Welcome to AWordOnFailure!

Here you'll find the hosts with the most on the entire interweb -- Paul and Alex. Now that we've been successful bloggers “online columnists” for months it seems prudent to put up a welcome message for you, our esteemed reader.

Before getting to out fantastic content, realize that this isn’t blog; it's an online magazine. So don't mistake this as an online diary. It’s an expression of some of our ideas, observations, and queries. The topics covered here range from philosophical puzzles and problems, to economics and politics, to everything (we feel like covering) in between.

While everyone on the interweb should be obligated to read all our posts, it isn't really necessary. In fact most of our posts are separate and distinct - so you can dive right into our gianormous archive of older posts and start with whichever one catches your eye... and then express your own view in a witty lil comment!!

And on a final note, we'd like to say our target audience is the average, reasonable, and rational, adult; the everyman everyperson. But, really, our target audience is just our fellow broken misanthropes.

Treatfest.

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The Age of Innocence


“I was a daisy fresh girl and look what you've done to me.” (Lolita)


I saw an article in the local paper the other day about alleged sexual relations between a high school teacher and a student. As per usual, there was outrage. Sure, the student was 16 or 17 while the teacher was something like 33, but what’s the big deal? Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t defending pedos here. It’s just that we heard of lots of relationships where a senior citizen is with someone more than 18 years younger and we don’t scoff at these relationships (at least not in the same way that we do those like that involving the abovementioned teacher). So what’s the big deal with the one and not the other?

I think most people think the differentiating quality is that the student/teacher relationship is one of trust and authority. But is that really all? I’ve heard of professors fornicating with first year undergrads and that tends to garner the same sort of response as the Hugh Hefner-plus-playmates type relationships rather than something similar to the teacher/student response. With the prof-esque relationship the one party is only a couple hundred days older than her high school counterpart. And, the prof has a position of trust and authority not unlike that of a high school teacher. So, surely, a position of trust and authority can’t be that which grounds our moral outrage. So what makes us boo-hiss the teacher/student relationship but not the professor/undergrad relationship?

It seems that the younger people are the greater significance we place on an age gap (when talking about romantic relations). After all, a 17 or 18 year old who dates a 15 year old is going to muster a different reaction from the 15 year old’s mommy than the kind of reaction a 27 year old would get out of the parents of a 22 year old. As we get older, an age gap just seems to matter less. So maybe it has something to do with maturity and autonomy. These are things that come in degrees and, as we get older, we tend to gain more of each. As such it just so happens that we think the younger someone is the less mature and autonomous they are; meaning the younger they are the more they need to be protected (since immature people who are only somewhat autonomous need to be protected). Maybe that’s what our moral repugnance towards age gaps involving teenagers is based on. If so, that seems to suggest that, after all, trust and authority ARE a key part – insofar as anyone older than some sweet young thing is in a de facto position of trust and authority in virtue of an absence of maturity and autonomy in the younger partner. So, in older pairings (e.g. the prof/undergrad) the fact that it's a relationship of trust and authority is outweighed by enough maturity and autonomy.

Although, even if this is right, it can’t be the whole story. That is, it doesn’t get us an explanation as to why we’ve set the late teens as the benchmark for when someone can (more) legitimately get involved with an older person. That age just seems so arbitrary. Why, after all, is the age of 18 significant for things, like going to fight a war, consuming alcohol and tobacco, and being involved in the production of pornography?

Really, it’s not. Sure, we could ask why not 17? Or 19? They’d work just as well. But that’s not the point. The point is that, for the law to work, a specific focal point is required. That age is just a focal point – a benchmark agreed upon by convention because some benchmark was necessary. When we talk about other things – like when it becomes socially acceptable to date someone younger than you – something so precise isn’t necessary. We can make due with a vaguer focal point. So, I think, the arbitrariness of the late teens turns out to not be such a big deal.

It seems to me that our need for some kinds of focal point, coupled with the fact that older folk are always in a position of trust and authority with younger once, explains our attitudes towards the aged romancing the fresh. Our inability to clearly identify which cases are repugnant and which are just unsettling stems from the vague nature of our focal point. But that’s ok; we don't need to draw a fine line. It's ok for us to boo-hiss the teacher/students, shrug at the Hugh Hefners, and be uncertain about the prof/undergrads. I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. I fear that wasn't as clear as it needed to be. It's just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.



Gamer’s Paradise Lost

“With great power comes great responsibility.” (Peter Parker)

I like videogames. For instance these days I love Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It’s owesome. If you’ve never played it, you should. If you have, you should play it more. I eagerly await Modern Warfare 2 (due out this fall, I believe). But I don’t like every videogame. Most of the games I dislike I dislike because they’ve got crappy game play or are just boring. But this one fairly new game, inFamous (available for the Playstation3), I dislike because it tells people what is, and isn’t, the morally right/wrong thing to do in certain situations. And, call me crazy, but I’m not sure people should be learning morality from video game developers.

If you’re not familiar with it inFamous is, basically, a role-playing game like Grand Theft Auto wherein you wake up (or, if you prefer, your character) with special powers after an incident. As you play the game you can run around in a city and – like the Grand Theft Auto games –do whatever you want; you can just explore and blow shit up or you can do missions. That’s all pretty run-of-the-mill. What sets inFamous apart are the moral dilemmas you’re occasionally faced with. What’s interesting is that what you decide to do in these situations determines how your character is perceived by the public (in the game) and how they interact with you. Basically, you can decide to be good (a superhero) or evil (a supervillian). An interesting game concept, I’ll admit.

And that’s all well and fine. But, and this is where my beef lies, whether your decision is the morally “good” or morally “bad” one depends on whether it conforms to the moral compass of the game developers, not whether it’s objectively right or wrong. (Or, maybe more reasonably, whether or not the decision can be tenably argued to be a morally right decision).

Take the following situation from the game: You can either save the woman you love, or you can save 6 (count ‘em, 6!) doctors. But you can’t do both. Gasp! What would you do? What would be the morally right thing to do?? Well, according to the game developers, there’s one clearly right choice: save the doctors and let your sweetheart die. Classic Utilitarianism – the potential good for the community from 6 (count ‘em 6!) doctors outweigh any potential good that might come outta your squeezetoy. But what if you were predisposed to, or in virtue of well reasoned arguments, believe in some sort of Ethics of Care morality where your greatest responsibility is to those closest to you; where what we owe to each other is dependent on the relationships we have with one another? Or some other ethical theory (e.g. Virtue Ethics, Deontology) which prescribes the saving of the gf as the right thing to do? Nope. Sorry. According to the game developers you’re morally broken and in the wrong if you (for whatever reason) don’t agree with what they think is the right thing to do. So what happens here? Your character slides a bit more towards the evil side of the scale.

Whether or not you agree that the doctors should be saved in this case is beside the point; so don’t dwell on that. So what is the big deal? (The hippy asks.) It’s just a game, right? Sure. But it’s doing more than just being a game. It’s conveying moral sentiments to impressionable minds. And the people doing the conveying (e.g. game developers) don’t have the authority to do that and aren’t authorities on what’s right or wrong. That seems problematic to me. But not just anyone can get their hands of this game, right?

Well according to The Entertainment Software Rating Board, you need to be at least a teen (13+) to play this game. Now I dunno how mandatory these ratings are – if they’re like movie ratings (i.e. it’s the law) or just friendly suggestions to mindful parents – but either way, young teenagers are still highly impressionable and media like this can hugely influencing them. It’s not my intent today to say who should teach them what’s right and wrong; all I’m saying is that, surely, it shouldn’t be a videogame.

Come to think of it, most adults are pretty impressionable too. That’s how we get riots. And poor leaders elected into office. People are, generally, stupid. And most neophytes and philistines seem to assume moral matters are too complicated for them; take what they take to be the common sense right thing to do as the thing to do or the preachings of any authority. So, more than any other subject, we should be vigilant as to who can teach us all about what’s right or wrong.

I guess all I’m saying here is that it’s offensive for a vide game to tell me I don’t know what’s the morally right thing to do in moral dilemmas. And that, were I a superhero, I’d actually be a supervillian. I could say more, but I think that’s enough for now. I fear that wasn't as clear as it needed to be. It's just my spur-of-the-moment thoughts on the subject. I could be wrong. After all, what do I know.






p.s.: No, I don’t know what happen to Alex or why he hasn’t posted anything in AGES.