lpq's Journal: on realistic wargames being avoided for political reasons...

In reference to this article about the problems in writing realistic wargames, I commented:

So let's see, we want a 'game' with a "compelling" story-line that is based, as much as possible, on "what is 'real'":

• First, it's important to note the parallels in this story with other media trends. There are parallels in the photographic news and in books as American's "sophistication" levels have evolved over time. Now there is a demand toward more realism vs. in the past^(**1).
   
  Now, realism demands are making stronger demands into modern gaming, where the game researchers strive for increased realism and send researchers out into the field and across world-sites for gathering actual field info for inclusion in modern simulation games (from world-photo trips for the latest LaraCroft games, to the Iraq-War Game example of gathering data from the actual war-zone to interview soldiers, AND, for realism's sake, the 'enemy' side. Makes perfect sense. But with a couple of points about the collision of reality and simulations-for-fun (games).
   

• Showing 'real', may collide with 'politically correct'^(**2).

• To be historically accurate, how will the illegal nature of the war being started handled (or avoided)? Is deliberate "avoision"^(**3) collusion? Might such potential for collusion be regarded negatively by those judging the moral value of such a game?
   
   
• Will a game, for sake of realism, include real-life episodes (or subgames) of torture^(**4) Would not including that void the "realism" aspect of the Iraqi War simulation?

In light of the realities of this war and what has been (and is being uncovered) that an attempt to portray an accurately realistic game might be judged NOT to make for "good", or "fun" "game play" is not exceptionally surprising.*cough*

Hopefully war-games and such will stop being the 'fodder' for 'fun'-role playing games as they only lead impressionable minds into believing that such war 'games' are fun and that going to war isn't very ugly when it becomes sufficiently 'realistic'.

Footnotes:

1. (**1) Parallel events are seen in the literary-world, where 'real-life' stories from those who have survived 'trauma' make NY Times best seller lists, and Oprah selected reading lists because of their 1st-hand viewpoint of the realities of events that most US readers will never come close to experiencing.
    
   In a more "naïve" time, we contented ourselves with stories about such events. And for news, we had had produced video reals shown as entertainment-news in theaters during WWII, with stirring interpretation and music supplied by news/video-production organizations that were designed to inform, but also stir patriotic feelings of support for what was portrayed (and was mostly so) as a war against 'evil' ^(**1a).
    
   Coinciding, heavily with the advent of first-hand video reporting of the news -- starting in the Vietnam era, but continuing up through modern times, we've become sensitized to the differences between 'real-life' portrayals and the 'produced' versions of 'real-life' events, somehow believing that only 'real-life' portrayals have true and lasting value (whereas the reality depends on the depiction, but such subtleties are lost and subjectively lost for judgment by the viewer). This 'black'-or-'white' thinking of 'real' or 'fake' is permeating culture -- so much that weird 'photo-ops' need to be created at expense and possible terror, vs. creating the same with a photo-shop program^(**1b).
    
   Much emphasis has been placed on the authenticity of book narratives written in the first-person about current events. It's of prime importance that such narratives be clearly labeled as non-fiction (meaning the person lived through them), or 'Fiction', meaning it's a story that gets relegated to a back book shelf, possible one for "current event commentary", or "political commentary" depending on the nature of the reporting. The result, though, is that masses of people who are focused only on the 'authentic', 'real-life', 'first-person' reports and events will disregard any account that is not labeled as 'non-fiction'.

• (**1a) The concept of 'evil' v. good and dividing the world, moralistically, into simple categories of 'good' and 'evil' makes for easier control of the large masses, who have little education beyond the basics. Basics meant 8 years beyond Kindergarten(introduced in latter 19th century for 4-5 year olds). Beginning in the early 20th century the movement was to increase 'basic' education to 12 years, with it being the expected standard up through the 1st half the 20th century. However, in some areas, those extra 4 years were considered 'controversial', and there was resistance.
   
  It is notable that even today in the US, Amish children (mostly in Pennsylvania), are exempt from education beyond 8th grade, where it was considered that education beyond the 8th grade would be harmful to the Amish cultural way of life (with the exemption based on the 'religion' as being at the core of the Amish's simple way of life - rejecting nearly all modern conveniences -- until roughly the 90's when they started wanting the benefits of modern medicine to save their children's lives and extend the lives of their 'elders' who became repositories of knowledge of the 'old ways' (a contentious and troublesome issue in the Amish community considering the cost of such Medical advances and the limited ability of the Amish to produce anything of value to trade for such modern technological advances).
   
  But the idea of ruling the large masses using simple concepts of good v. evil (strongly true when 8 years post-'K' education was the norm, and mostly true but with decreasing effectiveness when education was increased to 12 years) was a central use of the 'church', by the state (though, unofficially in the US).
   
  There has been increasing effort by the religious right to 'dumb-down' education in the 9-12 years, as those were the years that were designed to be teaching children about the latest and most modern advances of science, math, technology and world advances, to prepare them for 'adult-hood' that was now being "postponed" till they finished their full education. Such education was considered (and is) necessary for participation in a democracy, and, especially, for participation in the increasingly modern requirements of today and tomorrow's workforce.
   
  The efforts to remove various parts of modern education (with special emphasis on dumbing down biology and human development, among other higher social skills involving critical thought) continue into today, as schools debate and strive to lower standards for advanced science (biological, geological, astrological, physics, evolution).

• (**1b) With Reuters and other news organizations taking the hard line against *any* modifications of photos for news inclusion, for any purpose (being enforced by subsequent bans of the photographer or news-org responsible for the 'not-exactly-real' photo), to satisfy the need for "real" photos of "real planes" (even if they are empty and the entire action is staged), empty "Air Force One" jumbo jets are chased through the skies by a fighter plane around the Statute of Liberty, so a "REAL" photo can be created that satisfies real "NEWS" photo requirements (despite that what's being portrayed is a 'setup') -- since it is a real, non-photoshopped pic, it can pass NEWS organization's requirements for authentic, untouched photos!). Idiots. Following the letter of the 'law' (of journalism), to comply with legalistic picture requirements -- but missing the point that the picture was supposed to be a real-life event, not faked. But since it was a real-life-fake event, and not a photoshopped pic, that passes stringent news-picture and event requirements.
   

1. <value=2>(**2) This happened in Vietnam, where camera views of war totally undermined support for the Administration's casual use of American boys (soldiers) in their Cold War Chess game. This type of 'on the ground', first hand reporting has grown more limited, over time.
    
   In the first Gulf war, reporters were kept away from front lines and only permitted access to the military control centers at the rear of the action. Unfortunately they blew it when they went live with broadcasts of ongoing military operations that told the enemy exactly what we were doing in real-time and caused the failure and abortion of affected military operations.
    
   In the Cheney-Bush-II war-operation all news communication was severely controlled by the state -- with pre-censorship fully alive and active "for the sake of national security". Not even pictures of wounded or dead US boys (soldiers), this time were allowed -- NOT even pictures of the rows and rows of coffins being returned with bodies of the dead. The Cheney-Bush-II was noted for keeping a lid on nearly all info for the sake of 'national security'.

1. <value=3>(**3) Evoision - "Coined in tax-code" to refer to a moral 'grey' area, somewhere between technically legal "avoidance" and technically illegal "evasion". Used here in the sense of its morally grey implications.

1. <value=4>(**4) Torture and humiliation seemed to be part of the US Cheney-Bush-II attack against 'terrorists, who justified it through legal memos as necessary evils to fight this 'new' type of war. New information confirming earlier, dis-credited excesses. The supposed actions of what the Cheney-Bush-II admin called "a few bad-apples"[sic], are now seen to have been functioning in an environment that was dictated from the top, on down through through pseudo-legal memos to perform such actions. These resulted in illegal torture techniques, where some people were knowingly violating (and some were deliberately kept 'stupid' and/or deliberately mislead about) Geneva Convention Law that applies to all foreign US military operations.
    
   Reports of those who objected on Geneva Convention grounds who, in some cases, died days later after objecting by supposed 'suicide' are already noted (^Ibid).

p.s. Please excuse primitive slashdot-enforced list-number messing-up and slashdot's non-superscript support.