"Playgrounds of the Self" is an odd essay, a sort of swirling, congealing swarm of complaints that skitter across the surface of evidence it can't be bothered to understand. It grumps and whines instead of assembling a coherent argument. Christine Rosen, author and one of the Atlantean senior editors, touches on an ambitious suite of historical and reflective sources, none of which actually connect with gaming, and all of which distract us from her total failure to complete a line of thought.
I wish I could recommend it to the curious and concerned as a useful example of some types of gaming criticism. But the article isn't typical of anything. For instance, Rosen has actually looked at some games and even ventured into a gaming store, which some critics avoid doing. She has also heard of more than one game (although didn't identify playing any one, as far as I can make out).
In general, I don't like to sit in judgment on things with which I'm not familiar, and things I don't do. Ms. Rosen has spent a huge amount of time doing that, and the piece suffers accordingly. (Frankly, her venture into the gaming store reminds me of anti-gun journalists venturing into gun stores to complain that it's possible to buy guns.)
But because I believe in being fair, I will say that the video game piece is better than Ms. Reynolds's hatchet job against Glenn Reynolds. For starters, you don't have to log in and share personal information to read the lengthy judgment of videogames. Why, she even implicitly criticizes the invasiveness of such online strategms:
We all, in some sense, have two forms of identity—one external, one internal. External identity is the way others see us, and internal identity is the way we see ourselves. External identity is also how the world categorizes us, and includes markers such as our credit report, Social Security number, health insurance, political affiliation, and even the history of our consumer purchases. It is this external identity—routinized, bureaucratized, entered into databases, largely unalterable and largely out of our control—that we talk about when we talk about identity theft, of which 9.3 million U.S. adults were the victims last year, according to a 2005 Better Business Bureau survey. Already we can avail ourselves of clean-up services that remove the traces of ourselves left on our technical devices. Unlike an old toaster, an old computer contains personal information, which means you cannot simply throw it away without also tossing out clues to who you are.
The fact that we have to go to such lengths to defend and protect our identity suggests deeper questions about the meaning of identity itself. Identity, in our world, is both a commodity and a self-conception, something capable of being sold, misused, and misconstrued by strangers at the click of a mouse, and something we can alter ourselves through reinvention.
That was last year. These days, of course, her essays require potential readers to bare our "routinized, bureaucratized, entered into databases, largely unalterable and largely out of our control" external identities.
Good thing I didn't have a chapter on eating ice cream cones in public!
Hmmm...
I can't speak for Dr. Kass or Ms. Rosen, but I would have been very forgiving . . .
posted by Eric on 06.21.06 at 11:34 AM
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Comments
Speaking of identity theft, what do you feel about a national registration scheme using biometrics?
Getting your eye or fingerprint scanned to validate a purchase, or at a voting booth, that kind of thing.
Clearly, if it were run by the government, you'd need a great deal of protection in place. Do you think it could be done, or that the idea is a technological possibility that isn't worth pursuing?
Jon Thompson · June 21, 2006 03:59 PM
While I don't like national registration schemes, something like it is probably inevitable in a commercial setting, once people get over their fear of it as an unknown, intrusive technology. If only it were limited to consenting situations, I'd be more comfortable.
I think people will be more likely to use it voluntarily, especially because of the swiped credit card and ID theft scams.
I don't trust the government running such a system for two reasons. One is that it invites political dirt digging, and two is that the government probably wouldn't be able to do it in a competent manner.
Actually I found a lot of food for thought in Ms. Rosen's videogame article.
As an avid gamer (well, as avid as I can be working a full-time job with a 1-hour commute each way, plus a 5-year-old boy to make things interesting) I grapple regularly with how much gaming is enough.
For instance, I have put in about 45 hours just playing "Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion" on my Xbox 360. I am raising a virtual puppy on my Nintendo DS Lite, and raising an entire society in "Civilization IV".
How many books could I have read in that time? How many blog posts could I have put up? Should my energies be better devoted to creative writing, or perhaps reviving the pencil sketching I was passionate about as a boy?
I believe there is a place for gaming. It can provide an essential time-out from other, more taxing activities. Play time is an important part of mental health.
The most distasteful part of Ms. Rosen's piece is her ad hominem attacks on Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good For You, a book that argues that popular culture isn't the big mental vacuum the mainstream media makes it out to be. Ms. Rosen's ugly remarks about Mr. Johnson's intelligence do nothing to advance her own arguments and do not belong in a serious treatment of the issues she discusses. I guess she has loosed similar personal barbs at Glenn Reynolds, so maybe this is an unfortunate trait of her writing.
But despite that, I don't think her arguments can be dismissed out of hand.
The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler
Don?t bang your head!
Speaking of identity theft, what do you feel about a national registration scheme using biometrics?
Getting your eye or fingerprint scanned to validate a purchase, or at a voting booth, that kind of thing.
Clearly, if it were run by the government, you'd need a great deal of protection in place. Do you think it could be done, or that the idea is a technological possibility that isn't worth pursuing?