Panem et Circenses et Ludi Obtentibus

Otiumque

A note I recently published got a good bit of attention and motivated no small amount of commentary and I thought I might address some of the points I made at greater length. I was also inspired by a recent baby-adjacent podcast by The Storyteller's Corner on the subject, so do check that out.

The occasion for the note was a post by Simplicius on recent developments in the world of video games, which is to say further metastasizing wokeness, and the response of gamers to these changes, which mostly amounted to the various stages of grief centered on anger, bargaining, and acceptance. I took a bit of exception to the culture of gaming, for which some praised me, while others felt I was attacking a hobby that was not only harmless, but served a vital social function.

They’re the foundation of the meme economy.

Commenter Shinichi Haku for example, noted the following:

Gamergate has been both the least and most useful thing in the world. The least because the official response was exactly that, and the most because those who ignored e celebs and looked at results instead specifically became redpilled over the destruction of one of the few things Clown World offers men (bread and circuses), destruction that has since expanded elsewhere beyond gaming.

As for the implication those men should serve soyciety instead, that is, by definition something created by our enemies. And unlike the video games, which had interesting victory conditions at least until the subversion came along, Clown World was and always will be a one dimensional affair in which you press buttons and wait out timers while automata pathfind in your way and give you quests you don’t care about but go for because you need the resources.

The real lesson that can be drawn from this is that encountering enemies means you are going the right direction.

Shinichi Haku acknowledges that the games are fake but argues that society as a whole is just as fake and just as much a creation of the same hostile forces plaguing the world of video games. As video games offer the possibility of success, as opposed to the rigged and boring challenges of Clown World, it thus makes sense to prioritize gaming over normiewagiecuckie life. The psychological rewards of gaming act as a kind of therapy from the harsh realities of cold exploitation from a hostile world.

DOPAMINE!!!!

There is some truth to this, as I did point out, perhaps too implicitly. Our society is very much hostile to young men, especially intelligent and energetic young men. It’s worse still if you not only have those traits but poor social skills as well. It makes a great bit of intuitive sense for such men to gravitate towards curated worlds where their talents and abilities are rewarded.

But it f you’re encountering enemies there it’s not because you’re going in the right direction. It’s because you’re surrounded. Stage 4 woke attacks healthy and unhealthy tissues indiscriminately. Much has been written about Gamergate, but for my part I consider it one of the most hopeful political developments in the last twenty years, more so than Trump or populism or anything else. This is because it was a young man’s crusade- organic, vital, viral, and prompted by a real sense of cultural grievance. The tragedy of it was that while it had promise, it didn’t go far enough.

Remember guys, you have loser nerd hobbies, but when girls have them, they’re quirky and interesting. Also, Sarkeesian wasn’t faking interest to impress guys; she was faking interest to grift.

The commenter mentions the redpill. This means different things to different people, but in general the sense seems to be that the taker is one who is willing to see the world as it really is. The Matrix didn’t do it justice (it didn’t help that it was really an allegory for tr00ning-out anyway), because in the film it went down far too smoothly. Most people cough it back up. They need baby aspirin; they prefer the beigepill, which is to say, a heavy dose of liberalism- stat.

Going back and looking at Gamergate adjacent media one is struck by how generally the level of argumentation stayed within the strict boundaries of liberalism and libertarianism. The alt-right race-and-sex trolling got a great deal of press, and for some reason Pepe Auschwitz memes, but that was on the edges, however much it influenced wider right wing culture, tonally or otherwise. Paeans to free speech, demands to be left alone on the grounds of no harm being done, constant pro-forma denunciations of isms and phobias- the gamers weren’t really defending the big-boobed anime princesses at the heart of their rescue fantasies so much as expressing a willingness to leave their woke opponents with their own fixations in return. “Be as genderqueer as you want, zir, just don’t touch Lara Croft.”

Lara is my deadname.

The gamers didn’t make a case that what they wanted was better than what their opponents offered because liberalism had trained them to accept a society without any sort of meaningful hierarchies, only toleration, especially within the framework of consumer choice. If people want it and are willing to pay for it, it must be good. One sees this with the (Venn diagram looks like an eclipse) world of pornography. They are thus at a loss when arguing with people who wholly lack this commitment and very much do believe in hierarchies and enforcing moral strictures through any means available. Woke is fundamentally illiberal, which might be good except it’s also a full-on satanic inversion of order and goodness. It thus serves the purpose of not only discrediting those principles in the eyes of liberalminded young men, but also in destroying what healthy pre-liberal sentiments remain in their games.

Trads fight monsters; liberals feed them at taxpayer expense, hire them to teach your children, and elect them to office.

Don’t feel too bad; they did it to the jocks, too. They did it to corporate America. They did it to the military. I say Gamergate inspired me because unlike every other institution in the Western world the gamers actually fought back and were successful in meaningful ways. That they lost the plot wasn’t from lack of courage, but from ignorance as to what they were facing and as to what they themselves lacked. That can be remedied.

When I wrote that gamers should leave the world of video games behind and move to something else, I wasn’t saying the games were bad so much as urging young men to go beyond them. I’m not a gamer myself (a bit of Civilization and Ultimate General: Civil War, rarely) but I understand the appeal. Thoughtful youths appreciate a beautifully constructed world, a well-structured series of challenges, an ordered network that privileges hard work, struggle, and the urge to excellence. My point is that if you want that, if you are driven to achieve that, you should probably be studying Ancient Greek.

If you’re a young (or not so young) gamer reading this and thinking, “what’s the point of that,” go off the beigepill for a week and see how you feel. Liberalism is the seed oil of ideologies; you need to detox. It’s conditioned you to believe that consumerism and the gratification of wants- whatever they are- is the foundation of happiness. You already know that’s wrong, so why argue with me? Read Greek. If you really don’t like Attic prose, try Latin. If you’re a coder, you may prefer Sanskrit. Read history, literature, philosophy. Get actual physical exercise rather than directing digital avatars to run around for you on a screen. Paint with actual watercolors. The point is to aim your mind and body toward higher things. I would tell you to do so with your spirit as well, but I suspect that will follow in due course.

This is over an hour of someone talking about playing a digital version of playing a sport. You may consider just playing the actual sport.

I can’t stress this enough as well- make friends. You need a network and support, other members of your party, as it were. When you take on the world it fights back, and doing it alone isn’t advisable. And make no mistake, the world is very much against you, and it’s not a game.

When Juvenal wrote about bread and circuses, he wasn’t complaining about the activities in and of themselves. There’s nothing wrong with bread, after all, unless you’re on that CARNIVORE diet. He was describing a system, one that deadened the physical, intellectual, and moral character of those it ensnared. It was a system of control, one that was the product of state and parastate actors working in tandem to gratify the lowest sensibilities so that the higher would never be engaged. You know that system well. As in the days of Juvenal, it wants you fat, sick, and dull- in every sense.

Don’t mistake this system for society, however. Society is what you make, the sum of choices to go out, form bonds, share culture, and preserve Tradition. The system is trying to sell you what you could easily make for yourself, better and more permanent. It’s not easy, hence the need for the friends, but also a need to avoid counsels of doom. Retreating to games as a way of achieving a sense of achievement might feel good for a moment, but it’s digital fentanyl. It’s part of the way the system strips you of authentic meaning and sells you the fake version, or rather, rents it to you.

Over and against this system the spiritual aristocrats of Juvenal’s day valorized otium, which is to say, cultivated leisure. They understood that their rare gift of free time was meant to be used for the full expression of one’s gifts at the highest level. They pursued excellence; they sought to become worthy. If this sounds like some vitalist diatribe, understand that it was the Christians who most fully developed this idea, beginning with their Jewish inheritance of the Sabbath free from work and its supreme expression in the idea of monastic life and the ceaseless prayer of the heart. But you don’t need to be a monk, or a professor, or three-hundred pounds and shredded. You just need to move in the right direction. You won’t know that by hitting enemies; they’re everywhere. You’ll know it when you find friends.

You’ll want a fighter, probably a thief, a wizard, and definitely a cleric for healing spells.