Ever wonder
why video role-playing or online fantasy world games are so
compelling? Your parents wonder. They typically don’t get it, and
you can’t explain it. To you it’s a self-evident fact. Well,
here’s your short course on why. Use it as you will.
There are
grand themes governing human life: birth and death, good and evil,
courage and cowardice, freedom and slavery, and so on. There are
heroes and heroines who fight for each. They are mythic characters who
keep reappearing in new forms every generation. Jason and the
Argonauts reincarnate as Arthur and his Round Table, who become Luke
Skywalker and the Jedi knights, and around it goes again. The myths
and stories about these timeless struggles between the Light and the
Dark are renewed each generation because each new crop of apprentice
adults must choose sides, choose roles, face challenges, and defeat
their dragons. You can’t truly be an adult until you do so.
This is why we
have so many pretend adults in the world. They didn’t go through the
required initiation. They skated around it and found lifelong cubicles
of complacency.
So, now you
know the type of video game I mean. Of course, there are the mindless,
no-plot games, and I have no problem with them, but I actually approve
of these other games—the ones that force you to practice the skills
of the hero.
What makes a
hero? There are obvious answers. He (or she) can fight, strategize,
lead, and such. Each character in a game will have specific
capabilities and limitations defining it (as in real life). But what
is common to them all? What gives them life?
They all hear
the call. They all rise to the challenge. They all are willing to
sacrifice for the greater good. They are all guardians of humanity.
Now, when you
get to U.S. History in your studies, pay particular attention to
Thomas Jefferson. I’m going to quote him here, but don’t be put
off by his stilted and formal English. You see, Jefferson saw the role
of education as preparing you to hear the call, rise to the challenge,
be willing to sacrifice, and to be the guardians of the Republic.
In the
Rockfish Gap report, in which Jefferson delineated the institutional
mandate for the University of Virginia, he wrote, “The objects of
... primary education determine its character and limits.”
Jefferson says
a number of things in his terse way. First, a student must be literate
and have a clue about the way the world works (literacy and science).
Then a student must develop some sense of community. Jefferson saw
that as the citizen’s duties, which were to “know his rights; to
exercise with order and justice those he retains, to choose with
discretion the fiduciary of those he delegates; and to notice with
diligence, with candor, and judgment; and, in general, to observe with
intelligence and faithfulness all the social relations under which he
shall be placed.”
Jefferson’s
vision of education was one that prepared the student to manage his
own affairs, and to manage the affairs of his government, his society,
and his immediate community. He emphasizes this by his use of the term
‘fiduciary.’ You don’t see this word very often, but what it
defines is the relationship between the trustees or board of directors
and the organization they represent. Basically, what Jefferson is
saying is, “Don’t trust bozos to run your government.”
Jefferson’s
vision was a government dependent on and accountable to the voting
population. The weak link in this was the voting population itself.
They had to be intelligent, disciplined in their thinking, progressive
in their values, and uncompromised in their ability to make decisions.
They needed to see the long view of where the Republic was going or
needed to go.
For example,
ever wonder why we don’t have a Department of the Future?
All of our governmental Departments are about the past
responding to present crises. Wouldn’t it be nice to have somebody
thinking about where we’re going? Planning for the future?
Developing contingencies about, say, global warming, oil, alternative
fuels, job markets, and about a trillion other things? Our current
state of affairs is exactly what Jefferson was trying to avoid.
Without
citizen participation at an immediate level, Jefferson feared the
Republic would descend into an institutionalized form of mob
(majority) rule. Leaders would be chosen based on popularity contests,
and on the candidates’ promises to pander to their constituencies.
Public debate would be reduced to sound-bites, emotionally charged
language, and single-issue loyalties. Education, according to
Jefferson, would prevent that and elevate the business of society to
an exercise in thoughtful discussion, consensus building, and true
statesmanship.
The simple
truth is that the teen years are when you are an apprentice adult. You
learn and practice the adult skills of relationship, career, physical
self-care, and so on. But, more importantly, you also prepare for the
adult responsibility of preserving the Republic. Training for that
means that in addition to becoming an employee, spouse, or parent, you
become a ‘hero.’
So,
when somebody asks you about playing video games, you can tell them
Thomas Jefferson would have approved. It’s good training for your
role as a citizen of the United States.
Bruce
Bibee
is a licensed professional counselor in private practice and a Kung-fu
instructor. His one published book is The
Deep Healing Process, Infinity Publishing.
