uninformed consumers to believe that they were not consuming high fructose corn syrup, thus allowing more syrup to be sold.

Because of government subsidies for corn, high fructose corn syrup is cheaper than “table” sugar and is widely used because it provides more sweetness for the dollar. As such, high fructose corn syrup is a competitor to sugar that enjoys a price advantage. As might be suspected, it seems reasonable that the Sugar Association did not want a major competitor to change the name of their signature product that was falling out of favor.

For those who recall basic chemistry, this dispute will probably seem odd. After all, fructose is chemically classified as sugar (as is, obviously, glucose). As such, it is tempting to agree with the Corn Refiners Association: high fructose corn syrup is sugar. However, the FDA does not define “sugar” chemically, but also in terms of its state (it must be a solid-at least in its “normal” state). As such, syrup is not a sugar–even if it is chemically sugar (or two sugars mixed). This, of course, might suggest that the dispute was the result of an arcane legal process in which the definition of what seem to be a chemical term is set by bureaucrats and lobbyists rather than by chemists. Given that chemists are the legitimate experts on what counts as a sugar, it would seem more rational to rely on the scientific rather than a political definition of “sugar.”

One obvious reply is that the FDA might have  a legitimate reason for classifying sugar in a way that involves it being a specific sort of solid rather than based on its chemical composition. After all, looking at the matter from the standpoint of food classifications, there does seem to be a reasonable distinction between syrup and sugar. To use an appeal to intuition, imagine that you ask for some sugar for your coffee and you are handed a bottle of syrup.  If the response to your puzzled look was “this is fructose syrup, which is a sugar”, then you would probably say  you meant the white crystal stuff. As such, from the standpoint of how consumers understand “sugar” and “syrup”, high fructose corn syrup would be syrup and not sugar. This leads to the second point.

A second obvious reply is that renaming high fructose corn syrup would seem to mislead consumers. As noted above, until consumers realized that “corn sugar” is just high fructose corn syrup, they would probably buy products thinking they are avoiding an ingredient they do not want. While I will not make any claims about the true intentions of the Corn Refiners Association, misleading the public in this way is morally dubious at best. But probably good business.

My second reply could be countered by arguing that the name change is not intended to mislead consumers but to offset an unfair bad reputation. After all, consumers often seem to see high fructose corn syrup as bad or at least as worse than sugar. If this is not the case, then the syrup is being judged unfairly. If this is the case, then it could be contended that the name change would merely allow the maligned ingredient to shed its unearned bad reputation. This could be seen as a person who has been falsely accused of misdeeds electing to change their name for a fresh start because they have been unable to erase the stain on their original name. This does have a certain moral appeal to it, but I am inclined to think that it is offset by the fact that most consumers would be ignorant of the name change and hence would be misled by such labels.

While one should always check the latest science, the best evidence now is that sugar is not good for us—at least if we eat too much.  So, sugar by any other name would be just as sweet but also just as harmful.

 

 

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While many culture wars raged in the 1980s, I fought in the Game Wars. In this war, computer/video games and Dungeons & Dragons were under attack, with the mildest criticism being that these activities were a waste of time. While modern culture wars usually involve claims of (typically made up) dire harm, it is still worth considering this criticism as culture war never ends and never changes.

Back in the 1980s, I was often accused of wasting my time playing games, be they computer games or tabletop games like AD&D or BattleTech. In some cases, these criticisms were benevolent—friends and relatives were concerned for my wellbeing (one of the greatest sins a New Englander could commit is wasting time). Some other folks were merely deriding my choices.

The criticism that an activity is a waste of time is a value claim. While people who make this criticism are usually not consciously applying a normative theory, they claim the activity does not have (or produce) enough value to be worth doing, usually relative to activities they see as valuable. For those who like normative theories, this could be presented in consequentialist terms: if a person is doing an activity that lacks value, they are not generating value. They should be generating value, so they should be doing something else. This criticism is based on what the critic thinks other people should (and should not) be doing. As people like to think of time as a currency, wasting time can also be presented as spending the currency of time unwisely, as one might waste money. During the 1980s (and beyond) I often faced such criticism.

When I was in college and started studying philosophy, I wondered why I was expected to defend the value of gaming to people who spent hours chugging beer and watching other people play sports. Laying aside my residue resentment, there is a philosophical question about where the burden of proof falls when someone claims an activity is a waste of time. There is the pragmatic answer, which is determined by imbalances of power. For minors, those with power can include their parents. For example, a child might need to convince a parent that playing D&D is not a waste of time, so they are allowed to play. For almost all of us, those with power include the politicians who can pass laws banning or restricting activities. As an example of this, I offer the philosophy major.

Every philosophy major has been asked what they will do with their degree and, as a professor at a public university in my adopted state of Florida I have been repeatedly compelled to defend the major. In this pragmatic case, the goal has been to persuade those compelling me to show that the major is not a waste of time by convincing them that it results in something they value (this always involved employment and income). As they have the power to end the major, they can simply put the burden of proof on me.

There is also the pragmatic context of social cost and annoyance—people who can impose that cost or annoy those doing the activity with their criticism can thus impose the burden of proof simply by demanding it as a condition to cease their criticism.

As this essay appears in a philosophical context, I infer that many readers are familiar with the claim that philosophy itself is useless (a waste of time). Bertrand Russell (1912) has perhaps the most famous reply to this criticism, although Frankfurt (2005) has the best titled response in his work Bullshit.  My experience defending gaming prepared me to defend philosophy and my experience in philosophy now enables me to discuss the waste of time criticism philosophically.

In the case of gaming in the 1980s, the challenge we gamers faced was to show that it has value. One could also frame this challenge in terms of establishing that gaming has meaning and can be part of a meaningful life. In terms of addressing the challenge, a key issue is whether the goal is to persuade the critics that gaming has value or if the goal is to prove that gaming has value. This would, of course, apply to any activity one is defending.

If the goal is to persuade the critics, victory is getting them to stop saying the activity is a waste of time or to even acknowledge that it has value. If the goal is to prove that an activity has value, then this is a matter of logic—what is needed are plausible premises and good logic. In the case of any culture war, the goal is always persuasion, and logic is not very effective in this role.

As the waste of time criticism is based on the view that the activity does not produce adequate value, responding to it requires showing that it does. One way to do this is to operate within the concept of value used by the critic and show that the activity does produce what they value. As an anecdotal example, I was able to silence some people who said gaming was a waste of time by showing them I got paid to write gaming material. As another anecdotal example, I have defended the philosophy major by providing the latest employment and salary data for philosophy majors.

Another option, which is usually more difficult, is to convince the critic to accept a concept of value under which the activity does generate value. For example, people who defend philosophy often try to argue that the non-monetary value it produces is valuable. During the Game Wars both approaches were used. And we eventually won that war. But war never changes and never ends. So, how was that war won and how might similar wars be won in the future?

In pragmatic monetary terms, the culture war over video games was clearly won when gaming moved from a niche nerd activity to a billion-dollar marketplace ruled by corporations like Microsoft, Sony, EA, Ubisoft and Valve. Of course, this path of “victory” might have come with a higher cost than if the war had been lost. But under capitalism an obvious way to persuade many people that an activity is worth doing is to show how it generates money.

In more artistic terms, the cultural elites signaled their acceptance of the value of gaming with the 2012 The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the MoMA exhibit the same year. Getting the cultural elites to accept something as valuable obviously helps in persuading some people that the activity is not a waste of time. In terms of mass acceptance, it makes sense to give the smart phone some credit here. As mobile games appeared, almost everyone with a smartphone became a casual gamer, thus making it harder for people to see gaming as a waste of time.

While tabletop role playing games are not as profitable as video games and are perhaps not seen as artistic as video games, Critical Role (and its animated series on Amazon Prime like The Legend of Vox Machina) and Netflix’s Stranger Things show that D&D is now a valued part of the culture. The victory parade for D&D was when Brennan Lee Mulligan ran a D&D game at the Hollywood Bowl on June 1, 2025. I remember, vividly, declaring to my D&D group that we had won the war. Anecdotally, it has been a long time since anyone accused me of wasting my time gaming. But I must admit it still feels a bit weird when people are impressed that I’ve published so much gaming stuff.

Some might think that there is more to the war over waste and worth than appeasing or persuading those with power and that there is also a philosophical issue here. As a veteran of the culture wars, I know that these pragmatic fights are won (or lost) with persuasion rather than logic. But, as a philosopher, I agree that there is obviously an important philosophical issue worth considering when we discuss whether something is a waste of time.

These discussions raise the question of value in terms of what is worth our time and what is not. As would be suspected, this discussion always runs hard into the subjective vs objective debate in value theory. Is the question of whether an activity a waste a matter of what it is worth to the person doing it or those with the power to stop them or is there an objective basis to such discussions? Or something else? This is obviously not going to be settled, so the rational approach is to consider arguments for and against an activity having worth within the context of arguments for a particular theory of value. So, the challenge is developing a theory of value and then assessing an activity within that theory. Obviously, one could embrace the pragmatic approach discussed above, which is how it plays out in practice and how I fight the culture wars. But I fight them in good faith—I only try to persuade people to believe what I can also support with (largely ineffective) logic.

 

 

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As a philosopher who teaches aesthetics and a gamer, I find questions about games and art interesting. As I have argued elsewhere, I take the intuitively plausible view that video games can be art. However, even if this is considered settled, there is still a rich vein of philosophical issues to mine.

One topic that I and many other gamers find interesting is the importance of story in games. John Carmack, who knows a bit about games, once said that “story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.” Folks who delight in story driven games disagree. For the sake of this discussion, I will be assuming that games (specifically video games) can be art. I have argued for this over the years but will not repeat my arguments here.

Obviously enough, there are games that have no story at all and are still good games. To use some obvious examples, Tetris and Asteroids are story free, yet great games. Naturally, these are not the sort of games that people debate about when it comes to whether story is important. However, it is worth noting these sorts of games because they provide relatively pure context in which to present two relevant points.

The first is that game mechanisms (the purely game aspects of the game) are reasonably seen as being distinct from the art aspects of the game (the game as art).  After all, while all games are games and some games are art, not all games are art.  This can, of course, be disputed. However, it does have enough intuitive plausibility that it is well worth considering.

The second point is that even the art aspects of a game that is (or contains) art can be distinguished from each other. For example, while Tetris and Asteroid do not have plots, they do have game artwork and sounds (which might be dismissed as mere sound effects rather than having any status as art). As another example, the music and visual art of Halo can be distinguished from each other in that one is music and the other visual art.

The importance of story is most interesting when it comes to games that do, in fact, feature a story. Obviously enough, the story (or plot) of games has varying degrees of integration into the game. For games that have a story, on one end of the spectrum lives the games whose story has a minimal role in the game. One excellent example of this is Serious Sam: The First Encounter. The game does have a story: an evil alien threatens earth and you, as Sam, must travel in time and kill wave after wave of monsters. That is pretty much it. Despite the limited story, the game works amazingly well as a game and it is fun to play. On the other end of the spectrum are games that are heavily story driven, such as the classic Knights of the Old Republic and Baldur’s Gate 3. These games are, not surprisingly, role-playing games. In these games the player takes on the role of a character and spends considerable time talking to non-player characters, making decisions and experiencing the plot unfold. As might be imagined, the story in such games is much more important than in the typical first person shooter. In the middle are games like the Halo series which have well-developed stories and unfolding plots, but do not have any role-playing elements. For example, in Halo games your choices mainly revolve on what gun to use to kill which alien in what way.

As might be imagined, the significance of the story would seem to be proportional to its role in the game. After all, a first-person shooter whose plot is lacking or poor would suffer less than a story-driven role-playing game whose plot is lacking or badly done. That said, it could still be argued that plot is important.

It is tempting to compare a game with a story to a movie and, obviously enough, plot seems to be somewhat important to a movie (although Michael Bay, some might claim, has long endeavored to prove otherwise). The idea of plot being the most important aspect of poetical works (broadly and classically construed to include theater) dates back at least to Aristotle. To steal his argument regarding tragedy, the following argument can be given for the importance of plot in games that have a story element.

Games are not an imitation of humans (or elves, aliens, or dragons), “but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.” It is, of course, the actions taken by people that “make them happy or miserable.” As such the “the incidents and the plot are the end of” the game and “the end is the chief thing of all.” Thus, the story is important, at least on the key assumptions made by Aristotle.

For Aristotle, a key part of having a good plot is ensuring “that the sequence of events, according to the law of probability or necessity permits a change from bad fortune to good or from good to bad.” In more general terms, the plot must be such that the events make sense and fit together to form a coherent whole. In my own experience as a gamer, I have consistently disliked games in which the story fails to meet that basic requirement that events play out in a way that makes sense (except for games that are supposed to not make sense). After all, if you are running around in a game doing things that make no sense for no apparent reason that leads to nothing, then that will tend to be a disappointing gaming experience (although it would be a fair approximation of life).

The obvious reply to this is that there are games that are weak in stories that seem to be great successes as games, thus helping to support Carmack’s claim. This seems a consistent aspect of the top tier first person shooters as they tend to be marked by weak, implausible or otherwise lame plots but are top ranked for game play, especially competitive multi-player. As I once jokingly put it while playing one of the Borderlands games, “I don’t really care why I am killing, I just care about whether I’m enjoying it or not.” That, I think, nicely captures the view of most gamers. 

This view often extends into games in which story would seem important, such as role-playing games. While some people do enjoy going through all the dialog and getting into the story, my  experience is that the main focus is on the game-play rather than on the story.  This even extends to my experience in traditional role-playing games, like AD&D and Pathfinder: many players are far more into roll-playing (that is, simply killing monsters in combat) than role-playing (that is, talking to the monsters before killing them).

Getting back to the claim that the game aspects of a game are not art, this does seem to suggest that the story is not as important to the game as the game aspects of the game. Alternatively, it could be argued that the game aspects of the game are still art, but they are a different sort of art than a story. After all, the name of the game is, well, “game” and not “story.” In the case of a first-person shooter, the game is (obviously enough) about shooting things from a first person perspective. Story is thus secondary. Even in role-playing games, such as Pathfinder, all the actual game mechanism are about rolling dice, usually while trying to kill monsters who are blatantly and shamelessly holding the loot that rightfully belongs to the party. While the game can be augmented by art (acting, beautiful maps, and well-crafted stories) the core of the game is, it can be argued, the game mechanics. As my friend Ron has said, “if you are not rolling dice, you are not playing the game. You are just sitting around the table talking.” Those who enjoy role-playing would, of course, disagree.

The idea that a game should be focused on the game is also consistent with Aristotle’s view: “each art ought to produce, not any chance pleasure, but the pleasure proper to it.” But story is fine, too.

 

 

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