A Piece of the Antidote
Sometimes listening to the news can be demoralizing and just plain sad. As I’m writing this, we have marked the one year anniversary of the tragedy at Newtown Connecticut when one truly disturbed gunman took the lives of 26 people including 20 children in a burst of gunfire. At the same time, another troubled teen entered a school with weapons (reportedly a shotgun, machete and Molotov cocktails) looking for a teacher and ending up shooting and killing a 17 year old classmate. And this is only two of the far too many many instances of gunplay taking the lives of innocent people in situations that seem truly unfathomable.
It’s been suggested that it’s all about gun control. Others stress mental health and treatment of disturbed individuals as key factors. But a small (and maybe not so small) piece of the problem is the rise and use of technology.
Now progress is a wonderful thing. Advances in technology are staggering and, for the most part, terrific in improving the quality of life and I’m not for a minute urging a return to the 19th century. But, as with almost everything, things have unforeseen consequences. As the tide of technology rises, humanity recedes. We need to restore the human elements in humanity. With all these advances bringing people together on one level, it’s amazing just how little PERSONAL interaction there is.
You’ve probably seen, as I have, kids sitting at the same table, faces down, buried in their handheld electronic devices, TEXTING. Not looking at each other, not talking to each other but TEXTING. (Sometimes, even texting each other while they’re sitting there together!) It doesn’t stop there. People reveal EVERYTHING about themselves on Facebook so you’d think that would bring people closer and yet cyberbullying encompasses words and actions normal human beings would NEVER do or say on a face to face basis. And I’m not the only one that sees this as a problem.
According to published newspaper reports, a number of websites including Google and the Huffington Post are trying to curb excesses by doing everything from employing moderators to requiring people to log in with their REAL names in attempts to restore civility to online exchanges. This technological closeness often becomes degrees of separation. When you don’t recognize fellow human beings as fellow human beings, when you are desensitized to and distanced from them, they cease to be living, breathing fellow creatures and you cease to treat them as such. To a certain extent, that could account for the inexplicable responses to real (or perceived) problems that rapidly escalate from rational responses to explosive and destructive conclusions.
I’m not a psychiatrist, psychologist or expert of any kind on human behavior or why things like this have happened. But let me throw in my two cents and offer what I see to be a piece of the antidote to this alarming trend.
Although games have embraced technological advances (playing games with various APs, for example, is an expanding phenomenon), games, if we remember their roots and apply them, can, at their best, be a piece of the antidote to what can be our worst. They can serve to resurrect the dying qualities of sportsmanship and respect for your opponents. When you actually sit across a gaming table, face to face with your competitors, you need to and want to communicate, sometimes verbally, sometimes through actions taken, but always on a more personal, human, level. You are connecting with another human being. It’s easy to hate “in the abstract”. It’s much harder to hate so much that you need to explode in violence when you see the “other person” as a human being who shares some qualities with you, who, in more ways than you might at first realize, is like you. And that’s a piece of the antidote worth exploring.
This issue of GA Report is the first for 2014! This time around, we get in touch with our inner Indiana Jones, cross paths and do our own kind of tap dance! Greg J. Schloesser gets that sinking feeling, Kevin Whitmore goes planetary while Jeff Feuer see stars. Chris Kovacs goes “Norse, young man” and Andrea “Liga” Ligabue get steamed. Pevans travels down a glass road and Joe Huber get nautical (but nice)! And, of course, much more, including the return of our Game Classics Series!
Until next time, Good Gaming!
Herb Levy, President
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