Zeal For Truth

I am Andrew Ryan and I am here to ask you a question:
Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow?

No, says the man in Washington. It belongs to the poor.
No, says the man in the Vatican. It belongs to God.
No, says the man in Moscow. It belongs to everyone.

I rejected those answers. Instead, I chose something
different. I chose the impossible. I chose…
Rapture.
-Andrew Ryan

The year is 1946. Disillusioned with war and perceived religious and political authority, business mogul Andrew Ryan secretly begins building an escape, a utopia free from the parasites of Marxist altruism and religious scrutiny. He built Rapture, a city where man could build, where a man could make himself by his own merit, where a man could be free from moral entanglements and social obligations. He built “Rapture,” at the bottom of the sea. He invites all the great minds and free-thinkers to relish in his wonderland of libertopia, free to do as they please, how they please.

And then, in 1958, it all fell apart.

So begins the story of Bioshock, the newest game for XBOX 360 and PC from 2K, makers of System Shock and System Shock 2. Set in 1960, the story tells of an Objectivist dystopia at the height of ruin. You, the narrator, crash land into the mid-Atlantic near a mysterious island containing a lone lighthouse. You enter the lighthouse, board a bathysphere, and descend to the depths of Rapture. Leaking and crumbling, and apparently victim of its own design, you must fight the denizens of the genetically malformed and psychologically disturbed to discover its secrets, and its powers.

Unbridled by regulations and rules, scientists in Rapture discover the way to unlock the power of the human genome. Andrew Ryan creates (discovers?) Plasmids, a genetic code that gives humans additional strengths and powers including telekinesis, fire, ice and electricity and powered by EVE, a substance that acts as a fuel. Another substance, ADAM, enhances the ability of plasmids, but also weakens the physical/brain barrier, requiring more and more ADAM to maintain sanity. Soon, the residents of Rapture, horribly transfigured and addicted to ADAM, go crazy. And revolt.

The Philosophy of Rapture
Bioshock raises two important issues behind its symbolism:
1) Is this a game showing the futility of Objectivism, and its consequences? or…2) is this a game showing that regardless of intentions, man eventually falls to its basest of levels?

The makers of this game never tell us, which allows much room for interpretation.

If we assume #1, then creators have made some inherent flaws and assumptions, through which most can be attributed to #2. But before we start, let’s begin with some basic definitions.

Objectivism (from Wikipedia, a decent summarization) states:

Objectivism holds that there is mind-independent reality; that individual persons are in contact with this reality through sensory perception; that human beings gain objective knowledge from perception by measurement and form valid concepts by measurement omission; that the proper moral purpose of one’s life is the pursuit of one’s own happiness or “rational self-interest”; that the only social system consistent with this morality is full respect for individual rights, embodied in pure, consensual laissez-faire capitalism; and that the role of art in human life is to transform abstract knowledge, by selective reproduction of reality, into a physical form—a work of art—that one can comprehend and respond to with the whole of one’s consciousness.

It is your moral duty to pursue your own self-interests, as long as those interests do not interfere or destroy the individual rights of others. This basic concept is key behind the objectivist movement, and a founding principle of (L)ibertarianism. It is also this concept that the game appears to make as its base in theory, but it could be argued that it was not Objectivism that brought Rapture down, but the fact that it was not quite Objectivist enough.

Food for Thought, and for Skeptics
Now I know by now many of you are thinking “BUT! IT’S JUST A GAME! YOU’RE CHASING SMOKE ON A WINDY DAY!” Well, possibly. But with it being the #1 selling game on XBOX, and with 9.8/10 or higher in most game review magazines, there is no doubt that this game will be played. Also, given its thought provoking plot, there is little doubt it will many raise questions. Consider also the Randian basis that this game builds upon, including the symbolism which alludes to famous works and characters of her novels. With names like Andrew Ryan….Frank Fontaine…Atlas…it’s not hard to see Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, Atlas Shrugged, and notice it’s more than just coincidence. Like a good book, or a good movie, this game was meant to raise questions and be explored.

Diving Deeper into Rapture
At the beginning of the game, upon first entering the lighthouse, we are greeted by an enormous statue of Ryan himself, proclaiming in crimson and gold: “No Gods or Kings. Only Man.” While proclaiming his own personal vendetta, the statue itself serves as mere pontification to his own lust for power, conjuring images of statues of Lenin in our first moments of the game’s bittersweet opening. It appears that the game creators erroneously fell to a common misconception among the layperson regarding objectivists/Libertarians, that if one does not believe in God, then one must worship MAN. While it is true that atheism is often a common thread, and self-interest is promoted beyond altruism, it ignores the basic fundamentals behind the philosophy.

From the Ayn Rand Institute:

“Rationality is man’s basic virtue, and his three fundamental values are: reason, purpose, self-esteem. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others; he must live for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; he must work for his rational self-interest, with the achievement of his own happiness as the highest moral purpose of his life.” Thus Objectivism rejects any form of altruism—the claim that morality consists in living for others or for society…..

The looming godhead figure and self-propagating hero worship that the game centers around is absolutely the opposite of true objectivist self-interest, who do not seek to replace one form of “God” with another (namely: man), as undue sacrifice to even the edifice of one man goes against the principles of of rational selfishness.

As you move on through the game, you meet Rapture’s inhabitants, bizarrely altered and deformed from years of genetic altering. Ironically, you yourself must go through the same process in order to survive, using Plasmids as weapons and obtaining ADAM whenever you find it. While Plasmids are relatively easy to obtain, ADAM is the precious currency in which all the citizens fight you (and each other) for. It is here that the source of this currency and the moral objective behind the game collide.

The Little Sisters/The Big Daddies

Physically and psychologically altered little girls, the Little Sisters were created by Ryan for one purpose: to obtain ADAM by sucking it from the dead and biochemically altering it inside the themselves using symbiotic slugs attached to their intestinal tracks. In order to obtain the full dose of ADAM properly, one must extract the slug, which due to the symbiosis with the child means killing it. Here enters the dilemma: Kill the children and obtain the much needed ADAM to survive, or rescue them, drastically reducing your ADAM source and making your advancement through the game that much more difficult. Though, assuredly, your approach to the Little Sisters is not without its own set of problems. Namely, each child has its own personal bodyguard known as Big Daddies. These genetically altered humans wear armor-plated diving suits, drill bit arms, and protect their wards to their own peril. Obtaining ADAM means destroying the Big Daddy protecting them. Your encounters with these pairs becomes increasingly important as the plot unfolds.

Irony : The true Downfall of Rapture
While the creativeness of the game is quite laudable, as one progresses through the objectives, one sees that the internal flaws of the logic/ethics behind Rapture’s rise (and fall) were not the fault of failed philosophy, but failed adherence to it. As one moves through Rapture, the story begins to unfold…and internal war, secret experiments, smugglers…wait. What? How could a system based on laissez-faire capitalism and total free-market economics have need for a black market? Especially in a supposed “Libertopia” where economic bans do/should not exist? It is here that we see the divergence from a true objectivist society. It is learned that in order to exact control of Rapture, Ryan outlaws certain aspects of consumerism in order to maintain a monopoly of power and enhance his own fortune using forced torturous human experiments. The plot begins to read like a Michael Crichton novel or world corporation scandal and less like an example of failed objectivist greed. Ironically, it was this very non-rational greed that lead to the downfall of Rapture, as the obsession with power overcame the balance of rational progress elicited by non-interventionalist self-motivation.

Morality and Freedom

A city where the artist would not fear the censor.
Where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality.
Where the great would not be constrained by the small.
And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.
-Andrew Ryan

It is here that one of the final flaws of this supposed Objectivist dystopia rears its ugly head, namely the logical fallacy of the nature laws and morality. It is the idea that if not explicitly banned or outlawed, man will perform the darkest of the soul and the opposite of the law despite themselves or their nature. Much like the fallacy that the legalization of drugs would lead to widespread usage (especially by those not inclined to do as such), here rests one of the basics behind the plot of rapture: that freedom of thought implies a loss of morality. The above quote from the game mirrors one of the flaws of the architecture of the plot of the game. The creation of ADAM and the genetic manipulation of the populace began with human experimentation against their will, supposedly allowed due to a lack of morality induced by “freedom”. Such an idea is, in fact, the opposite of Objectivism.

Once again, from the Ayn Rand Institute:

“The basic social principle of the Objectivist ethics is that no man has the right to seek values from others by means of physical force—i.e., no man or group has the right to initiate the use of physical force against others. Men have the right to use force only in self-defense and only against those who initiate its use. Men must deal with one another as traders, giving value for value, by free, mutual consent to mutual benefit. The only social system that bars physical force from human relationships is laissez-faire capitalism. Capitalism is a system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which the only function of the government is to protect individual rights, i.e., to protect men from those who initiate the use of physical force.”

Physical initiation of force against another individual (i.e. the forced genetic experimentation by scientists in the game) is indeed outside the bounds of morality, but to the game author’s chagrin, it is also outside the bounds of Objectivism as well. The implication that man is forcibly “bound” by morality perpetuates the myth that human freedom of action and a lack of central moral control leads to unfettered immorality and evil. Just as the illogical implication that lack of “morality” (ie laws) produced such immoral forced human experimentations, so is the fallacy that the creation of such laws upholds morality and prevents its transgression. The idea that such immorality would not exist in a world that explicitly maintains lawfully forced “morality” is absurd, to say the least, as it infers that one’s moral actions is based upon their range of freedom and not their will. Essentially, that all of man will commit acts of utmost horror if given the freedom to do so. If this is the reason for the horrors seen in the game, then it is not due to Objectivism, but the inherent flaw of humanity. It could then be reasoned that the downfall of Rapture was not the failure of Objectivism, but that the flawed founding theories were not inherently Objectivist enough.

Rising to the Surface
Overall, as far as gaming, Bioshock delivers, and delivers well. Solid gameplay, immersive atmoshpere and stunning graphics will guarantee you hours of action and entertainment. My advice? Go get yourself a copy and enjoy!

My advice to the author’s? Next time you decide to design a world based on a popular philosophy, try reading a book.