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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33066 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023

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Neither of them directly impart any skills, and both should be seen as primarily leisure activities. As a side effect though, reading can improve vocabulary and spelling, while video games can improve certain types of problem solving. The effects aren't massive in either direction and a lot depends on what type of content is being enjoyed. For whatever reason, society has deemed that reading is a fantastic use of time that's worthy for its own sake, whereas video games are seen as a vice like gambling or cigarettes, though not quite as destructive.

Well, we have high literature, no high video games, as it were. Give it time, maybe in 50 years, there will be a list of "classical video games" or whatever.

Well, we have high literature, no high video games

Have you played a broad swathe of video games that you're confident in dismissing the entire genre as having no equivalents to "high literature"?

You sound like Roger Ebert, except replacing films with literature. He eventually backtracked what he said.

I don't mean it that way. I mean that we don't have a canon. There's no "Classic Western video games" list that isn't just for nerds.

Basically, when one of those socially conservative magazines puts out an article that says "Here are some video games you can sit down and play with your children that capture Western civilization/culture".

I don't think we're really disagreeing, as I never disputed that society (exemplified by a magazine in this case) sees video games as inherently "lesser" than literature. I'd disagree with the truth of their assertion, but I wouldn't disagree that they'd make such an assertion at all.

It wouldn't be particularly hard to make a list like that if one put in the effort, though. A game exemplifying the scientific/engineering mindset of the West could be something like Minecraft, or Factorio for something more niche that takes it to the extreme. For a game exemplifying Western individualism and aspiration, Skyrim (or something along those lines) would do the trick.

"Here are some video games you can sit down and play with your children that capture Western civilization/culture".

I think I probably could compile such a list after a day of thinking about it. No, it probably won't be games that agree aesthetically with socons (stuff like Doom, Deus Ex, and Command & Conquer), but I think it'd fit the bill.

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