Blogger Elaine Meinel Supkis at Culture of Life News has a metaphor for the insanity that strikes groups and individuals.
She calls it the Cave of Life and Death. Everything flows from this cave and flows back to it. It creates life and it also causes death. Our fairy tales carry warnings about it. Sometimes the cave is symbolized in fairy tales as seemingly benign or beneficial gifts, such as Geese who lay golden eggs, or spinning wheels that turn straw into gold, or happy fish that grant wishes. In the most potent form the cave appears as an actual cave, and it gives wealth but with the caveat that only the good hearted may enter. Almost always the ones who receive these gifts are rather everyday people, but with the power of the cave they give into irrationality in matters of wealth and sex. These poor people in the fairy tales, if they are lucky, end up where they started in the tale or they perish.
Supkis connects the cave to the destruction of our financial systems. In which bankers searched for the cave and found it through tricky financial formulas which were enabled by powerful computers and powerful mathematical geniuses. They were able to spin straw into gold and turn debt into wealth.
Her blog is indeed a fascinating take on human behavior and psychology.
But it was her comment on TV being the window into the cave that struck me. Immediately I thought about SL and other virtual worlds. As Supkis states, TV may be the window but the Virtual Worlds are the actual CAVE! As I once wrote, sometimes being in SL reminded me of being entombed with Khufu and his symbols of worldly wealth. An emperor who constructed the pyramid of Giza, his own bid to seize control of the cave.
Recent psychological studies have shown that virtual worlds are powerful and have powerful affects on their users psyche. They can give confidence that extends past the screen. They also can deal out abuse as some may try to control others or belittle them.
But the virtual worlds resemble the cave in that all who enter live as self made royalty. The cave gives us wealth, in that our avatars live richly. We are given everlasting youth and the ability to cheat death. We are given beauty unless a user defiantly chooses an ugly avatar. Ultimately we are given the opportunity to satisfy our hidden desires.
It is the hidden desire that finds its ultimate apogee in SL. Remember, we have created the cave but only the good hearted will survive. And even then that is no promise. Because in the cave amid the wealth, splendor and beauty lurks death.
I've noticed that people attracted to the extremes, when they try to fulfill those dreams in SL are enslaved by them. They seek out even more extremes. The cave has a nasty way of reflecting back our own illusions at us. It tricks us into thinking that these desires, now deformed into horrific extremes, are normal. That users have a right to these horrors in the flesh as well. You see, the cave flows inward and outward. We take our confidence from VR out into the world but we also take our less honorable lessons from it into the world as well.
This ties into the recent uproar about the Adult content and it's segregation in SL. It has brought out all the cave aspects in the users. In that they claim the cave is theirs and it gives them the freedom to do whatever they want irregardless of real world law. In the cave, good people see wonders but bad people do as well. In the middle of this controversy, "ageplayers" advocate for their right to create virtual child pornography. And people who would not support that in life, are so crazed by the cave of desire, declare that the cave is not real and therefore anything done inside it is inconsequential. Therefore all players have a right to satisfy their whims...even "ageplay" or more truthfully pedophilia.
What happens when the everyday Joe and Jane get what they want from the cave or cave symbol? They go crazy and eventually they lose the cave. For the cave was never meant to be something that is owned. It is a magical place that opens for a time then pops out of existence, like a bubble. Already other virtual worlds, different faces of the cave, are moving away from the SL form. They are trying to restrict what the cave offers. Will that work? I'm not sure. But the VR caves are also facing another form of control, real world law enforcement.
I believe we will soon discover just how real the cave is, and that it has enormous real world consequences.
As in all things, moderation should be the rule when entering the cave. But it is so easy to get lost and stray from the path to Grandma's house. Cerberus is out there, lurking and he lets none pass.Labels: computers, culture, fairy tale, mmorpgs, role play, second life, symbology, technology, video games, virtual reality, Warcraft