Walter Burkbert “Fuction of Transformation of Ritual Killing”

In his essay Burkbert wrties on violence among men and society. He begins by saying violence is good for the community as a ritual. It brings members of the community together in a celebration with rites, rituals and the crossing of members into the group from luminality sometimes. Durkheim would agree on these aspects regarding ritual killing of animals and/or sacrifice of people. After this Burkbert mentions ritual killing in the act of men has another meaning as well. Men have to fight death and defy it because at their core they are afraid of it. This is their primal urge to commit war which can be seen as man’s way to bring cosmos to chaos. In this sense we get the Eliade view of the sacredness through killing in order to return to the sacred.

In today’s society we can still find a lot of violence through film and video games outside of actual warfare. Here the everyday average citizen can still engage in this epic urge to kill. Girard makes the argument in accordance with Burkbert. I personally agree with each of these theorists thoughts and think there is something to the humans primal urge to fight and commit violence. I’m not sure if it relates back to Eliade’s theory of chaos to cosmos and somehow we are re-enacting it, but i feel like there is something to it. The only question I have for these theorists is how these theories apply to the non violence to Buddhists and Hindus like Ghandi? Are eastern religions lost by these theorists like so many other times?

Gonzalo Frasca “Videogames of the Oppressed”

Frasca makes the thesis that video games can be oppressive to the players in this essay. He starts the argument by stating people learn from video games by simulation after engaging in interactivity. This is very similar to Bogost’s theory of procedural rhetoric. With this theory applied one can see the argument since very few games actually allow for multiple ways of beating the game. One must beat the game in the designated plan of gameplay. When thinking of violent video games this is the argument people can use. The player only sees violence so learns it through interpretation. Personally I see and understand this argument as it has been made a lot throughout my childhood as games took off at an extraordinary rate of success than and still are today. It makes sense, but I like to think of games as a place to act out our biological need to kill instead of teach it. I’ll always remember the comedian Marcus Brigstocke’s take on the idea, “If video games had affected us then Pacman would have made us run round in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.”

The second argument Frasca makes is that some games don’t allow everything into them forcing the players to act a certain way. This is seen with the Sims and alcohol. The Sims is supposed to represent reality in the virtual world, but only allows people to live life a certain way. This way could be seen as cosmos in the thinking of Eliade. With this games are oppressing players into following social norms without explicitly showing it.

All together I found Frasca’s paper to be very interesting but I didn’t agree with it all together. His ideas all together seemed like a stretch to me, but I can see many people and theorists agreeing with him.

Catch up Ray Rappaport “The Obvious Aspects of Ritual”

Rappaport’s idea in this article is that the sacred is produced by ritual. In this sense a Christian’s cross isn’t holy till it was blessed in ceremony. This idea makes sense to me when considering the ritual of baptism. In this belief (as I understand it) a person’s soul can’t go to heaven unless he or she is baptized first. Here we can note that this act physically makes the person’s soul holy where it may have been unholy before. In this case the theory works; however, overall I found Rappaport’s argument flawed. Thinking of the religions of Native Americans many believed certain land such as mountains are holy and were that way long before people came into the world. There is also a flaw when considering prophets and messiahs. These people are to be the divine incarnate or something very similar. They are holy themselves. Under Rappaport’s thinking these people are considered holy until facilitated in a ritual.

This line of thinking makes sense to me, but I don’t agree with it at all. I personally believe in something spiritual (weather it’s God or spiritual energy) existing like Eliade does in his theories. I can’t see Rappaport’s views working unless one took an atheistic stance and said people only believe these objects or places to be holy once they start using them and seeing them in that light.

Summary of Frits Staal “The Meaninglessness of Ritual”

Staal’s theory is that rituals have no meaning. I personally can’t see anyone buying into this theory unless someone is an atheist. He states that our rituals aren’t linked to the spiritual at all, but I disagree. I’m not super religious, but I come from a Jewish father and Catholic mother and committed rituals for both faiths. Personally I feel something when I’m in a temple or church or lighting candles and reciting the prayer on Hanukah. In any case Staal argues that we commit ritual to form a community. When people pray or do another ritual they are forming a bond. He argues this is the only meaning behind ritual. This I don’t agree with, but I see his argument for someone that doesn’t believe in a higher power

Summary of Erik Erikson “The Development of Ritualization

In his article Erikson makes the argument that ritual begins at a person’s babyhood and is in fact biological in nature. This comes with the bond between mother and child. We are programmed to feel an intimacy and break it each time one is put in the crib or has to go to school. Once picked back up or coming home from school we are back with our mother and back we are coming back to the divine (mother) as Eliade argues in his theories. The cycle continues as people live their lives by learning the rules of society from their parents and in turn teaching them to their children. It follows a ritual of society while maintaining order. If people don’t follow these social paths they’ll lead to wrongly acts such as abusing drugs, sex and/or committing violent acts. When people get on this wrong path we must save them from their chaos and return them to cosmos just as we did through childhood.

I see the argument Erikson is making through biological childhood as a ritual. It keeps society in order by teaching values and providing a safe environment in which to raise our children. I can’t see any other way to properly raise a child besides provide a stable environment and it may be a programmed ritual, but I believe anyone that sees a religious aspect in it is looking into it as much as they want.

Summary catch up Eliade

When I took Religion and Culture last year we went over many different religious theorists. Two of them ended up being my favorite to use when studying cultures. The first was Durkheim. He was so scientific in applying all the categories groups of people had to be a community and they worked out very well. However, he didn’t believe in the existence of a “higher” power which I personally believe there is and should be accounted for when considering religious groups. Enter my second favorite Eliade. His book, The Myth of the Eternal Return this time around has some of the same features as the Sacred and Profane. The idea of heirophany, axis mundi and separation of reality from the divine are all scattered about in there.

The new ideas I pulled from this reading were man’s longing to act like God. This is prevalent in his discussion of man cultivating communities. When we create a town or whatever it is an act of creation, an primal instant to form something out of nothing just as God did. This can be seen as his chaos to cosmos theory in which God brought cosmos to the chaotic world. This idea has interesting aspects in today’s society as we have literally made completely new things with the Internet and virtual reality. In a sense we are God when thinking of these virtual places. Eliade continues this train of imitating the divine by stating humans do this in the creation of temples and through ritual. Whenever we create an axis mundi such as a church we are tapping into the divine and trying to recreate the divine temple from there. This goes the same for rituals. We are trying to remember the divine actions of God or Gods and do them here on earth.

In these arguments we can see the meaning of the title o the book. As Eliade states humans are always trying to imitate or return to the divine through recreation. So the recreation of rituals, temples and communities are all our primal urge to return, thus the myth of the eternal return. His theories are very intriguing to me when considering them in the western religious sense, but they fall apart when applying to eastern and indigenous American religions. They don’t state that the world was in chaos at the beginning, but this is a staple to Elaide’s theory. However, they seem to have this separation from the divine that Eliade always mentions. In either way I wonder what Eliade has to say about virtual reality and how we now imitate our imitations through virtual temples. Are these creations tapping into the divine or our recreation? We’ll never know.

Summary “Real Word Doesn’t Use a Joystick”

The article I read for today was about video games and their lingering affects on people. The article began with the story of Kozy Kitchens who plays a Japanese video game called Katamari Damacy. The point of the game is to start with a tape ball and collect anything to make it bigger. Unfortunately Kozy found it difficult to leave the mindset of the game in real life and looks at objects as if they could be used for the ball. Once she grabbed the wheel of the car from her husband to steer towards a mail box for an addition.

Kozy isn’t the only one to suffer from the blur of virtual and actual reality. The article goes on to tell the stories of other games who found themselves in similar situations as Kozy because of the mindset they have during the game. According to Robin Hunicke, a Ph.D. student at Northwestern University it isn’t surprising that these affects occur because games stimulate our attention to its extreme and we like it. Since people like this feeling we tend to focus like this outside of video games as well. We learn and apply it to our real lives. It isn’t limited to games either. Laura Martin uses Photoshop a lot to clean up imperfections in pictures and after intensive sessions will try to do the same in real life. She claims that she will see dust and want to clean it up just like Photoshop.

Overall I found the article interesting, but not persuasive enough to make the argument these events will happen to everyone. I’ve played many video games in my childhood and as a film major done quite a few long night sessions on Photoshop and Final Cut Pro. I’ve yet to find myself trying to apply these programs to real life, but maybe I’m out of the ordinary in this case. I would like to see a case study with hardcore gamers who suffer from this and others that don’t to see how frequently this happens to people.

summary “Representation and Self-Representation: Arabs and Muslims in Digital Games”

The article I read today focused on video games and their depiction of Arabs. The article is broken into five sections before coming to a conclusion. I found the author, Vit Sisler to be very informed in his argument throughout the paper with appropriate source inclusion. He begins with the first video game to his knowledge depicting Arab forces. They are a mere rectangular cursor in a game based on the 1967 Israeli-Arab war. The game itself takes a Zionist side states Sisler. Since this games with Muslim characters have continued to marginalize and follow stereotypes of Islamic followers. He continues this train of thought in his next third section particularly focusing on America’s Army and Command & Conquer: Generals as examples of typically showing Muslims as terrorists. We also see stereotypes of Islamic societies in his second section when games such as Prince of Persia are used as examples of having “orientalistic” elements. These include things such as settings, character types such as caliphs and typical Middle Eastern mythologies.

On these first two sections I understand Sisler’s view of how theses games are being narrow minded on how Islamic societies are. In today’s world most Arab citizens aren’t terrorists, and many nations are not the “backwards” oriental societies we think they are. While these games use stereotypes to gain popularity they don’t claim to show a realistic version of society in the Middle East today and draw a rather large audience. I think video games can use these stereotypes to draw more interest from people that don’t know about the region to the game and some of those players may go on to learn what the region is actually like. As for the idea that America’s Army has mostly Caucasian and Afro-American soldiers fighting Arab terrorists I believe it and it makes sense. The game is made by the US Army for recruiting purpose. What do people expect?

Sisler goes on in his other two sections to explain how in newer games stereo types are being taken away and greater understanding of Islamic societies is trying to be implemented. He uses Civilization Three as an example. We also find out in these sections that Arab companies are making video games now that depict themselves in glorious fights against Israeli soldiers and other oppressors in their eyes.

I think it’s good that we are seeing a world in which each side of an argument gets to make racist games towards their goals for young generations. At least we can see in this fashion that no one is too high and mighty to try and brain wash those who play video games. It’s sad, but I believe racism will always exist and as long as humans make video games it’ll be apparent there as well.

summary “Korean Shamanic Heritage in Cyber Culture”

The article I read for today was dealt with Shamanism in Korea and how it’s adapting to the internet. It begins with a virtual character that was made to be a “cyborg shaman.” It had a bad reception and was eventually pulled, but the cyborg shaman posed a series of questions for online Shamanic practices.  The author then tells how websites dealing with Shamanism are gaining popularity in Korea. Apparently Shamans are viewed the same as thieves in Korea, but many citizens are still curious about this indigenous religion. The formation of websites allowed the curious to learn about Shamanism. There are two types, the informative which just gives basic information and the commercial which sells talismans and conducts virtual divination.

We learn how these sites became popular originally by a contemporary Shaman that turned to the internet when his spirit guides became angry at him for socializing during periods of isolation. He found relief in cyberspace for his socialization needs. Once on the internet he found out that there weren’t any sites about only Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Wanting to bring information to Shamanism he began a website and started practicing virtual divinations. He found a very successful career in helping people through cyberspace and continues to do so.

I found the article to be very interesting. I know a little about Shamanism since it was a religion we covered in “Intro to Eastern and Indigenous Religions,” but I had no idea that Shamans were looked down at in Korea. The culture in Korea seemed hypocritic towards Shamans as many feared to be seen going to one, but actually have a great interest in their old traditions. The section on virtual divination was also very intriguing to me. I don’t know how divination works, but I’d be interesting in seeing one conducted in person and have a virtual one. I wonder if there are big differences or if cyberspace doesn’t change the act of divination. I hope someone compares the two one day.

“Going on Pilgrimage online: The representation of the twelver-shia in the internet”

The article I read for today dealt with the Shia Muslim religion finding space in the virtual world. It was a general overall look at Islam in the online world today dealing with issues of chat rooms, dating sites, virtual temples, e-mailing prayers to shrines and more. I found all the information to be interesting, but nothing new to what we’ve already seen in the class. The article begins by telling how Muslims in non-Islamic countries used online services to find Mosques and groups where they were living to join an “outcast” community. From here our focus is shifted to Iran and how it specifically deals with censoring the internet and the demand from its citizens for online access. Even though a lot of the internet is censored there some parts slip through the government’s radar and its citizens can discuss taboo issues such as sex and criticizing those in charge. From there the author discusses how the internet is also used to spread Islam throughout the world offering translations into Chinese, Hindi, English and many other languages. People can even ask clerics questions at certain sites.

Overall I found the article interesting for citing specific examples of how virtual reality is used in Islam, but i didn’t find any of the information new or groundbreaking. I’m glad that people from around the world are able to get a better understanding of Islam through the internet and even visit reconstructed holy sites online that only allow believers in person, but never the less this article didn’t bring any new information to my attention that this class and religion and culture did.