This is the piece I wrote that I mentioned in this weeks podcast – here for your reading pleasure!
So… I received the latest issue of Game Informer magazine in the mail. I know what you’re saying, “Phil – why on earth do you subscribe to a video game magazine?”
Fair question. If you’ve ever purchased anything at a GameStop store, you know it’s nearly impossible to walk out of that place without somehow having agreed to free issues of Game Informer magazine. So they show up in your mail, you pick them up and say, “Oh.” Then you drop them in the recycling bin. But before you drop them in the recycling bin, you glance at the cover art and say, “Oh my.” What’s on the cover? Something very, very aggressive. It may be a soldier. It may be an alien. It may be a bank robber. But whatever it is, they will be angry. And armed. And aggressive. Because that’s what American men like.
This month’s issue celebrates the upcoming release of Grand Theft Auto 5 or 6 or 12 or whatever the new version might be. Grand Theft Auto, for those of you just returning from the mission field and completely unaware of the last decade of American pop culture, is a game so aggressively violent my home state of Illinois attempted to make it illegal. It’s a game that allows you to set a police officer on fire on your way to picking up a hooker whom you are going to murder.
It makes me miss Tiddly Winks.
The image on the cover of this month’s Game Informer shows three men in a Grand Theft Auto-inspired scene, out to make mischief. And no, they aren’t on their way to teepee their high school or egg the neighbor’s front door. One has a handgun, the second an assault rifle, the third is pulling a gas mask out of a bag, apparently implying his contribution to the party will be chemical weaponry. They look angry. They look aggressive. What is odd, though, is that they also look to be in their late 30s or early 40s. They’re practically middle-aged. They’re the age that should be coaching their kids’ t-ball leagues and barbecuing in the back yard. They should be speaking at Rotary meetings and serving as deacons in their churches. And yet here they are, armed to the teeth, ready to lay waste to Los Angeles.
Why? Because apparently, that’s what American men want.
What’s going on here? Defenders of violent video games like Grand Theft Auto say giving men the opportunity to wreak virtual mayhem reduces their likelihood of wreaking actual mayhem. It helps them “get it out of their systems.”
Really? Is this really in their systems? Are millions of American men constantly fighting the urge to go all “Grand Theft Auto” on their fellow citizens? Is that REALLY what’s inside us?
Men have a “warrior” instinct. Don’t believe me? Watch any promo for the National Football League on any given Sunday. I rest my case. We want to go all “Grand Theft Auto” on something. Alexander the Great went all Grand Theft Auto on the Persian Empire. Genghis Khan did it to the Chinese. Hitler did it to half the world.
There was a day when our warrior instinct was indispensable. The world was a wild, lawless place. Someone had to clear a forest while fighting off bears, wolves and injuns. Someone had to conceive herculean construction projects – marshall troops to dig the Panama Canal through malaria-infested jungles. Men, with our warrior instincts, tamed the world. But now that the world has largely been tamed, we don’t know what to do. Constant warfare – as much as our warrior instincts love a good fight – is really expensive. Everything you break you need to build again. Fix it. Put it back. Clean up after yourself. It isn’t a good way to run a society. So survival of the fittest has given way to the rule of law, and international treaties, and UN peacekeeping. After taming the world, we’ve turned our attention to taming ourselves – taming men.
And the rule of law – the taming of men – has allowed something extraordinary to happen. It has allowed women to lead. In business, in government, in virtually every area of society, the rule of law has opened the door for the best possible leader – not simply the biggest and most aggressive person in the room.
So we find ourselves witnessing a dynamic that should seem instantly familiar to anyone who grew up in a typical American household – men making messes, and women cleaning them up. Only now this dynamic is playing out on an international scale. Greedy financiers – almost entirely men – went all Grand Theft Auto on the global economy. Europe sank into fiscal chaos. And two women, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, are attempting to clean up the mess.
Christine Lagarde is an extraordinary person. If you’ve seen the award-winning documentary Inside Job with it’s insightful analysis of the global financial meltdown, you’ve seen her. She is the interviewed expert who consistently makes the most sense. She wasn’t head of the IMF at the time the documentary was filmed, though – at that time that job was filled by a Frenchmen named Dominique Strauss-Khan. Strauss-Khan lost the job and gained a great deal of notoriety when he went all Grand Theft Auto on a hotel housekeeper in NYC. The housekeeper entered his room to straighten things up, and, allegedly, 60 year-old Strauss-Khan ran out of the bathroom buck naked and jumped on her. And thus the job running the International Monetary Fund was removed from Mr. Strauss-Kahn and handed to Ms. Lagarde. Once again an aggressive man makes a mess, and a woman is called in to clean it up.
So what is happening? Have men outlived their usefulness? You could say that a shift is taking place – that the world is shifting from a paternal order – building and conquering and fighting – to a maternal order – cleaning up and maintaining and “can’t we all just get along?” And many men of the old school seem a bit confused. Poor old Osama bin Laden stuck in his compound watching DVDs and waiting for the Navy SEALs to show up. You almost feel sorry for him. “I just wanted to takeover the world. Guys used to do it all the time.” Sorry, fella. Permanent time out. Saddam Hussain, hiding in his spider hole with lice in his beard. Sorry, fella. Permanent time out.
And so we come back to my issue of Game Informer with the middle-aged guys looking to open a can of Grand Theft Auto on someone. Is this the desperate cry of the alpha male, completely flummoxed by the changing tides of culture? Is there nothing left for aggressive men except video games and the NFL? Fictitious conquest? Fantasy football leagues and all-night Halo4 marathons, while our wives manage the world? What has become of us?
Has the “age of men” officially passed?
escapistmagazine.comI agree that the “Warrior Instinct”, that most men have to an extent, as a combat/conquer mindset either has no relevance or looks anachronistic to our mainly peaceful culture.
I, however, tend to think of the state of men’s “Warrior Instinct” as going through a sort of transitional phase. I personally have never been much of an aggressive person, but in my recent formative years, I’ve understood that where men nowadays should be exercising their “Warrior Instinct” is in the ways that are obviously not requiring physical ability (though the physical Warrior aspect of men obviously can be reflected in the popularity of sports). I believe that godly men (or for the benefit of the world as a whole, even non-god-following men) today should be strong, and yet gentle; fierce, yet kind; aggressive and yet diplomatic; etc. etc.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/escape-to-the-movies/866-G-I-Joe-The-Rise-of-Cobra
I watched the above video a while back. In it, film critic MovieBob talks about how his Dad’s and granddad’s G.I.Joes (based off of men in actual branches of the military that fought actual evils) were different from the 1980s G.I.Joe cartoons (focused on a fictional branch of the army that fought fictional Supervillain Cobra Commander) he grew up with, and how the similar fictional boys’ fixations of the 80s onward may have impacted the sort of jumbled view of manhood his and my generations have faced, and ultimately how manliness has now had to be reworked by each man on his own terms.
Now, as far as the Grand Theft Auto thing, I’d agree and say that “Guys with Guns:The Game” is kinda how Rockstar is trying to market the game to its usual audience.
However, I think that the reason the 3 main characters in the new game were chosen to be middle aged men (the games have been increasingly aging and detailing its main characters) has to do more with Rockstar trying to present a story they want to be taken more “seriously”. The early GTA games started as satires of pop culture and other games, but have lately tried to go for a more “serious” edge. Grand theft Auto 3 told you nothing about the main character, but Grand Theft Auto 4 had a lot to say about its immigrant main character and him finding his place in the “American Dream”.
Here’s the cliche answer: Turn to God.
Now, here’s my sinner’s response. Yes, I pray often. I ask for guidance, and I also find constructive releases that cause no harm to others. Most of the time, I dwell in a quiet place, staring at the ceiling. When I can muster up enough strength, I expend energy at the gym. Or, I read (trying to read the bible through for the first time….I’m only in Leviticus….ugh.), watch television, play with my toddler son. Most of the time, I look for employment. I’m sure something will come along.
It takes a lot of effort for me to get out of bed some days, especially for church. But I usually go, and enjoy the service if I managed to get there in time.
I don’t play computer games anymore. I used to let it consume a great deal of my time, but I have lost interest. Perhaps the things of earth do grow strangely dim. But, now I count the days until I’m 64 and a half. Then, I can cease working for Corporate America and spend time being focused on doing better things, if Social Security is still around. 11286 days and counting…
I have a bad case of warrior instinct, coupled with this teaching that I was special, and that God has big ideas for me. That is the danger and problem with our society. Whether it’s Christian-backed, or substitute God with “the universe”, when it is taught in this way to young and aspiring males, a few of us come up with grandiose ideas (which are rather misguided) and then we rage out when we discover we had the wrong idea (I think I raged inward). Generally, it comes after glorious failure and embarrassment. The whole time, what we were supposed to garner from all that hype was that we’re supposed to grow up, learn something to land an 8 to 5 job, raise a family, pay taxes, give tithes and offerings, take out the trash, wash dishes, get up each day repeating what was done yesterday, and on the Saturdays mow the grass. In addition, in between ‘saving the world’ by conforming to society, we’re supposed to love our wives and uplift them because they need us to be strong pillars. Oh, and by the way it’s sinful to think anything but happy thoughts and that this is true bliss.
What? You want to conquer a small nation with your bare hands? Sorry, there are no more Job Requisitions for that position. We need to send you to specialist to have that defect corrected.
No, I’m not bitter, I’m just defeated.
edit: “other times,” instead of “_Most of the time_, I look for employment.”
Sorry Rasmuris to hear of your defeat. Have faith in God. Find a new testament church where you can be discipled or where you can disciple another. I know they are hard to find. Start being a servant for others and the Father will guide you to where you need to be. Seek his Kingdom and you will find. Grand Theft Auto is just evil fantasies from dark heats. What do you expect from the unregenerates?