Subjectivity, Fedoras, Etc.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Here’s what I’ll admit: many boys have a really hard time with subjectivity. To grapple with your own subjectivity is to grapple with the subjectivities of others. It’s to see the world not as legible, stable, conquerable but as resistant, shifting, and fundamentally unknowable. It diminishes your certainty and authority. It leaves you vulnerable. This is a human problem, being a person among persons, but one that many boys have trouble admitting even the basic tenets of. And so they call for an objectivity that has no foundation except received opinion, that seeks to diminish individual experience, and that turns out to not even exist.
Objectivity is very convenient for the straight white middle class male gamer. Videogame culture encourages him to see his own subjectivity as the standard, as objective. He’ll invoke science, economics, statistics, and all manner of folk wisdom to defend his little kingdom. He’ll decry any challenge as ‘politics’ or ‘bad business’ or ‘whining’ or ‘here we go again’. He never considers how often objectivity is a cover for a dominant subjectivity, for a subjectivity that stays in power by not being recognized as such. He fears what will happen if the established order breaks down and the Vox take control.



Full article here. (http://tevisthompson.com/on-videogame-reviews/)

I think this is incredibly important to grapple with in the context of Marxian science/objectivity-fetishism within the white-male dominated left.
That's not to call (at least, in my reading) for an abandonment of materialism, but, rather, to seriously consider the material dimensions of subjectivity and confront the ways in which our own subjectivities are constructed.

(Que accusations of post-modern identity-politics primitivist third-worldism)

[Fakeblock]

This seems like it could be an interesting discussion, but tbh I'm not really sure what you're asking (if you're asking anything). Maybe I'm thick, but I thought I'd put it out there anyway.

[Psycho P and the Freight Train]

I honestly can't understand what you're trying to say. Sorry, not trying to sound hostile. I think I get the basic gist of what you're saying, but it's a little unclear.

If it's what I think you're saying then yes. I do hate the neck beard fedora militant atheist misogynist types.

[TC]

I think Garbage Disposal Unit's point is very correct and under-appreciated in the marxian list (though perhaps applied too expansively on the post-modernist and identity politic focused left).

I am not sure though that this article (where the quoted portion isn't even found until far down within it) is the best place to launch this discussion. It is *mostly* about videogames it looks like.

I'd like to have this discussion but it might be good to start with another text.

[synthesis]

Never figured you to be the type to read gaming blogs, TGDU.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Never figured you to be the type to read gaming blogs, TGDU.

Not often. I'm not really a gamer, but I did work FQA testing, and have a few gamer friends. Every now and then, somebody sends me something they think I'd like.

[Thirsty Crow]

Full article here. (http://tevisthompson.com/on-videogame-reviews/)

I think this is incredibly important to grapple with in the context of Marxian science/objectivity-fetishism within the white-male dominated left.
That's not to call (at least, in my reading) for an abandonment of materialism, but, rather, to seriously consider the material dimensions of subjectivity and confront the ways in which our own subjectivities are constructed.

This would all be fine and dandy were it not for that idiotic blurb how the world is fundamentally unknowable.

If the author said, unknown by a single person with their own "subjectivity", very damn fine indeed; this way I can't say whether this is merely a slip in speech or a bigger, much bigger epistemological and indeed a political problem.

[Futility Personified]

"He’ll decry any challenge as ‘politics’ or ‘bad business’ or ‘whining’ or ‘here we go again’. He never considers how often objectivity is a cover for a dominant subjectivity, for a subjectivity that stays in power by not being recognized as such. He fears what will happen if the established order breaks down and the Vox take control."

This is the only bit that I could quite get my head around.

Video games as a medium of entertainment are prone to the same issues that will arise in other platforms, though the excessive slant of recreation that exists at this stage probably enables this "apolitical" attitude. Let's not also forget that as you have a degree of personal agency in video games, the illusion of free will is enhanced that people defend quite rabidly.

Something that I think people have struggled with for a long time is the idea that everything is political to a degree. Also relevant in the case of Bioshock is that it has attempted to do something almost philosophical, it represents gaming coming onto the cusp of being intellectual, which surely must validate all those people who have been told their hobby is pointless.

The 4 examples used put me in mind of the acknowledgement of a problem, but a refusal to look more deeply into it. Let's not forget that conformity brings safety and especially considering the vivid insanity that manifests itself in the gaming community when anyone challenges the taste makers, this could be interpreted as protecting their own identities (not to mention justifying the wads of cash you have to whack out now). When titles are becoming more sparse and the big blockbusters come to dominate, I see it as another aspect of the homogenization that capitalism seems to bring. Do you like COD, or do you like Battlefield? Do you like west coast or east coast, X-factor or Britain's Got Talent, Labour or Tory, Republican or Democrat, etc etc etc. If not, you are weird. Your gripes are bizarre, and must be categorized safely as "whining" or whatever.

Bioshock is considered objective or fair by the (I want to say wasp but whatever term, really) majority, definitely. I can't recall all of the article right now but the parts about the Vox living up to their stereotypes through their bloodlust seemed like a sensible deduction to make. Bioshock can also make the caveat of saying that they were universe hopping, so perhaps the Vox were rational in one universe. Ultimately, this false objectivity thing rings true. It is objective insofar as it is accepted and not questioned. Stifling dissent by just saying shut up is something I think we've all felt the sting of at some point. Part of me feels that when Bioshock has been so heavily lauded, and the recognition it has been getting is bringing gaming closer into the cultural fold, all these people who are disputing any criticisms are really just deluding themselves for the sake of acceptance.

I hope that was relevant or coherent. I've written it now so ignore as applicable.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Yes, opinions in regards to video games are subjective, just like basically all opinions in regards to arts/entertainment.

That seems obvious to me. Maybe a more fruitful discussion could be had in regards to the subjectivity of something else?

[Sea]

Business as usual - a woman with an opinion is a potential subversive and only a sissyboy admits when he's wrong.