One thing that i have come to learn very well in the past few years is that, with out hardships, you would never know the good/joy in life because you wouldn’t know the difference. More specifically, if you did not know the sorrows of death, you would not realize how special and sacredlife is. This idea is brought up and highlighted by Burkert in his article. He goes a bit further however to say that in order to keep this recognition going, sacrifice became a ritual. To mortalize and organize social structures, sacrifice became vital. He also goes on to say that “the gruesome ‘evil’ at work in the ritual (of sacrifice) fulfills a function i.e. to preserve a social structure over the course of generations” (66).  This is where war came in to play originally. In order to keep social structures of tribes and various other groups in order and to reaffirm the morality of all included. Burkert goes on to say however that as time has progressed, war has been made messy and insignificant. He says that “Male society finds stability in confronting death, in defying it through a display of readiness to die, and in the ecstasy of survival” (67). Men are afraid to die and so they must prove to themselves that they are capable of overcoming it, beating it, and living on. War is ritual, sacrifice is ritual and they both lead to the recognition of the sacredness of life. Bringing this in to virtual reality and video games, this goes hand in hand with what Girard states about projecting our sacrificial violent needs onto something/someone else. Video games allow people to prove to themselves that they can defy the odds. It lets them repeat the action of death to solidify the speciality of life, and it sets in place (although not necessarily real) social structure that when they (the player) is victorious, is the elite.

Politics today is a very sensitive/hot/debated topic in today’s society. Everyone has an opinion about how people should lead, what they shouldn’t do, what they should do to improve, why they should never have been given the title in the first place, etc. etc. The way that Ian Bogost opened up this chapter on political processes brings everyone in the United States into a mind-frame of remembrance, sadness, and criticism of the government. While I do think it is important to highlight and recall those instances, I feel that Bogost used them in a disrespectful way and to his advantage, to get readers angry with the government as they started to read his ideas of politics in games and entertainment. While I do think that Bogost makes a vital point, and I do agree that a majority of these political entertainment dull down the complexities of the structure, I don’t know that I love how he went about arguing it. But aside from that, in support of his idea I do agree it is bad to simplify them because they are complex issues and should be recognized as such. Dulling them down or making them purely entertainment will make them seem less important and could effect the perception that an individual playing that games has on the issues. This is extremely important to notice esp. for the upcoming generations who are surrounded by video games and other various forms of entertainment that depict political figures and ideas in cartoon-ic ways. We want to keep generations after us interested and concerned in the workings of their government and their world, not laughing at them and brushing them aside.

For this section, I read an article entitled “What Type of Game Cheater Are You?” by Clive Thompson.  The premise of his article was about individuals who use ‘cheats’ in various video games in order to accomplish a task that they have not been able to overcome (which he claims himself to be). He found it interesting that after hours of play in a specific game, not being able to defeat a creature that would grant him access to the next level, he gained access to a FAQ page to find some help. A die hard gamer friend of his told him “that’s cheating”. Clive did not agree be decided to contemplate the idea and look into it a little further; what exactly ischeating in games? He quotes a definition decided by Johann Huizinga calling cheating – when you pretend to obey the rules of the game but secretly subvert them to gain advantage over another player. But even beyond this, as according to Mia Consalvo, there are three different types of cheaters. First the purists who will never touch, look at, discuss etc. an kind of cheat, hint, help, yada yada yada. They find that part of the game is the mystery in what you can never figure out or never attain. Second are the “walk-throughs” who will follow the rules of the game, but when a level or a battle just gets too difficult, will turn for some help. Lastly are the “by any means necessary” gamers who feel that the whole point of the game is to have all the stuff, power, etc. For them they need to posses the biggest guns, the strongest members, the fastest automobiles. If not, then there is no point to the game.  In applying this to violence (because i am not so sure I find cheating violent) I would say that in the third group, the take all bear all group, we would find the most violent players and interactions. They (these individuals) seem as if they would be the ones to feed off the power (that is the whole point for them) that having weapons, killing, fighting, etc. can have.

Like Clive said at one point in his article, ’self-imposed limits are what make a game a game.” I agree with him in the fact that what is the point of playing something if you don’t use your creativity and imagination to defeat/accomplish tasks set before you. Are you really still gaming? Weren’t games created to encourage creativity, spur the imagination, make you think critically and strive to accomplish a goal? If you are just having those things done for you and handed to you, can you really still call yourself a gamer?

According to Girard, “religion is a mechanism by which humans defend themselves against their own violent natures”.  To Girard, we are, at our very core, violent; we can’t help it! So in order to dispel the violence we must have ritualistic acts or some other type of violent-like activity in order to project our aggression on to, rather then on to each other, other animals, etc. It is obvious to see what Girard thinks about violent films, video games and television; they are all outlets, they all allow us to project our violent urges onto/into something other than reality, and fulfill our ‘innate desires’.  Now, while I do believe that humans have a ‘violent’ side, if that is what you want to call it, I don’t know that it is as evilas Girard is making it seem. Going back to the beginning of man, we needed hunter qualities in order to survive. We were hunted, and we hunted. We needed to protect ourselves and some of those personality traits that are linked to a hunter/warrior can be seen as and considered violent. While we have evolved since then, our innate needs and reactions still come in to play, we are beings of survival and will do anything we need to do to keep our lineage going. If we feel threatened, we react, it is in our blood, but that this reaction is alwaysviolent, I am not so sure I agree. I also don’t know that I agree with the idea that just because I sometimes enjoy watching an ‘investigative’ show where they show dead bodies, fights, etc. that I am drawn to it because i need a release for my violent urges. It seems a little preposterous. . . but then again, another natural trait of humans is denial!

For the majority of this essay, Sam Gill discusses the initiation process of the Hopi people. He gives a detailed account of what happens, what they are made to believe, etc. This is all in hope of giving an example, an understandable experience of disenchantment. It did not take reading the entire play by play of the Hopi tradition to see how this disenchantment relates to several other religions and religion in virtual reality. The first thing I thought of was my own initiation and disenchantment that took place when I made my first communion and confirmation in the Catholic Church.  When receiving first communion in first grade, I made a shocking realization, the bread isn’t reallyGod! I mean, I guess in reality I knew that all along, but being so young, believing everything your parents and any adult/authority figure tells you, I just accepted it. But the day of my communion, I realized, it is not really God that I am eating, it couldn’t be, that would be gross. It seems silly to reiterate and say out loud but as a child it was quite strange to realize that something you believed, something you had been told, was actually not true. So what else was not true? This disenchantment happened again, although not quite so literally, at my confirmation in 10th grade. I suppose really it was a sequence of events and not so much the singular event in and of itself. Anyways, after confirmation you are seen (in the eyes of the church) as an adult. A mature religious adult who is capable of knowing right from wrong, good from bad, and making decisions about them. While I believe that the purpose of this ritual is to bring the individuals closer to the Lord and their church community, (and it did in some respects) it also brought me farther away, mentally, because I began to think critically about everything that I had learned up to this point. What did it all mean? How does it apply? Why? When? How? etc. etc. I had lost the beauty to just believe and have faith/trust in what had been told to me. The disenchantment had come full force. While I still believed in the higher power of God, I was not so sure about all the stories and rules that had governed my life thus far. I began to ask more questions. . . something which I feel one cannot do and keep enchantment alive. I think enchantment is somewhat a naive state and once an individual begins to contemplate more complexly on the topic, disenchantment is inevitable.

Laird’s article asks the question of whether ritual is something that is equally accessible to men and women. It really is an interesting question and one that I had not necessarily thought of or even would have recognized to think about. Laird being a family therapist leans more heavily on the rituals within family life and the attempt at trying to define them. She sees a lack of ritualistic meaning for women and a lack of inclusion in family rituals. For example the women in a stereotypical household though out history is the caregiver, the one who takes care of the home and the children. Now let’s look at a stereotypical family dinner. It is a ritual that takes place every night or once a week, it includes the family sitting together and eating together. This undoubtedly serves the function of bringing this group closer together, for a moment in time removes them from the daily “hub-ub” and deary-ness, and allows them to connect on a different level. But let’s examine this ritual a bit closer. For the entire time before this stereotypical dinner, where is the female? – in the kitchen (probably alone, cooking). During the meal, where is the female? – bringing out the food, making sure desert doesn’t burn, making something different for the young child in the family etc. At the end of the meal – probably in the kitchen cleaning, alone. Now this may seem too stereotypical, negative, anti-feminist, but let’s face it, it is the traditional stereotype of nuclear family households (or at least it was for much of history). It only goes to support the notion that ritual is not equally accessible to women as is men. Because for the entire ritual that is supposed to include the entire family, that is an opportunity and time of coming closer together and bonding; the women is left out. Further back in history when women were blatantly not allowed to part take in various rituals we can see it more obviously, but coming a little closer to the present time, we can still see how women are made to be subservient to men. But why??? Why do women (although we have fought back and demanded to be included and have succeed in leaps and bounds) still succumb to these prescriptions? Maybe some fear the self-inclusion will alter the ritual in some negative way. Well I have to say many mothers have changed it and from personal experience I say it only makes it stronger and more worth-while.

The point of this article is to act as a critique of Victor Turner and his notions of liminality. I very much so feel that the way in which Bynum prefaced her article was both strengthening and harmful. Strengthening in the fact that for those who no not of Turner’s theories it give them somewhat of an overview, at least enough where they could grasp the ‘gist’ of the point of the article. I also felt it was a bit harmful to her piece as well though because she sets her self up for a lack of reader support. From the very beginning (and again at the end) seems to knock herself down and come off as though she does not fully back her thoughts and that she can’t really critique Turner because it is something he has eluded to previously. It just (at least for me) made it a weaker argument. Though she made good points, had good ideas, etc. they some-what lose a bit of “umph” due to her … shall we say … timidness? Aside from that, this focus on women as the major symbol of liminality though out history and the need to see with them not just over, around, etc. them. I have always believed that for anything, any idea, belief or understanding that is separate from your own, you must “walk a mile in their shoes” to truly understand what it means for them, how they view life through it, why they do what they do. We can not just look at or observe and assume we know. We cannotgive ourselves that much credit. We learn best from experience so what better then to stand with and experience with? Esp. when looking at the dual between men and women. Men seem to use at their will, women for liminality. With how much they have relied/leaned on women throughout the history of the world, one would think that men and women might understand each other a bit better. But they don’t because they have always, as Bynum discusses, looked at not withwomen. They have separated themselves and for what? Why? Women clearly serve a vital purpose for them, they need them to survive, to go on, so why not try to understand, why not try to stand with? And for women, why not try to make them stand with, or make yourself a part of them (men). Tieing this in to our last class discussion I think we see women more pushing for a standing with males (like our talk about video games). And girls playing the first person shooters that are stereotypically designed for males. We (women) are seeing what its like, testing the waters, experiencing and joining in. And why shouldn’t we?

For the Identity category, I read an article entitled “The Combat Zone: Game Grrlz Talk Back”. It is a collaboration of comments edited by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins. The main focus of this compliation of women responding to the gender seperation in the gaming world, and arguments that gaming culture is (maybe not on purpose) putting a divid between men and women, saying that “boys can do this” and “girls do this”. In one comment by Stephanie Bergman, she combats the gender stereotype saying that there is nothing wrong with the “girlie games” companies who produce Barbie and other well known ‘girly’ games, however, there is a whole other market out there of girls who like to do the same thing as boys, and this is play games like first person shooters. She argues that “We’re teaching girls that ‘these are their games’ and ‘these are the boys’ games’. She fears that we are regressing equality-wise to fifty years ago by enforcing this stereotype and making girls think that they need to do things based on their gender.  Another comment authored by Nikki Douglas takes more of an ‘angry’ approach— but rightfully so. She feels that girls are being put into a stereotype by the creators of video games, saying they are more ‘delicate” and don’t want to be bothered with those “rash” games. Douglas argues the contrary and says “Well, screw that! I don’t want to be friends! I want to be King!” – A statement I think that really emphasizes that while girls are stereotypically caregivers and like to take care of others, do nice things, etc. etc. does not mean that they dislike or would have no intrest in a “bam shoot-em-up” “fight for victory” kind of game. Girls want to be warriors too, we want to be able to save the world (in fact I think we would be better at it then most boys)!

First off, I found it entertaining that the author referenced N. Katherine Hayles’ book How we Became Posthuman since I just finished writing a paper on it. I also found it amusing that she considered the book to be “eloquent”… I say informative and interesting yes, eloquent however, not so much. The main idea from this article I found most interesting and wanted to discuss is the idea of interfaces that all us to pass a “virtual experience” line and connect our bodies more immediately and actually to the game in which we are playing. Not only do these interfaces allow us a more textualized experience, they can and sometimes do project our movements up on the screen for us to visualize. This experience is all together un-worldly because it is something with which we are unfamiliar. While we have felt the action of throwing a ball before, we have no seen ourselves throwing the ball at the time we perform the act. It can be like an out of body experience. However the projection becomes an interesting dilemma between us, a part of us, or completely separate from us. In other games where we are merely moving a character that looks nothing like us, it can be much easier to extricate it from us and say it is just a game, we are just controlling it. But when you add the fact that they are moving as we moving and doing as we do when we do it, how can we separate it from us? Should we? It is not 3 dimensional and technically it cannot feel, have the emotions or personality that we do, but it mimics us. Perhaps we can refer to it as a colorful shadow or reflection. Showing and mimicking the outer physical us, but not even remotely tapping into the inner soulful us. But this is just one idea, one though on the topic. Others could argue for different explanations or reasons, but frankly, just as I believe in religion I believe in the interactivity of video games, I don’t believe that an outsider can judge or determine for another what the other is experiencing or feeling. That person must decide for themselves, and it can be different, it should be different, and that’s okay.

Overall this article was insightful and interesting, however there is one quote on page 197 that I very much disagree with. “Ironically, the reader paging through the Balzac or Dickens, or, for that matter, Judith Krantz, has entered into roughly the same immersive state, enjoying the same high, continuous cognitive load, as the runty kid firing fixedly away at Space Invaders“. While I do attend to the fact that the first video games had a more fixed nature, similar to that of a book, I strongly feel that the immersive quality about that is/was much greater then the simple reading of text. Now don’t get me wrong, I do think that reading can be very immersive and encompassing however, the physicality of a video game, the actual movements that are required to be part of the interactive catapult the video in the immersive score far beyond that of a novel.

Also in this article is a quote by Csikszentmihalyi on the idea of “flow” in video games. The idea that we become completely absorbed and lose sense of self, time, and reality become distorted. I see evidence of this every-time a friend or family member beings to play a video game that they enjoy. It is an alternate reality that allows the person playing to escape from the constraints, responsibilities, etc. of their usual life. It takes them away and lets them be someone else for a while, with different problems (or none at all) different expectations, different everything if they so choose. It can be very freeing and tieing this into religion, acts as a sacred space or ritual in that it removes them from the profane mundane ordinary everyday life.