Forked Thread: "The Death of the Imagination" re: World of Warcraft

[Mercurius]

Edit: I think the difficulty here is, unless people have played WoW pretty heavily, they're unlikely to "see" this. Someone playing WoW a few hours a week isn't really going to feel his imagination is being taken over or what-have-you, and he'd be right not to feel that. It's unlikely that many people who even post here have really experienced the effect for themselves. I know that, when 3E came out, if someone had told me an MMORPG like EQ could do this, I'd have said they were full of it. However, experience dictates otherwise.

Good point. I've never played any computer game "heavily," but I've had some TV and internet marathons that I've experienced this. One thing I've noticed is that as a writer of fantasy fiction, my imagination works best if I haven't been watching TV or on the internet prior to writing. I usually need to "cleanse the mechanism"--go for a walk, look at the stars, read Proust (just kidding on that last one).

 

[Mallus]

Yes, I would say that playing D&D and other tabletop RPGs CAN be part of the solution in that they actively exercise imagination.

When and if they actively engage the imagination. That's not a given.

 

[Hussar]

Did you not straight up say that playing too much WOW makes you less imaginative Mercurius?

How is that different from saying that people who play too much WOW are stupid?

 

[Fifth Element]

Hi Fifth Element. Let me clarify something and then (briefly) explicate my view on this. First of all, I did not insult anyone except for the World of Warcraft itself, which is not a person therefore not insulted (or so I hope!). If I had implied that players of WoW were deliberately "killing imagination" it would have been an insult (of sorts). What I was saying, or at least meant to imply, is that World of Warcraft--and games like it--actually kill, or at least atrophy, imagination.

You may not have intended to insult anyone, but the short quip of yours which originated this can easily be read to be insulting to anyone who plays WoW. That being said, this post does explain what you actually meant better. I disagree about 62%, but I really don't have anything to add to the discussion at this point.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Did you not straight up say that playing too much WOW makes you less imaginative Mercurius?

How is that different from saying that people who play too much WOW are stupid?

It's completely different.

Stupidity is a more or less permanent condition.

Having your imagination SUPPRESSED which is what he talking about is a temporary condition that lifts when the suppressing force goes away. That's precisely my experience of WoW.

 

[Mercurius]

Did you not straight up say that playing too much WOW makes you less imaginative Mercurius?

How is that different from saying that people who play too much WOW are stupid?

First of all, I am not equating imagination with intelligence. I take the Gardnerian view of "multiple intelligences" so believe that one could have a high IQ but little imagination, or vice versa.

Secondly, let me ask you a question. Do you think it is an "insult" to say that smoking causes lung cancer? Or that drinking excessive amounts of alcohol inhibits motor functions? If not, why is it an insult to say that playing WoW atrophies imagination? The only difference is that the examples of smoking and alcohol are commonly accepted, whereas what I am saying is not, at least in the "mainstream" (in some circles it is accepted as truth).

EDIT: And thanks again for Ruin Explorer for clarifying a point I should have made from the start: IMAGINATION CAN HEAL. It is more of a "suppression" and "atrophy" than an outright "death". This is not t say that I don't think real damage can occur--it can, imo--but that the human being is amazingly resilient and sometimes all it takes to "heal" is to stop doing what is causing the "harm."

 

[Mallus]

Oh man, less than a page in and it's straw-man city already. 'Cause, you know, the only reason to not watch TV and play MMORPGs is to listen to classical music and read dead authors, right?

There's no strawman here pardner, just an unsubtle reminder that when you make a hierarchy of edifying things, there are plenty of activities that rate higher than D&D. To say WoW kills and/or colonizes the imagination opens you up to the criticism that D&D does the same thing. There are more uses of a person's creative powers than pretending to be an elf. However, I think making hierarchies of edifying things is pretty silly.

Playing D&D is part of the solution, yes, I think so.

I don't think there's a problem on a societal level like the OP said. I'm leery of that kind of talk.

 

[Fifth Element]

Having your imagination SUPPRESSED which is what he talking about is a temporary condition that lifts when the suppressing force goes away. That's precisely my experience of WoW.

Okay, so what's the problem then? If the "condition" lifts when you're no longer playing WoW (the suppressing force going away), then why does it matter? So your imagination is suppressed while you're playing WoW, I don't see the issue there.

 

[Mercurius]

You may not have intended to insult anyone, but the short quip of yours which originated this can easily be read to be insulting to anyone who plays WoW.

Rule#4 of Internet Forums: Anything can be taken as an insult and will be by someone.

Or is that Rule#1?

 

[Goobermunch]

Did you not straight up say that playing too much WOW makes you less imaginative Mercurius?

How is that different from saying that people who play too much WOW are stupid?

Well, I'm not Mercurius, but I have known some very, very smart people who didn't have an imaginative bone in their bodies.

So my first point would be that smart != imaginative. People have many different mental faculties, and the more you use one, the stronger it gets. At the same time, the more you fail to use one, the more it atrophies.

F'rex: in high school, I was a math whiz (college level calculus) and a fluent Spanish speaker. In college, I decided to major in History, and took no Spanish. Post-college, I went to law school, and am now an attorney.

In the intervening years, I used virtually no Spanish and no advanced mathematics. Those skills have been lost to me. While I could get them back, it would involve an investment of time that I presently lack. Now, when I'm asked to do more complex math problems, I reply "I went to law school so I wouldn't have to take any more math." At the same time, my writing style has completely changed. Where I once was a reasonably accomplished fiction writer, I've spent a whole lot of time working on relatively dry technical writing. As a result, my creative writing skills lapsed.

Recently, I started keeping a journal of short fiction. As I do that, I find my creative writing has improved. In another six months or so, I might even be willing to share it with someone else (or at least disable the incendiary device I store in the lock box with the journal).

I don't think of myself as stupid. Maybe I am. But I do think that if you don't exercise certain mental faculties, you get rusty. WoW (which I have played extensively) does such an excellent job of presenting its creators' vision that it leaves very little to the imagination (less if there are female night elves involved).

Just my 2 cp.

--G