GTA San Andreas promotes immorality

[lord of the mark]

I believe in an aristocracy of talent and virtue (though of course I dont want it to have any formal political privileges - I just want it to exist, and to act). Does that make me an elitist?

BTW, Molly, Im now reading a book you MUST read. "The Cousins' Wars" by Kevin Phillips. On the English Civil War, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War, and the continuities between them.

[Sava]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
I believe in an aristocracy of talent and virtue (though of course I dont want it to have any formal political privileges - I just want it to exist, and to act). Does that make me an elitist?

yes

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Sava
yes

too f**king bad, then.

Have a nice day.


for anyone who is interested, heres the full quote from Jefferson (in a letter to John Adams)

"There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. Formerly, bodily powers gave place among the aristoi. But since the invention of gunpowder has armed the weak as well as the strong with missile death, bodily strength, like beauty, good humor, politeness and other accomplishments, has become but an auxiliary ground of distinction. There is, also, an artificial aristocracy, founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents: for with these it would belong to the first class. The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed, it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society. May we not even say, that that form of government is the best, which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendency. "

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Sava

...like being savaged by- how did Denis Healey put it ? a dead sheep.

'Sava indignatio' proving none too Swiftian, nor savage.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Bill3000
Porn promotes immorality too. What's so special about a video game whose entertainment value comes from its coverage of taboo subjects?

I didn't play San Andreas, but if Vesayen is to be believed, it attempts to make the game's criminal action into a moral matter. It's not like simple "coverage" of taboo subjects, like in the previous GTAs, but it sounds like actual promotion.

If San Andreas maintained a distance between the player and his actions (i.e., if it maintained the humour or the amorality of the previous GTA titles), I wouldn't be bothered. But if San Andreas is preachy, it is promotion.

For the record, I have been confronted to many disturbing things on the internet (browsing the Portal of Evil does it to people). But the most disturbing thing I ever saw on the Internet was not a picture or a video. It was not an outrageous hate text. It was an articulate, polite text: only one that defends pedophilia as a moral choice. A text to which I suppose many pedophiles flock to feel better about themselves and about what they do.

If San Andreas is preachy about what it does, it's in a completely different league than the previous GTA titles. Just like that pro-pedophile text is in a completely different league than, say, mediatic coverage of pedophilia.

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by VetLegion
I played a lot of Civilization games. Robbing convenience stores? Hah! I laid waste to cities, pillaged regions and emptied continents.

You too?

Personally, I especially enjoyed that Civ3 earth game where, as the Arabs, I was pestered by the Zulus, which diverted my military resources from the fronts I wished to open. I genocided every Zulu on Earth. Slavery was too good for this scum

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by molly bloom
And I know how deadly Gustave Courbet can be to impressionable minds on Apolyton.