Video Games & Watching Sports on TV

[AlwaysAnarchy]

I was wondering what opinion we all have regarding video games and watching sports on our televisions - is this just good clean fun or is this more "opium" that distracts the masses?? Many people I know and I'm sure you know have become addicted to either one and as such, instead of focusing on class struggle or revolutinoary work, they will sit in front of the TV for hours and hours watching sports and being subject to loads consumer advertising and capitallist commercials. Sports in the US at least the average football or basketball game last close to 3 hours, in the big games there is almost always patriotic exercises like saying how we support the troops, God bless America and the standing up for the national anthem. Isn't this all reactionary stuff?

As for video games, I gotta admit I like them too but sometimes I feel that it's a bit decaden and couter productive. True not everything can be productive or for revolutionary work all the time, 24-7, but video games seems to me like an extreme luxury that only a small percentage of the world's population can enjoy for hours like some of us can. Is this elitist?

So yea, are video games and watching sports on TV just OK plain fun or are they decadent and do they encourage passive, spectator-watching , obedience to consumerism and capitalism??

[BreadBros]

I think they're just fun. I see no reason why sports or video games would not exist in a classless society.

The point about patriotic shit during sports is true, but I have to wonder how seriously people take that and I see it as a bad thing about the current way sports is organized, not of sports watching in general.

Of course if you take these to extremes and become addicted to them, then yeah, thats a problem, although its more of a personal than social problem I think.

Of course, all cultural products are reflective of the way they were produced, so in that sense most of our culture in some way mirrors capitalist production. However, telling people to not watch sports or play video games because of the capitalist aspect of their nature, isnt really helpful as it doesnt strike at the heart of the problem. Its a symptom of capitalism, not a cause. Its still possible to get something personally meaningful out of it and apply the rest to critiquing capitalism and seeing society in a material way.

I personally dont buy that they're bourgeois or decadent. Theres nothing inherently wrong with leisure. People make this connection because the bourgeoisie is able to have far more leisure than the rest of us. But the point isnt that we are resigning ourselves to poverty or anything of that nature. Were fighting for the destruction of capitalism and the market system of distribution of goods and labor. In other words, its not video games and consumer products that are the problem, its the way they're produced, distributed, etc.

Great post though, I wanna hear what other say too...

[Psy]

Games can be used to educate for example Hidden Agenda (game) (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45290&hl=) (TV can also to educate) but currently TV and video games are used as a distraction.

[Vargha Poralli]

Too much of Anything
Is Good For Nothing

dunno who quoted it but fits exactly for cinema,tv and vdo games

[Dr Mindbender]

In my time Ive actually encountered a couple of games that deviate from the usual gung ho-agenda of fighting for the status quo (fighting for the good ol' us of a :wacko: ). Take the 'red faction' series on PS2 for example, yep you dont get much more commie than that, :D or even in rockstar's manhunt on the second level you get to butcher nazi punks with a baseball bat, fun times.
Fucking bastards banned it cause some kid in London got stabbed a few years back. :angry:

[Janus]

I was wondering what opinion we all have regarding video games and watching sports on our televisions - is this just good clean fun or is this more "opium" that distracts the masses
A little bit of both. It provides us with pleasure as well as a relief from the stresses of day to day life. However, it doesn't prevent us from enjoying such luxuries. :P

[Sentinel]

True not everything can be productive or for revolutionary work all the time, 24-7, but video games seems to me like an extreme luxury that only a small percentage of the world's population can enjoy for hours like some of us can. Is this elitist?

So yea, are video games and watching sports on TV just OK plain fun or are they decadent and do they encourage passive, spectator-watching , obedience to consumerism and capitalism??

If it's a decadent luxury, what's your solution? We all make some kind of vow of purity and stop playing the games and watching the sports? Or instead strive for a world where everyone can get to do that (and get all the other benefits first world people have access to)? Option B seems smarter to me..

[AlwaysAnarchy]

I agree Sentinel (with option B)

However, doesn't anyone have something to say about how capitalist governments use video games, TV, sports, etc as an effective and powerful means of control over the minds of especially working people? How they desensitize them and get them focused on things which, let's face it, really don't matter like which footbal team won today, which celebrity is wearing/dating what, etc instead of the issues and concerns that DO matter and are of importance.

This is a familar criticism I've heard from many left wing authors and though I agree in moderation is the key, doesn't anyone have anything to say about how technology can be or has been used to de-politicize the masses??

[Boriznov]

i don't understand what some people said here, do you want to live in a society where everything is boring ? videogames, i see no such thing as capatalist evil or brainwashing. it's just fun and that's it.

[Red Menace]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2006 02:24 pm
I agree Sentinel (with option B)

However, doesn't anyone have something to say about how capitalist governments use video games, TV, sports, etc as an effective and powerful means of control over the minds of especially working people? How they desensitize them and get them focused on things which, let's face it, really don't matter like which footbal team won today, which celebrity is wearing/dating what, etc instead of the issues and concerns that DO matter and are of importance.

This is a familar criticism I've heard from many left wing authors and though I agree in moderation is the key, doesn't anyone have anything to say about how technology can be or has been used to de-politicize the masses??
depends on what level people take it to. If you watch television for hours and hours on end, also including video games, then I guess I would agree with you to a certain extent, but if we are talking about someone who watches tv and plays video games like a normal person, and goes out and does other stuff then I guess it wouldn't really apply.

[RedAnarchist]

There's nothing wrong with a bit of tv and video games every so often, although personally i would rather be reading a book or riding a bike.

[subcal]

Its about time rev left made a subliminal first person shooter game to attract the dissillusioned youth.

Along with shooting could be properganda campains and anarchism on the street.

Something along the format of the new scarface or gangs of london format.

Maybe even just add skins for one of the engines?

As for TV, its good to see the results of a hard days work (thinks of the smiley face from fight club)

[Psy]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2006 01:44 am
Its about time rev left made a subliminal first person shooter game to attract the dissillusioned youth.

Along with shooting could be properganda campains and anarchism on the street.

Something along the format of the new scarface or gangs of london format.

Maybe even just add skins for one of the engines?

As for TV, its good to see the results of a hard days work (thinks of the smiley face from fight club)
I think it is time we made a remake of Hidden Agenda (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=45290&hl=) in Flash to educate people.

[Dooga Aetrus Blackrazor]

Video games and sports both serve purposes that can be beneficial to leftism. They can both have negative affects on it, too. They are ways of delivering messages not the messages themselves.

[Delta]

I think video games are okay, when used in moderation. However, if someone is waiting outside for a week in the rain so that they can get the next Playstation and then sit inside all day playing it, they're not going to take the time to go outside and bring about a revolution.

As for sports, they can be fun to watch sometimes. Although it's important to enjoy the game and not mix in the patriotism and whatnot that can come from rooting on "your" team.

[Lenin's Law]

PA - TV, video games, sports etc is controlled by the bourgeoisie. Therefore they will use those instruments, or at least try to use those instruments to their advantage. If that's what you are trying to say, then you are correct.

However, they, just like technology in general, don't intrinsically have to be used as tools by the bourgeoisie. In other words, they can just as easily be used by us, by workers, to our own advantages as well. Think - this website for instance. And plenty of others like it.

This is what separates the primitivists from what I see as real revolutionaries - both primitivists and revolutionaries recognize that technology is being utlilized and capitalized by the bourgeoisie. The primitivsts however, see this and say "Abolish technology! Let us go back in time to the stone age!" The revolutionary sees this and says we should organize ourselves as the ruling class, wrest power from the bourgeoisie and instead use our new technologies as we see fit, for the benefit of the immense majority.

I hope you take the latter position.

[anarchista feminista]

I love video games and watching sport. Everyone is entitled to do what makes them happy, but it shouldn't be putting others to harm.