Friday, July 29, 2005
video games football games and fuzzy senators
This is a bit all over the place but I've been fascinated by the arguments you both make here.
Granted, I haven't read Johnson's book, only the article Divya linked for us, but at the same time my feeling is that these arguments are always only hitting a few key reasons for aggression, sometimes ignoring (for their incredible Goliath size they cannot be seen) everyday actions and idioms handed down from the likes of Cotton Matters, to Billy Graham, things which have implanted entire generations with sight of one form or another.
In a way this reminds me of the great concern and conversation in universities when Coney Island first opened. Papers and articles full of warnings that the roller coasters and bright lights will present a false sense of reality. Reading some of this in a book once made me gag with the elitist smugness. OH, protect thee from Ferris Wheels small, weak ones.
By the way, what about kids who don't or can't play football? And how about video games as equal field for experience, for breathing in --so to speak-- a spiritual human potential?
Part of me feels video games are a freedom for a bigger world within, and not exactly in the sense that the structures build the margins for them, but whether or not they are intended to set standards or equations for understanding and feeling, I'm talking about a freedom which cannot be set to form. The football field has the form, has the limits. Not the video, not the mind, not the life that plugs into the space with the endless inner bodies of a person.
Is it dangerous to live in this? Is it dangerous to live in Iraq? Is it dangerous to foster any brazen notion that Democracy is something bombed into a place and its people? Is it possible we're so desperate for understanding where the real shit is in this world that we will allow every single possible distraction along the way to getting there?
On the other hand--
Hillary Clinton should rather put aside 90 million dollars for a future study on how the Patriot Act (SHE VOTED FOR!!!!) is going to shape the young minds she's so concerned about. My lack of respect for Hillary Clinton isn't JUST in what she does, but that she does it as though she doesn't do it. She actually supports a fascist regime while playing the character of grace, of one who really, really cares. By example (besides the Patriot Act) she awards Sam Walton's Walmart and days later stands before unemployed workers with a brow so full of concern I wonder how long she practiced with a mirror.
She is a fantastic farce, as is every other senator who voted for the Patriot Act. None of them will ever have my vote, and I'll speak out with others to spread the word not to support them, ever again. And will only support those who wish to overthrow it.
In the end my question is what builds community, what is reaching out to mend this tattered fucking flag everyone's so afraid of burning?
Where is the courage? And why isn't courage about giving instead of taking? Bullies are not courageous, and bullies are only as big as their support staff.
CAConrad
Granted, I haven't read Johnson's book, only the article Divya linked for us, but at the same time my feeling is that these arguments are always only hitting a few key reasons for aggression, sometimes ignoring (for their incredible Goliath size they cannot be seen) everyday actions and idioms handed down from the likes of Cotton Matters, to Billy Graham, things which have implanted entire generations with sight of one form or another.
In a way this reminds me of the great concern and conversation in universities when Coney Island first opened. Papers and articles full of warnings that the roller coasters and bright lights will present a false sense of reality. Reading some of this in a book once made me gag with the elitist smugness. OH, protect thee from Ferris Wheels small, weak ones.
By the way, what about kids who don't or can't play football? And how about video games as equal field for experience, for breathing in --so to speak-- a spiritual human potential?
Part of me feels video games are a freedom for a bigger world within, and not exactly in the sense that the structures build the margins for them, but whether or not they are intended to set standards or equations for understanding and feeling, I'm talking about a freedom which cannot be set to form. The football field has the form, has the limits. Not the video, not the mind, not the life that plugs into the space with the endless inner bodies of a person.
Is it dangerous to live in this? Is it dangerous to live in Iraq? Is it dangerous to foster any brazen notion that Democracy is something bombed into a place and its people? Is it possible we're so desperate for understanding where the real shit is in this world that we will allow every single possible distraction along the way to getting there?
On the other hand--
Hillary Clinton should rather put aside 90 million dollars for a future study on how the Patriot Act (SHE VOTED FOR!!!!) is going to shape the young minds she's so concerned about. My lack of respect for Hillary Clinton isn't JUST in what she does, but that she does it as though she doesn't do it. She actually supports a fascist regime while playing the character of grace, of one who really, really cares. By example (besides the Patriot Act) she awards Sam Walton's Walmart and days later stands before unemployed workers with a brow so full of concern I wonder how long she practiced with a mirror.
She is a fantastic farce, as is every other senator who voted for the Patriot Act. None of them will ever have my vote, and I'll speak out with others to spread the word not to support them, ever again. And will only support those who wish to overthrow it.
In the end my question is what builds community, what is reaching out to mend this tattered fucking flag everyone's so afraid of burning?
Where is the courage? And why isn't courage about giving instead of taking? Bullies are not courageous, and bullies are only as big as their support staff.
CAConrad
