AGAIN has re-published online Fr. Jonathan Tobias’ article on the spiritual dangers of virtual reality technology, No Life in Second Life, from our Fall 2007 issue, Orthodox Christian Leadership in a Brave New World. Fr. Jonathan’s piece sparked some interesting dialogue between himself, Fr. Schroedel, and AGAIN’s managing editor, Douglas Cramer. So, we’re publishing this as an online exclusive, Discernment and Virtual Reality. Please feel free to e-mail the three participants with any comments or questions of your own!
When I was teenager, my father would often say, "There's something wrong with this heavy metal music that's so popular today. The music I listened to when I was young—like The Rolling Stones—might have shocked people then, but this music kids listen to now is just wrong." Today, I find myself saying the same thing about rap music.
Concern by older generations over the habits of the young is nothing new. The paramount example is the quote attributed to Socrates by Plato: "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."
As an Orthodox Christian father struggling to raise three sons, I recognize the potential dangers of virtual reality, and of video games in particular. At the same time, I have found that such games can be a valuable part of family life as long as discernment is used. After much trial and error, our household has settled on a structure where we regularly enjoy together DVD movies and history programs, but via rented disks. We do not have broadcast television of any kind, and have not for years; an environment that has been greatly aided by home-schooling.
We regularly play video games together as a family, and find them as beneficial in building loving shared family memories as my own playing of Risk or Solitaire or Kings in the Corner—or even Pac-Man—did when I was a child. We cheer for each other, we laugh together at parts of the stories told through games, we have healthy competitions, we reflect together on the visceral triumph of good over evil that is the centerpiece of the majority of games.
On the whole, I have found this to be a vastly less spiritually dangerous involvement with technology than that indulged in by the majority of American families, via broadcast television. While television did in the past often allow for us to find interesting programs, it much more often fostered an addictive pattern of channel surfing and brought in to our home an enormous host of demonic presences not of our choosing—particularly in the form of advertisements either fraught with sexuality or engendering extreme greed on the part of our children for new toys and gadgets. One of the most valuable changes brought on by 21st century technology is the great increase in individual choice. With discernment, anyone today can choose precisely what images and stories will be present through the "electronic hearth" at the center of so many of our living rooms.
But in order to benefit from these options, Orthodox Christian adults—particularly parents—must be willing to engage with the technology, to view it as a family, to read reviews. Banning video games while also leaving a teenager at home alone on a Sunday afternoon with a television ripe with soft core pornographic football game advertisements and sadistic horror movies is not a recipe for the development of a healthy, loving home and family. We are all called to be fully present for our loved ones, and to cultivate a rich life full of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful—even when they're found in unexpected places, like the emerging art form of video games.
+++ Douglas Cramer, Managing Editor, AGAIN; againeditor@conciliarpress.com
I hope I'm not coming off as a Luddite (although I think Ned Ludd had some good points about the Industrial Revolution). I think games themselves are fine, whether it involves a real ball or a "virtual" one.
It is the VR experience of transgression that worries me, and the general movement toward "simulated reality," which is the basic philosophy undergirding Second Life.
I also wring my hands over the steady lapse from interaction with "reality"—so in my heart, I'd rather see a child shoot real hoops and capture real flags, skinning real knees and aching from stitches in their real sides. I worry about terms like "electronic hearth." There was something sacramental about the fire in the old ones. The phosphorescent one doesn't quite make it.
+++ Fr. Jonathan Tobias, janotec77@gmail.com
I've had a number of happily Luddite phases in my life, and still resonate very strongly with Rod Dreher's "Crunchy Con" concept, of which you may have heard. (His excellent website is at http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunchycon/.) We've lived in the sticks, heated with wood, kept dairy goats, shopped local. We went without television of any kind, and even tried living without a car, for many years. Then our eldest son started wanting to go to his grandparent's house all the time simply because they had TV, and became fascinated with Star Wars. Ever since then, we've been—like most I'm sure—striving to find a kind of balance.
I do feel the great loss of the "combustion hearth" at the center of human existence, and have tried at least to maintain through such vehicles as classic literature and wilderness exploration an appreciation for this older way of being, in both myself and my family. At the same time, I doubt barring social catastrophe of some kind we're going back there as a society, and the vast majority of us won't ever be or even live like monks. So, what do we do? The "electronic hearth" was actually much more of a fixture in my own suburban New Jersey childhood in the seventies than it is in my own household today; I grew up with the TV as babysitter in a broken home. I think as I hit 40 that I'm more inclined towards "moderation in all things"—perhaps to my detriment.
I think a fascinating and essential discussion for Orthodox Christians to have revolves around the question: "Is virtual reality capable of being transfigured?" Is it akin to the printing press, which I believe has been, or hardcore drugs, which I believe are irredeemable? And your article is a great place to begin that discussion. May it be blessed!
+++ Douglas Cramer, Managing Editor, AGAIN; againeditor@conciliarpress.com
The idea of transfiguring virtual reality is appealing, but I think it calls for a certain negative. Leaving off the issue of games (since there are quite good electronic ones, and games can share an innocent sort of virtuality with stories), the pseudo-community of virtuality is essentially occultic, if not demonic. The avatar in Second Life (and all the others) cannot escape its essence of being a lie.
I didn't mention this in the article, but I know there is some discussion in SCOBA circles about constructing an Orthodox Church in Second Life. A dear priest friend is one of the main proponents of this venture, and he justifies this idea by referring to the old practice of proclaiming the Gospel in the Bowery.
I happen to be one of those unpleasant cranks who cannot believe, even with all the Fuller Gospel Association statistics, that broadcast media has really helped evangelism. It has helped distort the Gospel, and has innoculated zillions of people against the reality of Holy Tradition. But has it really forged Christians? Perhaps virtual Christians.
Christianity requires sacrament, the primacy of the human voice, and a koinonia marked by molecular exchange. Just as the Church is not bound by time and space, so also the Church cannot exist unless it is in body and in place (how's that for doggerel?). A Church can use technology, but it must never require it.
This is why the suggestion that Second Life or any virtual community is essentially neutral, and can be redeemed, is worrisome. It is why the consideration of starting a mission in Second Life (who will have jurisdiction? who will be the patron saint? what about the antimension?) turns my mind out like a Mobius strip.
I mourn for good men and women like you who had to grow up with phosphorescent blather instead growing with parents who, like my dad, made me listen to the Sons of the Pioneers, and told hokey stories about chicken coops in the forties. But I rejoice that somehow, people like you made it, despite the electronics.
God bless you indeed.
+++ Fr. Jonathan Tobias, janotec77@gmail.com
The age of augmented and blended reality has already dawned. Our lives are increasingly lived online. Looking into the near future, it isn’t unreasonable to expect near universal broadband access combined with micro-convergence devices (the cellphones of the future) that keep everyone everywhere connected to the internet most of the time. Improved automated translation tools, better artificial intelligence and a three-dimensional web enhanced with advanced geo-mapping and media tools are also on the horizon. We will have access to vast amounts of raw data, which, given attention and proper interpretation, will yield significant gains in knowledge and understanding. These technologies will provoke tremendous changes in social relations, business, education, and church life.
Fr. Jonathan reminds us about the need for vigilance and discernment in the use of technology. Some of his best points – about the need for restraint and spiritual vigilance – echo what Archimandrite Aimillianos, the former abbot of Simon Peter on the Holy Mountain, wrote in an essay entitled “Orthodox Spirituality and the Technological Revolution.” Orthodox engagement with virtual reality does need to be an ascetic endeavor. It will be a struggle, as it always has been, to maintain a spirit of prayer and to guard our hearts in devotion to the one true God.
I largely agree with Fr. Jonathan about the character of moral action in the virtual world. There was a thought-provoking blog post about this awhile back by Edward Castronova, the Roman Catholic author of Synthetic Worlds, entitled “The Horde is Evil” in which he lays out this principle: “When a real person chooses an evil avatar, he or she should be conscious of the evil inherent in the role. There are good reasons for playing evil characters - to give others an opportunity to be good, to help tell a story, to explore the nature of evil. But when the avatar is a considered an expression of self, in a social environment, then deliberately choosing a wicked character is itself a (modestly) wicked act.”
I also agree that the nature of our relationship to technology has changed. I think of Heidegger, who, in an interview published under the title “Only a god can save us now.” made the point that “modern technology is not a tool and it no longer has anything to do with tools… The task of thought is to help limit the dominance of technology so that man in general has an adequate relationship to its essence.”
I think Fr. Jonathan goes too far, however, when he suggests “that there is something blasphemous at the basis of virtual reality” and connects it unambiguously with the fantasia of the Fathers. I also disagree with him about the potential for meaningful communities to form online.
Linden Lab’s Second Life is not a game. The virtual world isn't simply a separate, alternative universe. It’s part of this one. It’s about people, social networks, and ways of communication that only the most speculative science fiction of fifty years ago could have conceived. It's not unreality, but an extension of reality that mirrors all the richness and decadence of human life, with all of its dehumanizing passion and cultural achievements.
It is not just a question of having a "libertine MySpace" page, or engaging in shoot 'em up games. Immersive virtual worlds are here to stay. They will quickly develop, becoming tightly and seamlessly integrated into our daily lives. If you want a taste of what this will mean, I’d recommend David Gelernter’s Mirror Worlds.
I have no doubt that there are things that can’t be done in cyberspace. I would hate to see the kind of dystopian world imagined in the Wachowski brothers’ Matrix (which in my mind would be a sure sign that the second coming of Christ was drawing near.) On the other hand, there are types of communities that can only develop in cyberspace, and go well beyond what we can do in "real life."
Imagine an online community of Orthodox Christians where users login from all over the world. Their conversation together is automatically translated, so that each person understands what is being said in his or her own language. Smart tags in each user’s profile helps connect people with similar interests to work on projects together. Virtual classrooms bring theological education to a wider audience that ever possible before. A mapping feature allows people to browse for parishes online, and then connect to a description and history of that particular parish, view the demographics of an area, and recent updates about church life. These are just a few of things that will be possible; many already are to some degree. It would be a shame for us to miss these kinds of opportunities.
Virtual reality helps us see that our world has always has been virtual to some degree—existing in the realm of culture and ideas rather than merely raw, embodied nature. All cultural and religious systems function as a kind of social and symbolic overlay, humanizing the world and filling it with meaning. It seems to me that virtual worlds, powered by imagination, are not so different.
Fr. Jonathan lauds The Lord of the Rings, but I think this comparison might be more apt that he expects. I close with these words from Tolkien’s essay“On Fairy Stories.” He writes:
To many, Fantasy, this sub-creative art which plays strange tricks with the world and all that is in it, combining nouns and redistributing adjectives, has seemed suspect, if not illegitimate. To some it has seemed at least a childish folly, a thing only for peoples or for persons in their youth. As for its legitimacy I will say no more than to quote a brief passage from a letter I once wrote to a man who described myth and fairy-story as ‘lies’ . . .
“Dear Sir,” I said—Although now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned:
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons—'twas our right
(used or misused). That right has not decayed:
we make still by the law in which we're made.”
Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make.
Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess. It can be ill done. It can be put to evil uses. It may even delude the minds out of which it came. But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true? Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshipped them, even worshipped those most deformed by their authors' own evil. But they have made false gods out of other materials: their notions, their banners, their monies; even their sciences and their social and economic theories have demanded human sacrifice.
Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.
+++ Fr. John Schroedel, jschroedel@gmail.com
Glory to Jesus Christ, and nice to "meet" you Fr. John, and I am aware of the irony latent in my greeting over an e-mail. I wouldn't blame anyone for linking me with an Amish guy caught in a phone booth.
So instead of a decent critique of a critique, please allow me to accept much of the substance of your argument, but permit me, too, to add that I think you're too optimistic about the progress of technology. You pointed out a trenchant comment by Heidegger, and I think he's spot on (and it takes a lot for me to agree with Heidegger). The hyper-virtualization of the world that is happening now has long antecedents, as you pointed out, and the Church was able to utilize these earlier tools. But those antecedents, besides benefiting us in many ways, also acclimated us to a very different mode of community—a community that, for the first time, is completely moderated by a machine.
To be sure, there is much to learn and to enjoy in this marketplace or carnival. I like e-mailing new people and having conversations such as this one. But even this pleasant interchange really isn't conviviality. I would much rather talk this over at the Eagle and Child, by a fire and over a pint.
And frankly, there is not much conviviality at all these days. People, by and large, don't know how to talk decently about good things. They don't talk in paragraphs, let alone complete sentences or thoughts. And I fault the trivializing force of television for this primarily. God knows what the continued aggregation of privatized fantasia that industrialized virtuality will accomplish: if we're complaining with Neil Postman about TV now, just imagine what we'll do about VR on the Web in just 10 years.
You quoted one of my favorite poems from Tolkien. But he was talking of fantasy, not virtuality, which are two very different things. He was much more of a Luddite than I, describing goblins (in that great agrarian masterpiece, The Hobbit) as the real inventors of machines -- humans just took the credit. He bemoaned the day that the atom was ripped apart at Trinity. He cursed Ted Sandyman's mill, which looked very much like the new one that ruined his own boyhood town.
Tolkien was a big believer in fantasy, but not technology, not at all. He closed his poem Mythopoea, which he wrote to Lewis, with this: I bow not yet before the Iron Crown,/ nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.
You're right. Virtuality is here to stay, and it is part of this world, but it is not part of Creation. I can foresee a day when virtual connections will be the norm of human relationships. And on that day, when a real face is seen behind an avatar, it will be just another line item on a MySpace profile.
+++ Fr. Jonathan Tobias, janotec77@gmail.com
