
No Gods or Kings: Objectivism and Ayn Rand in BioShock - robg
http://kotaku.com/354717/no-gods-or-kings-objectivism-in-bioshock
======
ank7ovy7
The Economist actually used Bioshock as an analogy for one of its articles:

"IN “BIOSHOCK”, a hit video game from last year that was heavily influenced by
the libertarian philosophy of Ayn Rand, the main villain builds a fantastical
city under the sea, where businesses can escape the stifling grasp of
government. If you are an internationally minded entrepreneur looking to set
up a small to medium-sized business, that is probably going a little far. But
where should you set up shop?"

[http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=...](http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12208572)

------
jonny_noog
I'm not going to say that I don't find some of Ayn Rand's ideas interesting,
but some of the comments attributed to Yaron Brook in that article are just
plain scary.

 _"It seems to me that he's misrepresented what Ayn Rand believes and her
ideals beyond objectivism," he said. "He's setting it up to fail. He believes
, based on what I've read, that any system that is absolutist is ultimately
going to lead to disastrous effect. Any system of black and white, any system
of ultimate morality."_

I'm sure a system of "ultimate morality" would work just fine for me... if I
was defining the "ultimate morality".

 _"I think its flawed logic in the sense that he thinks that people have to be
flawed"

"I think there are great people and perfect people and I think we all should
strive to be great and perfect."_

To strive for perfection is a worthy endeavour, to assume that I or anyone
else has achieved it, is naive, limiting and possibly dangerous. I'd like to
know who Yaron Brook's puts in this category of great and perfect. Ayn Rand, I
suppose would be one.

~~~
unalone
I'd actually bet that most people who really believe in objectivism would NOT
call Rand perfect, because she most certainly was not. She was flawed both in
writing and in character. It's just that she happened to do a much better job
with both than most other people do, and she created a set of principles that
are greater than she was.

"Just plain scary?" A lot of people exaggerate like that. And what's the
downside in thinking that people are capable of being perfect? What sort of a
situation would have that leading to a downfall?

~~~
jonny_noog
Call it exaggeration if you like, but actually I firmly believe exactly this.
People are not capable of achieving perfection. Perfection is by definition
not achievable.

What are the downsides? Well without writing a thesis on the subject,
basically what I have already mentioned. If one believes ones self to be
perfect, then logically, there is no reason to continue to strive for
improvement is there? Again by definition, you can't improve on perfection.

If one believes ones self to be perfect, then ones opinions/decisions/actions
must also be perfect (i.e., perfectly correct) and therefore beyond doubt or
compromise. I see such an absolute and unquestionable position (particularly
if that position is held by a person in any kind of leadership role) having
the possibility to lead to all sorts of unfortunate social consequences.
History is filled with examples of leaders who believed their point of view to
be beyond question or compromise, usually with bad results.

So if it's not Ayn Rand, who's perfect then?

I stand by my original comment.

~~~
gunderson
You've sort of side-stepped the point.

The idea of humans being "imperfect" is not in reference to a Webster's
definition, but in comparison to the religious notion of the deity's
perfection.

If one believes that Mankind is not some imperfect reflection of a perfect
deity whom he must serve, then any notion of perfection must be realizable by
humans. So in theory a man or woman could be perfect.

Rand writes about these larger than life types of people. Most of us only see
shades of them in ourselves or people we know, but it sure beats the idea of
guilt/imperfection as a birthright thanks to original sin!

I bring this up b/c western culture is so heavily influenced by Christianity
that it pollutes even people's secular understanding of what perfection means.

As I recall someone got a 10 at the olympics this year.

~~~
jonny_noog
You're putting words in my mouth (or at least attributing meaning to my words
that I never intended) and trying to frame the debate. I am not Christian, nor
do I count myself as a member of any organised religion. Such concepts as
original sin and all that come with them hold no power for me and I certainly
don't agree with them.

My concept of humans being inherently imperfect comes directly from and is
directly in reference to the dictionary definition. I think I have already
made my point about the attainment of perfection implicitly meaning that
further improvement is impossible and how this can only be a bad thing for
humanity. Who wants to live in a world where the best has already been?

If however, proponents of Objectivism wish to redefine and narrow the meaning
of the words "perfect" and "imperfect" in order to make some point against
certain misguided religious concepts, then that is their business. I could
only suggest that perhaps they try using different words to avoid future
confusion.

Someone got a 10 at the Olympics? Well done them. You may be interested in
this story:

<http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/06/1214234>

But in any case, now it seems that you're switching back and arguing that the
dictionary definition of "perfect" is attainable by a human. And it was a good
argument too, untill it occurred to me that scores are assigned by imperfect
human judges.

I don't see the human inability to attain perfection as a negative, quite the
opposite actually. It keeps us growing.

~~~
unalone
I think that Rand and people who agree with her work see perfection as a
relative thing. In her books, the "perfect protagonists" are the ones who
always live life according to moral values without ever slipping, and who
manage to persevere and create great things. That's perfection in her books:
always doing your best, and your ACTUAL best rather than a measly excuse of a
best. And when the guy mentions perfect people, I think that's what he's
talking about.

~~~
jonny_noog
Not being intimately familiar with her works, I can only take your word for
this. If that is the case, then that seems logical and I have no problem with
people being encouraged to do their best.

However, that is not the impression that I got from Brook's quotes. The word
"perfect" has one meaning, it is not a relative thing. If you don't actually
mean "perfect" then use another word.

I still see a strain of absolutism showing through when you say "the "perfect
protagonists" are the ones who always live life according to moral values
without ever slipping"... Where do these moral values come from? Who agreed
that they are the values worthy of being adhered to? And they live life true
to these values "Without ever slipping"? Sounds like we're looking at the
dictionary definition of "perfect" again... If there's one place where this
kind of perfection could be achieved, I guess it would have to be in a
fictional book.

~~~
unalone
I answered you elsewhere: I think that "perfect" is not necessarily an
absolute. It doesn't always mean "incapable of being better." It means "having
all desirable traits." It's like if I call somebody unparalleled. It doesn't
mean they CAN'T be paralleled, it just means they AREN'T.

Rand says in her works that moral values must come entirely from logic and
reasoning, and that that's why her philosophy can be held as a moral absolute:
because if it ISN'T logical, she encourages you to disagree with her. It's why
people who agree with her seem to do so fanatically: because they're convinced
by logic and nothing else that they are right.

And Rand admits from the start that her works portray ideals and nothing more.
In her line of thinking if she portrayed only characters with flaws it would
make her books subjective and less reliable as a philosophical guide.
Nonetheless, there are people who try to live by her words, and many people
who have succeeded immensely because of them.

~~~
jonny_noog
But you've just made my point for me. If you, Rand, Brook and anyone else used
the word "unparalleled" in place of "perfect" as it relates to this
discussion, then at least the majority of our conversation probably wouldn't
have taken place. It's not the same as "perfect". It's not even the same as
"having all desirable traits" which is in fact identical to the actual meaning
of "perfect". If one has "all desirable traits", "all" being an absolute term,
then logically there are no more traits worth acquiring.

You started out asking me what possible downside there could be to a person
believing they are capable of perfection. After I answered, you took the
fallback position that perfection isn't actually perfection. You seem a bit
all over the place justifying your argument.

Sorry I'm just not buying it. And I'm sure if you were going to buy my
argument, you would have done so by now. so I think we will have to just agree
to disagree.

------
rantfoil
This article is truly fascinating. Having read Ayn Rand, and briefly taken by
the stark ideology, it all falls into place. I suddenly have a deeper
appreciation for the gameplay, the philosophy, and the artwork of Bioshock.

I love the commentary too -- it's both an homage and a cautionary tale.
Bioshock starts as a utopia and de-evolves into an awful dystopia.

~~~
davidw
If it weren't terribly off topic and likely to lead to pointless flame wars,
that might make for a fun poll. "At what age did you go through your Ayn Rand
phase? How long did it last?"

~~~
msg
17, 6 months

I would be interested in knowing how many are still under the baleful Eye as
well.

~~~
menloparkbum
17\. Being fourth generation progeny of critical thinking literary snobs, I
was unable to make it through Atlas Shrugged.

Unfortunately, as it is difficult for Hollywood newcomers to avoid Scientology
recruiters, a college freshman finds it difficult to avoid the Objectivist
Club recruiters.

Thus, later in the same year I had a brush with Rand again. I tried reading
"The Romantic Manifesto" and found it unintentionally hilarious, in the same
way Sarah Palin's press conferences are hilarious.

~~~
gunderson
You have too much taste for Atlas Shrugged because of your illustrious
bloodline?

If reading Atlas Shrugged is too much work for your taste, then I think the
actual ideas contained in it would surely be quite distasteful to you, but I
guess the world will never know.

~~~
menloparkbum
Yes, I do have too much taste to work through Atlas Shrugged, and I attribute
this at least partially to good parenting. It always saddens me to read about
good minds softened by the writings of Ayn Rand, and I shudder to think about
the sorts of childhoods they must have had.

~~~
gunderson
Were you forced by your parents to donate your allowance to the homeless amid
tears that eventually turned into self-congratulation?

What sort of "good parenting" created such a visceral aversion to Rand's
philosophy? Or is it her prose style that you object to?

------
nazgulnarsil
even afterpatching mine crashes and I can't figure out why. it only seems to
happen when I am picking up money off a corpse.

~~~
0x44
Your game isn't crashing, it's protesting your strong-arm tactics toward
taxation.

/tongue-in-cheek.

------
cbetz
If you have not played this game, you must. It is easily one of the best games
I have ever played. The story is really that good.

~~~
s3graham
I've heard this repeated a lot, but honestly I found the story trite, and the
combat pretty generic after a few levels. Maybe I was hoping for too much
though. YMMV, of course.

~~~
prospero
I think video games are held to a different (lower) standard than most other
mediums with respect to storytelling. This is a shame, but there's a good
reason: you can't embed a narrative inside emergent, non-formulaic gameplay.
Either you tell a story with how you limit the player's actions, or you don't
tell any story at all.

But even if you accept that as a fundamental limitation of the medium, most
video games still have horrible stories. With the exception of Valve and a few
others, it seems like no one's even trying. I don't think BioShock is the apex
of video game development, but it's certainly a cut above almost everything
else. That may not be much, but it's something.

~~~
hugh
I think we need to distinguish between two aspects of good storytelling:
having a good story, and telling it well. In a game, I think the latter
matters a lot more than the former.

People don't play games just because they want to see a story -- if they
wanted that they'd just watch a movie and get a lot more story in a lot less
time. In a game the main function of the story is to provide a reward for
beating the last part of the game, and a motivation to beat the next part.
Games can have quite simple, even cliched storylines (e.g. Prince of Persia
Sands of Time, or the original Half Life) and still seem compelling.

On the other hand, a lot of games fall down in the quality of the
storytelling. Bad dialogue, bargain-basement voice-acting, or just plain dull
scenes can spoil a game pretty quickly. ("I fought a seven-headed monster for
this?")

Bioshock may have a well-developed story for an interesting novel, but I'm not
sure about the quality of the storytelling. I've only played the first couple
of levels before getting bored, but so far most of the story has been pumped
directly into my ear by some guy with a sepia-toned icon and a largely-
incomprehensible monotonic brogue. Combine that with the fact that the levels
and enemies so far have all looked pretty much the same, and I couldn't summon
up the motivation to keep playing.

~~~
prospero
I think it's unreasonable to expect that even a masterpiece (which Bioshock is
not) would appeal to everyone. Any creative work's impact is measured by its
appeal to its core audience, who are often people who live and breath the
medium or genre.

For instance, one of my favorite movies is _Kill!_
(<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063186/>), which is a brilliant and quite funny
re-imagining of the samurai flick. It's a pretty good movie in its own right,
but what makes it truly masterful is how it subtly twists the norms and tropes
of its genre. These little touches are not aimed at a broad audience, they're
aimed at people who are predisposed to like samurai movies, and have already
seen a few dozen samurai movies in their life. That's not cheating, either,
it's just knowing your audience and giving them what they want.

As to the bad dialogue, voice-acting, etc. I think it's hard to break it down
into anything so specific. A story is good if it allows you to suspend your
disbelief. Bioshock didn't, but it wasn't necessarily because of any of the
things you listed; you could just as easily have liked the game in spite of
them. For instance, one of my favorite games of all time is Deus Ex, and it
had absolutely laughable voice acting (check out
<http://ispeeeelmydreeenk.ytmnd.com/>). Any great creative work is going to be
more than the sum of its parts, and just because video games involve computers
doesn't mean that they're somehow more quantifiable than painting or poetry.

------
josefresco
I'll buy anything not published and DRM'd by EA.

~~~
bendotc
Then I guess you'll buy Bioshock.

And you should, too. For those of us interested in videogames as an artistic
medium, this is one of the most exciting games out there.

~~~
unalone
That's a slight exaggeration. I think it reveals an exciting trend, but the
game itself fails artistically. Its gameplay is more or less generic, and its
story has a great concept but poor execution.

Portal, on the other hand, or Half-Life 2... Those games seem to get dismissed
by the "games are art" crowd, or at least not brought up. I've never
understood that. And Psychonauts, Killer 7, Shadow of the Colossus... But I
think that the real innovative games don't get the same level of heralding
because people who find those games know that games have been artistic since
at least the NES stage. Final Fantasy II/IV, anybody? Zelda?

~~~
bendotc
It's not an exaggeration at all. I didn't say Portal, Psychonauts, Killer 7
(which I'm ashamed to say I haven't played), or Shadow of the Colossus aren't
interesting or innovative, although your inclusion of Zelda, Final Fantasies,
and Half-Life 2 makes me think that you're confusing "entertaining" and
"artistically interesting." And I'm not looking down on games that are "just"
entertaining.

Portal was an extremely fun and funny game. What does Portal say about the
human condition and how does it use the mechanics of videogames to convey that
meaning? In what way is this use of the mechanics new and exciting?

I'm not going to get into a full discussion of the ramifications of Bioshock
here, but they're not hard to come by. The game is far from flawless, but
that's not the point. The point is that it uses the medium in a way that is
fundamentally more purposeful than most games that people consider to be
"great."

 __* Herein, a reference is made to a MASSIVE Bioshock SPOILER __*

When Ryan reveals that the protagonist has been under Fontaine's control the
entire time, and you look back at all the instances where your conditioning
forced you to do something, it calls into question the very idea of freedom
and choice in games. Because, while the game didn't compel you to perform
those actions, the system (of the game rules and genre conventions) was set up
so that you had to (unless you wanted to stop playing there, the meaning of
which is the subject for another discussion). This forcing of your hand is
itself a commentary on Objectivism and capitalist societies which put freedom
first and foremost, but systematically pushes everyone to fill the
economically "best" niche, a concept Ryan refers to as "the great chain." To
reinforce this connection, you'll notice that the protagonist has a tattoo of
the chain on his wrist. His wrists are literally chained by "the great chain"
which in this case is a metaphor for the game's rules.

 __* SPOILERS over __*

Now, before anyone tells me to get a life: I have a life. I make videogames.

Before you tell me that the game designers didn't intend this and I'm reading
too much into it: I don't care about authorial intention. Lots of people have
made art that they themselves didn't understand. If you doubt that, look for
homosexual undertones in Victorian literature.

Aside from that, I welcome responses.

~~~
unalone
Hopefully nobody here will tell you to get a life. We're on a site called
Hacker News, discussing artistic merit in video games. So it's good.

I have a different view of art than you do. I don't think that art must
necessarily illustrate the human condition. Do Bach's cello suites make any
sort of commentary whatsoever? Not to the untrained eye. They're just expertly
crafted pieces of music. That, to me, is the core of art: not necessarily a
statement about humanity but the practice of honing your ability with a craft.
You can have the best idea imaginable but if you can't tell it well then it's
not art.

I'm certain that BioShock DOES mean to do what you think it does. It
absolutely attempts those route literary devices and it does a pretty good job
of that. However, I would not for an instant call BioShock art, because it is
not a movie. Its purpose is not primarily to tell a story. Its main role is to
be a good game. And at that, it fails. It's fairly monotonous and while it has
great ambience, the gameplay doesn't distinguish itself much. The story
doesn't tell itself WELL. There were a few interesting moments from what I've
played but that was it.

In my mind, the primary method of art in a game is that of the game itself.
The best artists are the ones making the most fun games. That doesn't
necessarily mean greater themes: Zelda is very black-and-white, for instance,
in terms of story. However, a game doesn't require a story if it does its job
well. Zelda doesn't, and yet THAT is what I consider to be the highest art.
It's a beautiful, memorable game.

Portal? That's as close to sublime as you get. It DOES have a story, and it
has a good one. And no, it doesn't have themes, any more than A Midsummer
Night's Dream does. Which is to say, you can see themes in it, because they're
there in both of them, but the main thing about each one is that they're
enjoyable without focusing on the themes. Shakespeare isn't great because he
told themes: he's great because every line he wrote was beautiful and
absolutely fit whatever he was writing. The components have to fit together.
That's what makes a good game.

Half-Life 2 has a story, and it tells the story well. The story is incredibly
well-written, too, and it's told in the game brilliantly. The gameplay is
surprisingly emotional: you get very involved in the gunfighting because of
how slowly it develops. You feel extremely in the game. That's art. That's
what gaming is all about.

Final Fantasy? It always tries to tell a story. And the stories are usually
very thematic. I think it's slightly going downhill, but the one I mentioned
(II/IV) was sublime. The graphics, music, gameplay was all very simple, but it
was beautiful. It was evocative. The soundtrack in particular is stunning. The
story was not particularly complex, but it was emotional and told itself well.
That's art at its best. When I played it at 8 or 9, it changed my life. It
made me want to become a game designer.

You're in the mindset that all mechanics have been done, and so art is just
doing an old thing in a new way. That's silly! We're at the phase in video
games where NOTHING has been done. We're like cinematographers in the 20s. We
can do ANYTHING and it's new, and so we don't have to worry about exhausting
old ground. Portal is art because it created a new game mechanic! It's
something that was never done before. And not only does it MAKE the mechanic,
but it polishes it considerably. It's tight, it's exciting for the entire
game, and it's new. Art.

And Nintendo? They're making the greatest art of them ALL. I look at them like
I look at the early silent films: they don't use an involved story, because
they're busy focusing on technique, style. Every Mario game adds new ideas. It
keeps on redefining the platform genre, adding new things to do. That's art.
Nintendo takes the craft that Miyamoto started as a boy and continues to
refine and perfect it. It's why I'd argue that of my favorite games,
Nintendo's made about half. A handful of Zeldas, a few Marios, even Animal
Crossing, Wii Sports, and every Super Smash Bros. They're not "literary" but
they don't have to be. They don't need symbols. They're all about incredibly
fun and radical new game ideas, and they're all the highest form of art.

tl;dr - BioShock's story isn't good enough to be considered literature, and it
has mediocre gameplay. I think art means making fun games above everything,
and BioShock is a big fail for that, even if it is pretty.

~~~
bendotc
Okay, first, I just want to thank you for your excellent response.

I'll admit, I don't think art must necessarily illustrate the human condition.
I think good art often does, but it can also just be something that evokes an
emotion. Of course, lots of things evoke emotions, so that's obviously
necessary but not sufficient. I agree that the expert exercise of craft can be
quite enjoyable, but that too is not sufficient to be artistically interesting
or else all skilled workers would be artists (and if you feel that way, we
really aren't talking about the same thing when we use the word "art"). This
is already a debatably overly-limited definition of art, but my point was to
unpack the idea that art does have various motives, goals, and effects on the
viewer, as well as many ways to achieve them, and that is a fine thing.

However, I wasn't trying to debate what is artistic and what I not. I was
saying that for those of us interested in games as art, Bioshock is an
exciting game, and it's exciting because it does something new and it does it
well.

I don't understand how you can get out of what I said that I think Bioshock's
story is what makes it art. To say "ahh yes, but it's not a movie!" is to miss
the entire point, (which may very well be the fault of my writing). The point
is that it controlled me and I enjoyed it. The point is that it told me I was
a slave AND IT WAS RIGHT. Because of things I DID. And it did it in a way that
only a game could, not a movie or a book or a song.

I said Bioshock was interesting and I stand by that because it did something
that none of the games you've cited do: the rules of the simulation and the
rules of narrative played together to make meaning that as key to the game
that couldn't be made in strictly simulation or narrative forms alone.

You say the "gameplay doesn't distinguish itself much," and if you mean the
combat and other kinetic elements don't particularly stand out, I don't
entirely disagree, but that's missing the point. When you say that Bioshock's
story isn't well told, however, that's something I disagree with strongly.

I wish I had time to discuss each of the games you listed, because we agree on
some points and disagree on others, but I don't, so I'll try to address some
of the themes I saw.

You defend some Nintendo games for being something other than literary, and
you and I are in agreement that that's not required to be interesting. Too
many people think that a game has artistic merit if and only if it has a good
story. There are a whole lot of good games without a story, or with a terrible
story that they tell well (e.g. Half-Life 1). This isn't the point.

However, story and how it's told is important stuff in a lot of these games.
But how do games tell stories? Like literature and movies, games have
character development and pacing, but there are also aspects unique to each
medium. Literature has the craft of writing, movies have framing and mise en
scene. Games have other means of telling stories, and we're still figuring
some of them out. Bioshock tells its story and evokes something in the player
in a way I haven't seen before. That's why I said initially that it's one of
the most exciting games out there. It's exciting because it's trail-blazing.
It's exciting because it uses this to be an indictment of its own genre
conventions.

Finally, you write, "I think art means making fun games above everything," a
statement that honestly makes me rather sad. There are plenty of great things
to do in terms of making fun games and finding new ways to make fun games.
However, you make the analogy of games to film: do you think Citizen Kane was
a fun movie? Should Kubrick have worried more about making Paths of Glory more
fun? I don't think fun is bad, but to limit our definition of a good game to
what is fun is to put on blinders.

tl;dr - Good literature isn't about plot and neither is BioShock. Good
literature and BioShock, however, both use their medium well, and BioShock is
exciting because it shows us a new way of doing things.

