The Globe and Mail today had a story in the Focus section titled, Why it’s okay to wage joystick jihad (Poplak, Richard, Aug. 27, 2010). The story looks at the controversy raised by the forthcoming Medal of Honor game that takes place in Afghanistan and which allows players to play a Taliban fighter. The story quotes MacKay (our minister of defense),
“The men and women of the Canadian Forces, our allies, aid workers and innocent Afghans are being shot at, and sometimes killed, by the Taliban. This is reality,” Mr. MacKay’s statement said. “I find it wrong to have anyone, children in particular, playing the role of the Taliban. I’m sure most Canadians are uncomfortable and angry about this.”
Poplak dismisses (in my mind too quickly) the argument that there is danger in imitating disreputable characters.
Speaking from the position of a frequent playground ersatz robber, I can confirm that role-playing doesn’t necessarily imply empathy and attachment. There is, after all, no appreciable evidence suggesting that children who play Indians are likely to grow up as advocates for Indians’ rights.
The argument from imitation is not that in playing Indians we would sympthize with them; it is that in repeatedly playing and practicing certain activities we would become conditioned by the activities.
What I like about the story is how it engages and quickly surveys the relationship between games and war. Games can be about all sorts of things, but an extraordinary number of them are about war and fighting. Why is it war that we want to play?