Friday, April 07, 2006
CIv 4 and The State
Whether or not you know this, I have a new addiction that I am battling unsuccessfully: Civilization 4. I am into politics and international relations, yet I am totally unable to attain employment in any position that allows me to work on these issues. Civ 4 is a wonderful outlet for this built up desire to change the world: I can take fake civilizations, micromanage every part of their development and attempt to lead them to glorious victory. Moreover, the game’s multitude of possible victory conditions allows me to adapt to my current mood. If I’m feeling like getting some aggression out, I can go conquer some weak civilization that has been giving me grief. If I am feeling pious, I can go for a “space race,” victory or cultural domination.
When I played the original Civilization, I refused to use nuclear weapons. I was young and idealistic and had been taught that nuclear weapons were not something to be used under any circumstances. If I could not win the game without resorting to nukes, I did not deserve to win.
Now, I am still young and idealistic, but I no longer feel the need to limit my chances of victory by moralizing. And Civ 4, being more advanced than its predecessors, offers plenty more opportunities for me to prove my lack of compassion and commitment to total victory. If my cities are getting too big (and potentially unhappy and unhealthy,), why not sacrifice some population through slavery to build an extra swordsman. If I’ve given my civilization one thousand years of representative government and pacifism, they won’t really mind fifty years of a police state while I fight a quick war, (they were protesting too much anyways, it’s their fault.) And if Frederick the Great and I are on great terms for over two millennia, but he is a little too close for comfort in the race to space, why not send a few tanks and helicopters to pillage his outlying towns for gold and raze a few of his poorly defended cities. It’s all part of my great plan, and the death and destruction are not real.
Yet I wonder today how much those who plan our government are distanced from the damage they cause and view loss of life or curtailing of freedoms of it’s citizens as exercises in power that are 1) necessary evils and 2) part of their great plan to rid the world of Terror and spread whatever values they believe in. Judging from their actions: detaining people in Guantanamo without basic rights like speedy trial or the right to attorney, starting some wars with various levels of justness, the answer appears to be: plenty.
Of course in real life, people actually die. And the game doesn’t end in 2050 with whomever having the highest score being declared the winner. So why do leaders in real life behave in exactly the same way as those in the game? Shouldn’t we all be going for cultural victories or the space race: sitting happily on our continents, sharing technology and resources?
Utopia is derailed by the fact that there doesn’t seem to be enough to go around. Oil. Money. In accepting capitalism as the global standard, we have insured that some will win, some will lose, and some are born to sing the blues. In promoting competition, we promote conflict, even if the same spirit may be responsible for driving progress as fast as possible, we also insure that internally countries must deal with the fallout of the lack of distribution of wealth and the demand for more of everything.
But more importantly, utopia is derailed by the fact that the leaders of the world are human beings and thus, flawed. Some are religious zealots who don’t trust heathen countries. Some don’t trust countries with leaders who don’t take the same political ideology as they do. All of them have demands on other countries that would make their jobs easier, and varying levels of ability to get what they want. And all of them want to keep their job, because they think what they are doing is more right than the next guy.
At least in our country, we have some sort of choice over which wealthy white male we put in our leadership position. More importantly, we have a system of government that allows for flexible governance, and does not consolidate power into one individual. In these troubled times, when we have clearly got a leader with multiple personality flaws, who does not accept heathen religions, or countries who don’t like his favorite civics, it is our responsibility as citizens to limit his power. We can do this through civil disobedience, causing unrest, and most importantly, voting out Bush’s allies in the mid-term election. Finally we can do this by naming me Supreme Dictator For Life. I promise that I will be nice to the populace.
