The International Herald Tribune reports of a current discussion in Italy of whether Nutella (the chocolate spread) is left- or right-wing.
“Only Italians could turn something like this into an ideological question,” said Gigi Padovani, who put the question to a group of students at the Velso Mucci Institute, a technical school for chefs and waiters in this small town in northern Italy.
As the dark creamy treat turns 40, intellectuals throughout the country have been debating what Padovani calls the “cultural, social, artistic and gastronomic phenomenon” that is Nutella.
I often discuss ideology in games with TL, Gonzalo, and my other colleagues. I am always the one saying that ideology is partially a matter of interpretation and that you can’t really determine the ideology of Sim City or the Sims.
The Nutella discussion makes me realize that the problem is that I don’t really think ideologies work. That is, we do have ideologies, but ideologies are simply not able to describe and evaluate the world to the detail that we imagine.
I think that actual ideologies are flawed piles of contradictory beliefs, and that most of the actual world is too complex to be understood (or ruled) by a single ideology.
That is, we may believe ourselves to have a complete, good, and amazingly coherent ideology (left- or right-wing, for example) but in actuality each of us entertains numerous wildy contradictory beliefs a the same time.
Especially when it comes to art (and food), many of the actual determinations (left wing or right wing?) are going to be completely random. There is nothing in Nutella to give it affinity with any particular ideology (left or right).
The Russian composer Shostakovich was denounced as “formalist” (shudder) several times under Stalin. Now, while there certainly was an ideology that all things, art included, had a completely objective and determinable ideology, I think we would be hard pressed to claim any compelling connection between Marxism and being against “formalist” musical compositions.
Returning to games, Hans Petschar has an analysis of the history of chess across different cultures, where the introduction of diagonal movement for the queen and bishops is a “dynamization of space” and reflects European thought. I don’t find this terribly compelling either.
Many games just don’t “really have” an ideology, yet some games do convey messages and beliefs.
When is the ideology we see just a mirror of our expectations, and when is it really there?
How can we tell the difference?
Contradictions, incoherence, complexity, basically a messy world… I don’t know Jesper, sounds to me like we’re on the same page ;)
The notion of ideology appears to me to be difficult to make use of, for three reasons. The first is that, like it or not, it always stands in virtual opposition to something else which is supposed to count as truth. Now I believe that the problem does not consist in drawing the line between that in a discourse that falls under the category of scientificity or truth, and that which comes under some other category, but in seeing historically how effects of truth are produced within discourses which in themselves are neither true nor false. The second drawback is that the concept of ideology refers, I think necessarily, to something of the order of a subject. Thirdly, ideology stands in a secondary position relative to something which functions as its infrastructure, as its material, economic determinant, etc. For these three reasons, I think that this is a notion that cannot be used without circumspection
JP: Sims and Sim City are just prime examples of games that are often interpreted to contain all kinds of ideologies on what I find to be rather lose grounds. It happens to many kinds of games – when I was a child, my parents would talk about Monopoly promoting capitalism, but further inspection reveals that the predecessor (The Landlord’s Game) was made to warn against monopolies. The ideology isn’t in the game but in the assumptions around the game (if it’s American and popular, it must be promoting capitalism).
The concept of ideology that I find myself disagreeing with is the one that assumes ideology (or some other base like language or economics) to be a complete determinant of everything that happens and everything we believe. Like the position that Michel outlines above “seeing historically how effects of truth are produced within discourses which in themselves are neither true nor false” is clever and observant, they not also open the floodgates to simply interpreting everything you see (including games) as a reflection of what you believe to be the currently dominant ideology, it also allows you do dismiss whatever contradicts your personal beliefs.
A bit rambling, gotta run.
Unfortunately, ideology is usually one person’s narrow minded definition of another person’s narrow minded perception of what is and should be done.
And in the scholar’s dilemna of trying to make the observation/branding stick,ie be relevant in history, one risks oversimplying the inertia of an unrealised and highly explosive position that is not fully understood by the person who attempts to assert it.
The monopoly example is interesting but IMHO misleading.
The first game (Monopoly) may have failed in its intention, or the 2nd game may have realised greed pays (derivation by lineage does not necessarily mean inheriting the same values). I guess a simple test is to ask your parents if they think the first game (The Landlord?s Game) did obviously ‘warn against monopolies’.
apologies: should read
The first game (The Landlord?s Game) may have failed in its intention, or the 2nd game (Monopoly)may have realised greed pays (derivation by lineage does not necessarily mean inheriting the same values).
There’s “ideology” and there’s “ideology.” Some ideologies are indeed logical and self consistent (e.g, Marxist-Leninism, classical libertarianism), and a game developed for ideological purposes by an ideologue will be also. But while Will Wright may have some political/ideological impulses, he is no ideologue, and any ideological elements in The Sims are seconnd-order at best–his assumptions and ideas filtered through the game. Viewing games as ideological artifacts may be occasionnally enlightening, but ideology is not most designers’ main impulse, and whatever ideology they contain must be viewed as reflective of the culture rather than an attempt to change it.