Is It Real?

This week in class we learned about the ideas and realities of war. Then for our blog we were given the task of finding a gamer friend and conducting an interview with them. I decided to interview my friend, Dale, who plays a number of games that could be considered violent.

Q: What games do you like to play?

A: I play Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops and I really like Battlefield 3.

Q: What do you do in the game Battlefield 3?

A: You get to play as a military sim, instead of just a shooter.

Q: Why do you like it?

A: It’s a way to relieve stress in a way that you couldn’t or wouldn’t in real life. I’m also interested in war and history so it’s interesting to me. It’s not like trying to complete a puzzle where you build up all kinds of stress and have no way to release it; it’s also a safe way to experience war. Plus all my friends play and I can interact with them while playing the games.

Q: Do you attach what you experience in the games to reality?

A: No, I understand that the game isn’t real and that it is unlike actual war.

Q: When you watch real images and videos of war, like the one above, how do you feel?

A: I know people who are in the military so I connect their faces to what I see. I know that they are real and not fantasy.

Q: Do you feel like playing these types of games gives you a false sense of war?

A: No, I understand that real war zones aren’t like the games. Because I know a bit about war it’s easy to understand the difference between reality and fantasy.

Occupy Oakland: Police VS Protestors

Our objective for this weekend’s blog post was to find a picture of an occupy Oakland protestor in pain and to examine it from all viewpoints. Looking through the many pictures of injuries one that stuck out for me was of a young man that had been hit with a rubber bullet during the protests. His picture was taken and uploaded to the occupy Oakland twitter page.

        

       If I was a protestor or supporter of the protests looking at this picture I would imagine that I was the victim. I would connect with him and feel a great amount of sympathy for his pain. I would also experience anger at the police for using so much force on unarmed protestors like him. Though they used rubber bullets I would care, I would only see his injury. The fresh, open wound that I can only imagine is horrible painful would only add fuel to my fire. From the views as a protestor I would want to continue on his behalf, so that his injury wasn’t for nothing.

               On the other hand if I was opposed to the protests I would view this picture very differently. Looking at the photo I would feel sympathy for his pain but anger at the protestors as well. I would see the face of a man who was aiding in a violent and aggressive protest that needed to be handled. The fact that he was protesting and actively taking part would cause me to have less sympathy for him. He put himself into that position with the knowledge that injury could happen. I would also see a man that was not shot with an actual bullet merely a rubber bullet.