Weekly Reflection: Video Games and Literature

   I must confess that I am a huge nerd. I enjoy video games, anime, and Tolkien novels. I have performed in a band at the Los Angeles anime expo and have cosplayed (dress-up for adults) with my fiance. What is really exciting about being part of the nerd kingdom right now is that boundaries are being pushed not only on the aesthetic level, but also on an intellectual level. My case in point is one of my all time favorite video games, Bioshock,
    In some bizarre way, I can thank Bioshock for my love of critical theory. Bioshock is a first person shooter, or FPS for short, that follows a survivor of a plane crash that discovers an under water city in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This city, Rapture, resembles a 1940's New York. The big difference between the two, despite one being under water of course, is within the city's political boundaries. Andrew Ryan, the creator of Rapture, wanted to build a city where objectivism reigned supreme. What people earned was a product of the "sweat of their own brow" (Bioshock). Does objectivism ring a bell? It is the same asinine philosophy that Ayn Rand tried to pour down the throats of commy fearing conservatives between the 1930's and 1960's. I apologize if I sound biased in my views of Ayn Rand.
   By the time the protagonist reaches Rapture, the city has gone to hell. Due to a lack of government regulation in the sciences, people were able to alter their genetic make-up to give themselves super powers called Plasmids. This, of course, turned them into crazed psychopathic junkies that killed for more of the addicting Eve that fueled their plasmids. Obviously the creators of Bioshock are not on the side of Rand's objectivist philosophy.
   I became infatuated with Ayn Rand's philosophy. I hated it, but I read numerous books by her and just loved the anger her character's political rants would fuel inside me.I soon found myself in Dr. Dawahare's Critical Theories at CSUN and I felt like a child at Disneyland. I loved theory and the heady maelstrom of thoughts it would send me into whenever I sat down with my textbook.
   It seems that video games may be defying the age old stigma that they make children brain dead. Forms of media that were once considered for children, are now going into more artistic and intellectual territories. There's an interesting future for education and video games, and it is exciting to see where these two cross paths again.
  

Weekly Reflection: Mythology and the GRE

    The GRE exam is required by many grad schools to be admitted to their program. It is a computer based test that requires each prospective grad student to answer questions related to verbal reasoning and quantitative math, while also writing two analytical essays. This type of "entry exam" is based off the archaic mythological archetype of the intellectual. It's belief is still rooted in the concept that nearly every supposed "intellect" needs to be an exemplary test taker in order to achieve status in higher academia.
    This notion isn't only wrong, it's also discrimination against a lot of powerful minds that suffer under the pressure of test anxieties. The people that still insist on keeping these types of examines alive are not up to date with modern day academics. Instead, they are on their hands and knees trying to pleasure an impotent old idea that's past its prime. It makes students obsess over scores instead of encouraging them to learn. But this is the education system that America has created. It is one that lacks the creativity to push the boundaries but chooses to instigate narrow minded thinkers.

I'll leave you with a quote by Albert Einstein:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”