Aristotle Apropos of Videogames
by foster ellis
Today we are in a society that contains many violent art forms. One of these art forms that contain violence is video games. There are many video games which are nonviolent however there are indubitably many violent video games extant in American society today. Aristotle thinks that the way people learn is through imitation. People imitate the way people around them act. Aristotle believes that good art imitates something. Aristotle thinks that even if an object is painful to see in the flesh, people are still happy to see a representation of it. Aristotle gives the example of dead bodies. Aristotle’s reason for people being delighted to see a representation of an object that would be painful to see in the flesh is as follows: learning something is a delight not only to the philosopher but to common people as well; the reason for people being happy is that they learn something from the given representation and therefore are happy form learning.
Aristotle’s view on art apropos of video games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto has two different interpretations. First, Aristotle would think that these games are good. A reason supporting this view is as follows: Aristotle wrote that people find representations of something, which is painful in the flesh, delightful, because they learn from it; this means that something that would be appalling on the physical level can be useful as an image, ergo a representation of war or crime, perhaps Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, can be not only delightful but also good learning tools. The second interpretation of Aristotle’s view on art apropos of video games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto is as follows: Aristotle says that people learn from imitation, therefore if people only see examples of negative actions then they will imitate those examples and then become bad people as a consequence. This interpretation is supported by the male heroism complex. A lot of child hood stories include a damsel in distress that needs a prince to save her. This leads the children to imitate that story which leads to a sexist mindset. This is an example of how art that contains bad morals can lead people to imitate those bad morals in everyday life. This example supports the view that people will imitate the negative actions of video games. One of this views main critiques on the first view is: people may learn from representations of images of painful things but what the aforementioned people learn is bad.
Aristotle’s view on art apropos of video games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto has two different interpretations. First, Aristotle would think that these games are good. A reason supporting this view is as follows: Aristotle wrote that people find representations of something, which is painful in the flesh, delightful, because they learn from it; this means that something that would be appalling on the physical level can be useful as an image, ergo a representation of war or crime, perhaps Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, can be not only delightful but also good learning tools. The second interpretation of Aristotle’s view on art apropos of video games such as Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto is as follows: Aristotle says that people learn from imitation, therefore if people only see examples of negative actions then they will imitate those examples and then become bad people as a consequence. This interpretation is supported by the male heroism complex. A lot of child hood stories include a damsel in distress that needs a prince to save her. This leads the children to imitate that story which leads to a sexist mindset. This is an example of how art that contains bad morals can lead people to imitate those bad morals in everyday life. This example supports the view that people will imitate the negative actions of video games. One of this views main critiques on the first view is: people may learn from representations of images of painful things but what the aforementioned people learn is bad.