The Medium Fallacy: Towards a New Phenomenology of Media Objects

How do you like that title? If I ended up writing my dissertation, I'd have given it that title. Anyhow, I've been reading Claude Levi-Strauss' The Savage Mind, and some of his discussion of the so-called "concrete science" has gotten me thinking about our approach to studying video games (in particular), and media objects in general. Levi-Strauss draws a clear distinction between magical thought and scientific thought, not as the former serving as a primitive version of the latter, but as each standing as its own, independent form of connection building. Levi-Strauss achieves this conclusion by noting the different methodology and goals of each type of thought, rather than just pointing out that they occasionally grasp for the same goal. Too often, we note arbitrary relationships between objects, and declare them "equal" without noting their multivalent phenomenological differences. Similarly, the conclusion that gaming can be discussed as a whole due to the shared medium of the field, when there are so many divergent experiences within each of these media objects, leads us to false conclusions and false value judgments.

To truly understand how a video game functions (or any game, for that matter), we need to sever the game from its medium. Nobody would claim an eidetic difference between a Wii game and an X-Box game, yet we do just that when we compare video games to board games (for example). This, of course, is not to suggest that there are not eidetic differences between video games and board games, but to note that there are similar eidetic differences between Wii games and X-Box games that in no way are related to the medium the game is presented on, the television set. For example, Nintendo's Super Mario Galaxy, while presented on a video screen, requires the user to command his avatar via a joystick, commit actions via buttons, commit other actions via hand motion (a shake of the controller makes Mario attack), and aim via the off-hand controller (the user points the Wiimote in the left hand at the screen to collect certain objects and to shoot at enemies). On the other hand, Rockstar's Red Dead Redemption requires the user to only commit the first two of these actions, but also requires a deeper relationship with both the story and the digital material economy of the game. These two experiences, both in competition for "Best Game of 2010" seem about as different as playing either one and playing Monopoly on a board.

Of course, game theorists began the taxonomy of video games years ago, and have already attempted to construct some over-arching categories, most noticeably during the so-called ludology/narratology split of earlier years. Similarly, some game scholars have distinguished the ludic (competitive gaming) from the paedic (playful gaming) to distinguish winnable games from sandbox gaming. For the sake of a larger theory of video gaming, this taxonomy is absolutely necessary, yet it still seems to miss some of the more obvious aspects of video gaming. All of these distinctions are built around supposed goals of use, or perhaps interpretive conclusions. While we must notice the goal-distinctions between a game such as Red Dead Redemption (complete all of the challenges of the game, explore the world, conclude the story, etc.) and a game such as The Sims (follow your Sim through life until you get bored of it), we fail to note the mechanical, and thus sensual, distinctions and similarities between the games. For example, implicit to the distinction between these two games is the fact that the user has a mechanical, reflexive control of his avatar in a game such as Red Dead Redemption, but serves a more "advisory" role when controlling the avatar in The Sims. Nevertheless, in both cases we guide a non-self avatar through a series of challenges, despite the distinction in controls. Thus, both games could be validly compared to childish play with dolls (through avatar play), though Red Dead Redemption follows more of a controlled style of play, while The Sims is more similar to third party story-telling.

Ultimately, these half-formed thoughts are urging for a re-approach to the taxonomy of video games with more a focus on mechanical interaction with the game. In the sensory experience of the game, the difference between the sudden decision-making of a game like Halo and the careful strategy of a game like Civilization are as distinct as the relationship between a novel and a cookbook. Just because the game is presented on a screen guarantees no similarities beyond presentation. Similarly, just because a game shares goals does not guarantee even a marginally similar sensual experience. If we are to understand how games function (from the academic standpoint) and what games are valuable (from the marketing perspective), we need a total engagement with the games eidetic nature, rather than reductive assumptions about presentation and goal.

Totally irrelevant to the purpose of this blog

This is a short essay I wrote for a class on Victorianism and the law. I couldn't think of anywhere else to put it, even though it has little to do with the general purposes of this blog. Actually, though, looking towards the end of the essay, I begin discussing my general attempts to reclaim laziness. Maybe it's more relevant than I thought. (P.S. I haven't even proofread this, so if it's a bit stumbly, that's why. After I do an edit, I'll repost).

Isabel Archer’s Library and the Foundation of Idleness

“The foundation of her knowledge was really laid in the idleness of her grandmother’s house, where, as most of the other inmates were not reading people, she had uncontrolled use of a library full of books with frontispieces, which she used to climb upon a chair to take down” (Penguin 78).

If I were to follow directly in the footsteps of Gaston Bachelard, I would subject the entirety of Isabel Archer’s grandmother’s house to a close and careful phenomenological analysis as a route to discovering the deeper connection between this “first universe” (Bachelard 4) and Isabel’s eventual fate. Due to the length of this assignment, however, I will restrain myself to just these few words mentioning Isabel’s early days; within these few, brief images of Isabel’s life at her grandmother’s house, we find the roots of Isabel’s character. By referencing Isabel’s moments in her grandmother’s library as foundational, The Portrait of a Lady finds itself in the long heritage of self-loathing novels, which find the true origin of character fault to be found in fiction.

Bachelard argues in his seminal The Poetics of Space that “the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace” (Bachelard 6). He continues, arguing that the various pieces of the house come to represent key locations within our mind; for example, the attic is a place of whimsy and rational imagination. The cellar, on the other hand, is the “dark entity of the house, the one that partakes of subterranean forces” (Bachelard 18). From Jung, Bachelard determines the attic as the representative of the super-ego and the cellar as the poetic image of the id. Thus, when we hear motions in the attic, we want to explore, to comprehend, to understand, yet when we hear rumblings in the basement, we cover our ears and pray that whatever is down there will just disappear.

Thus, the statement that the “foundation” of Isabel’s knowledge was laid in the library is particularly odd. In the first place, foundations are stable and dark, the cement that keeps the house standing, but also the walls of the frightening cellar; the library serves as a support for Isabel’s mind, yet also contains the rooting causes of her actions. A library is a troubling construct as is, when we confront it using Bachelard’s phenomenology. The library is supposedly the store of knowledge for a family, a place where heritage, thought, rationality, and blood are sustained for future generations. Yet, this library is abandoned by the other “inmates” of the house, serving as a mere superficial representation of those previously mentioned qualities. Like the frontispieces of the books that Isabel leafs through, the library pretends to reveal in its very nature what is contained within; yet, just as looking at a frontispiece ultimately reduces the complexity of the novel down to mere stereotype, the image of the library states knowledge, civilization, and class as mere echoes of the true, eidetic nature of such concepts.

Upon closer examination, however, we notice that it is not the library itself that serves as the foundation of Isabel’s knowledge: it is her idleness. Thus, the basement of Isabel’s mind, the location of her basic values, is represented as a cardinal sin. The library, which is supposed to (however hollowly) represent those classic values of knowledge and heritage, in fact contains laziness and self-involvement. Thus, Isabel is instantly attracted to the European elite and their way of life; she ties those values that the library represents in the collective mind with the lazy idles of youth. Of course, Henrietta’s obnoxious American work ethic and demands for self-sacrifice are justified by Isabel’s troubles in Europe. Yet, the negativity implicit in the statement of youthful idles is bound within the Puritanical work ethic that Henrietta views as critical to the American character. However, we, as readers, may want to look to Bachelard, Heidegger, and the other continental philosophers who attempted to reclaim idles as a place of value. Or, as Bachelard says, “Thought and experience are not the only things that sanction human values. The values that belong to daydreaming mark humanity in its depths” (Bachelard 6).