If Master Chief was debating either of the candidates in tonight’s presidential debate, my guess is he would have crushed them, despite his minimal of knowledge of foreign affairs and limited vocabulary. He is the archetype what the American public is looking for in a president when dealing with other countries: a determined, infallible, unquestioning hero, who would do anything to win the battle against a purely evil enemy. A hero that acts first and speaks later, that does not question his orders, and serves his people with honor and determination.
If the human race was being attacked by an alien enemy who threatened our extinction, we would need to fight with the kind of strength that only comes with a single-minded determination to “finish the fight” no matter what. If that was the case, there would be no one else better to fight on our side than the Master Chief. But no matter how you spin current world affairs, this is just not the case for the United States today. Although the U.S. is not being threatened with total annihilation, it faces every challenge to its world dominance as a comparable menace.
While the candidates spent a lot of the time in the debate tonight speaking about the specifics of their stances on a multiplicity of foreign policy issues, the overall message from both and the premise set from the get go by the questions themselves was very similar to the message one finds in most video games today: We, the rightful owners of the world, keepers of justice and peace, are under attack by an evil force who seek to destroy us for no logical reason. Regardless of whether the approach is war or diplomacy, whether the candidate was Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative, that was the base guiding principle behind every answer heard tonight.
Both candidates, when asked about foreign policy issues, from their attitude towards Iran to how to respond to rising Russian power, answered with a sense of entitlement and self-righteousness that would be fitting in a fictitious setting. They both talked matter-of-factly about “[imposing] significant meaningful, painful sanctions on the Iranians,” an act that has been shown to create immense suffering for the people of those countries, being directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of the poorest civilians. This vital fact went without comment. While they disagreed on whether or not the United States should have invaded Iraq, their positions were not based on the legitimacy of that invasion, but instead, if it was the right strategy. Senator Obama says about the lessons learned from Iraq:
“…Six years ago, I stood up and opposed this war at a time when it was politically risky to do so because I said that not only did we not know how much it was going to cost, what our exit strategy might be, how it would affect our relationships around the world, and whether our intelligence was sound, but also because we hadn’t finished the job in Afghanistan.”
He goes on to say:
“…I think the lesson to be drawn is that we should never hesitate to use military force, and I will not, as president, in order to keep the American people safe. But we have to use our military wisely. And we did not use our military wisely in Iraq.”
I’m sure a lot of liberals and democrats approved that remark, but it has been proven and it is now even part of mainstream dialogue around the war that the invasion was based on false information, and that was no real threat to the United States or any other nation posed by Iraq. The American public overwhelmingly opposes the war today, yet the two candidates dared not challenge its legitimacy, which is the basis of the public opposition. It was perhaps Senator Obama’s place to do that if he was indeed to respond to the will of the American people and be the left-leaning voice in this election, but that just did not happen.
Mr. Obama criticizes Senator McCain for “[threatening] extinction for North Korea” in the past. Later in the debate Mr. McCain denounces the Iranian president, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for asking for “the extermination of the State of Israel” and “wiping Israel off the map.” Regardless of these countries internal and foreign policies, what is highlighted here is that the way the gun is pointed is more important than the actions themselves. In other words, the total destruction of a country is not objectionable in itself, it only rouses the public if the country being threatened is part of “Us.” The truth is that the vast majority of the American public does not know exactly why Senator McCain would say such a thing about North Korea, and know even less why Mr. Ahmadinejad does not believe Israel is a legal state. But Americans somehow believe that they should blindly agree with their leaders and automatically repudiate the “other” leader, or worse, they feel that they know enough to make that call. I would argue that what msot Americans feel they know, and what lets them decide so readily which statement to condemn and which to applaud is that they see themselves as “the good guys,” and the others as “the bad guys.” The good guys must win, or the world will fall in evil hands. There is no alternative, therefore the leader is always right.
But while a simple narrative of antagonism between us, the fundamentally good side, and an evil “other,” functions really well for a video game like Halo, it just won’t do for the real world. Ours is a much more complex world than that of a video game, therefore the reasons wars happen are (still) very far from the easily understood threat of human extinction. But often the rhetoric around U.S. foreign policy comes dangerously close to that level of complexity, or rather, simplicity. Both Senator McCain and Senator Obama talked about the rest of the world, specifically Russia, Iran, Pakistan and North Korea as the de facto alien enemy numerous times in the debate. Their statements were not further questioned by the moderator, or by the television coverage that followed. The only discussion heard tonight was around their performance in the debate and their strategies, who did a better job, who connected with swing voters, etc, while the actual policies were left alone and unquestioned.
During the Halo trilogy we eventually learn that the Covenant were lead by a deluded few, the Prophets, focused on a goal that while they saw as their ultimate salvation, would ultimately exterminate all life: the firing of the Halo rings. A story that starts simple enough, becomes steadily more layered. Alliances that before were thought impossible are forged when an Elite Covenant, the Arbiter, fights along-side the Master Chief against the deluded Prophets and ultimately pays tribute to humanity on Earth’s very surface. Halo is “only” a video game, the same medium that is often dismissed as a juvenile distraction, but we are ready to experience its relatively multi-layered story, we are eager for complexity and shifting moral momentum and complain when our experience is simplistic. Indeed we find shallow stories boring and “a waste of our time.” Yet, we seem to be incapable of demanding the same from the stories the presidential candidates tell us about the United States and the world.
Why do we crave increasing complexity and realism from video games, yet demand so little from the powers that be? Perhaps the fear is that the fate world does not, after all, rest solely in American hands.
