Stick it to the Thing

Sorry about this, but we need to get into some philosophy to help with future articles. Basically put, even though videogames are a tremendous part of our lives, they are still just a thing. Things didn’t always mean simple object, but that is how this article will use it. When we look at a stick, we know its a stick, but we also know it can be anything. The problem comes when we start to say that the stick can only be one thing, or that somehow misusing the stick is not a problem.

A thing was not originally what you are thinking of. It was a meeting place of Germanic peoples. Many of our modern ways of governing come from these ideas, and it is a very fun bit of research to do. Even today, there are parliaments, and governing bodies called Things. The fact that the word now means an object, or a specific thought process does not take down the original meaning. For this article though, thing means object, not council or assembly.

To help understand what I mean, lets imagine a stick.

bask in its glory!

You probably remember playing with one as a kid. Remember, it was just a stick the entire time. This small bit of broken off wood became all sorts of things. You could use it to become a mighty sorcerer, or a sword fighter, or baseball player. When I was a child, I would take a rope, and tie a stick to my backpack. Without any troubles at all, I became a ghostbuster.

I was poor

Like a stick, we can also have abstract things like thought processes. The entire concept of Nationalism is based on the fact that it is an idea or thing. Once again, it is entirely in your mind how this thing works. Does your nationalism work for your ethnic peoples? What about the people living in a specific area? Nationalism is the same as the stick in that it can do very little, until your mind, or imagination is engaged.

The problem is that nationalism can have some very evil things about it. If we looked at the many horrific wars, and genocides of last century, we would see nationalism. Is it nationalism that caused the atrocities, or was it the way nationalism was used?

In the same way, a stick can become a weapon. You can turn your magic wand into a club with just a thought. The stick was helping you battle the ogres at hogwarts moments ago, and is now beating up your neighbor. The object, or the thought really isn’t at fault. The use of the object is how you end up with problems.

In the same way, videogames are a thing. We basically have arguments over which stick is shinier, and thus better than the other. It remains a stick when we play games, because it is our minds creating more than what we see on the screen. We can buy all sorts of cool things that promote those things represented by the game, but they are merely things about a thing. A videogame is just a stick in the end.

So, what happens if the game is violent? What happens if the game has characters do things that are evil? Should we judge the concept of videogames? Is it still just a game? The answer is yes, gaming is still just a stick. The problem is that you turned the stick into a weapon. You chose to take the magic wand, and turn it into a club.

as seen here

Another problem happens when we say the stick can only be used one way. It can only be a club, or it can only be a gun. In the case of gaming, it is called the Casual vs Hardcore gamer. As soon as you say that you can only believe the stick is one thing, you sort of miss the point of playing with the stick. The stick can be anything. It is still just a stick plus your imagination.

Although thing as a word has changed over the centuries, the modern concept is really useful. It is no longer an assembly of leaders, but an object or a thought process. Math is a thing. Nationalism is a thing. A game is a thing, and once we view it like that so much opens up. The problem is that once we recognize it as a thing, the violent, or evil games show not the stick, but what we made the stick become. In the same way, we can not demand the stick, or game, become only one thing. It is a really philosophical way of viewing things, but it can help us understand gaming in a much easier way.