Hmm..
Britain’s Defence Minister doesn’t like the video game, “Medal of Honor.”
On the face of it, this is odd; after all, aren’t violent desensitizing video games the army’s bread and butter? Didn’t the US Army even set up it’s own game as a recruitment strategy?
So, what’s the hangup?
Oh… you get to play as the Taliban.
On Sunday, Dr Fox said that it was “shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban against British soldiers”.
Killing British soldiers? Shocking! Horrific? Why would you ever allow that? But wait…!
An Electronic Arts spokesman said the game “does not allow players to kill British soldiers”.
“No British troops feature in the game,” he said.
Whew! Crisis averted…
I’m not really posting on this because of the blatant hypocrisy on display. I’m more struck the story of how we manage repugnance – and how we hijack repugnance in order to achieve our own ends. War has a long history of doing this.
The example that springs most readily to mind for me is from WWI – the lies told of German body factories making soap and buttons out of the fallen. Really repugnant stuff.
In this tamer story, there is a subtle redefinition of what is loathsome. What is loathsome is killing British troops. It’s kind of interesting that, at the bottom of this unremarkable story (after all, who expects the Defense Minister to support a video game where you play as the Taliban), there is a redefinition of what is good and what is bad.
At the bottom, this comes down to viewing the concept of good and evil as a tool – a mechanism to achieve some “useful” aim.
We really have to be careful with this stuff; the more we do it, the more we get used to it; and getting used to the idea that we can redefine good and bad at (our own) will is a bad habit to get into.