Today, video games are not just entertainment, they are real art. If earlier people criticized, ridiculed and idolized different views with the help of performances or cinema, now this can be done with the help of Video Games. An excellent example is the 2007 game Bioshock, what inspired the creators of the game and what philosophy the city of Rapture was built on, I suggest you dive into the bathysphere and find out.

Looking ahead a little, I will say that the philosophical doctrine of objectivism is at the forefront. Bioshock may seem like a familiar work to you if you have previously read the book “Atlas Shrugged”, as in the novel, the game has a utopian society based on pure capitalism, but it would be completely boring to see how everyone is doing well, therefore, BioShock’s lead game designer, Ken Levine, showed how it’s easy to turn Utopia into Dystopia. The philosophy of bioshock will be formed precisely from the teachings of objectivism, but by no means, it will not be a carbon copy of the thoughts of Ayn Rand (that’s the name of one of the founders of the philosophy of objectivism, by the way).

The work will have its own train of thought, its own ideology and views, and the creator of the city of Vostrog will show us this: Andrew Ryan. The main antagonist of the game, an ardent fan of pure capitalism and rejects any views that have anything in common with socialism and communism

The game addresses such fundamental issues as: Socialism; Communism; Capitalism; Free market; The Invisible Hand of the Market; Altruism, Moral and Ethical Standards and Laws. And this is all affected, at first glance, in a first-person shooter. Isn’t this proof that a person can create and create real works, not only on paper or in movies, but also in video games?.

Hello everyone, let’s touch on a serious topic. For centuries, people have criticized, ridiculed and idolized different views on the way in life through art. And video games are not left out. Those of you who believe that games are not art, I will not argue with you, because it is up to you to decide what to believe in. I believe that video games are a new step in the art that people are just mastering. Let’s get down to business.

Economics, there is too much hidden in this word. And most importantly, this concept was invented by people, which means that the interpretations of what this term means will differ from those who tell you about it. Decide for yourself what is true for you. I’ll tell you mine.

Humanity has always been interested in Utopia, a place where people will live without any problems. Of course not. Humanity was never interested in this question. This question was of interest only to philosophers, those people who had time to think. Believe me, a person who works 24/7 to feed himself and his loved ones will never think about such issues, his mind will be completely different.

Some games explore this concept, and one interesting example is a game called Bioshock. If you look at it superficially, Bioshock is a good shooter, with fairly nice graphics and an interesting design. But if you go deeper, you will be surprised how much the game wants to show us our vices, to ridicule the way of life that always seemed correct and the only true.

The game shows a classic capitalist utopia flowing into a complete dystopia.

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I will have to burden you a little with economic terms and right away I will tell you why they are meaningless to me

Communism, communist totalitarianism, objectivism, capitalism, classical liberalism, individualism, collectivism, minarchism, free market, invisible hand of the market. Black market, monopoly, oligarchy, oligopoly..

Do you feel? how your brain starts to tense up and question itself. Why so many different names?? In addition, the meaning may be interpreted differently in different sources. Everything is very simple, Economics is not Mathematics, not physics, not even quantum mechanics. This is a thing that did not exist and appeared only because people wanted it so. But, for example, the force of gravity was always there, no matter what a person thought about it.

That’s why I really don’t like it when people come up with terms and laws that only work in their own world.

And now that you have at least a little idea in what vein, the conversation will begin. I will tell you about the economic system that is present in bioshock.

One man built an entire city to satisfy his own desire. Desire, which was given the name Hedonism from ancient Greek. “pleasure, pleasure” where this is the highest good and meaning of life, the only terminal value.

This man’s name is Andrew Ryne. Remember his name, it means much more than a randomly chosen name for the main antagonist of the game.

He will meet the player for the first time with the following monologue.

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I have come to ask you: does not a man have a right to what he earns by the sweat of his brow??

No, they tell us in Washington. Everything belongs to the poor.

No, they say in the Vatican. Everything belongs to God.

No, they say in Moscow. This belongs to everyone.

I rejected these answers. I chose something else instead. I chose the impossible. I chose… Delight. A city where the artist is not afraid of the censor, where the great is not limited by the small, where the scientist is not constrained by sanctimonious morality… Delight can become your city too.»

Now it’s worth introducing you to such a concept as objectivism, understanding this concept is very important for assimilating the following material, so I ask you to be extremely careful about what is said below.

Objectivism is a philosophical doctrine, the concept itself originated a very long time ago, but I will consider objectivism, where the founder is a man named Ayn Rand.

This philosophical direction follows from Minarchism and Hedonism, where the first is a model of state powers, the powers of which are reduced to the necessary minimum.

And the second is an axiological (that is, related to value or to the theory of values) doctrine, according to which pleasure is the highest good and the meaning of life.

As a result, we get objectivism according all-british-casino.co.uk to Ayn ​​Rand, where the goal of every person’s life is the pursuit of their own happiness. At the same time, the social system must ensure the individual rights of people, which is achieved by observing the principle of Laissez-faire (non-interference of the state in the economy).

The basic axiom of objectivism is that actual reality exists independently of you. Where reason is the only means of understanding the world. By reason she understood the ability to determine and assimilate material given to a person in sensations.

Don’t get me wrong, objectivism does not exclude moral standards and ethical rights. Quite the opposite, objectivism calls for turning to logic in order to obtain not only bare facts, but also to derive these same ethical rules and economic laws.

In summary, the following principles of objectivism can be distinguished:

1. There is an objective world, independent of human perception and his attitude to facts.

2. The only way you perceive the world is your mind

“Simply put, the most important thing to me is me. And the most important thing for you is you. That’s the nature of things.»

3. Every person must, firstly, strive for his own personal happiness, which is the highest moral value, and, secondly, he must not allow himself to be used to achieve the goals of other people, nor to be used to achieve his own goals.

Andrew Ryan put this principle in the Absolute, rejecting the parasitic component of society, where he called people who use other people to achieve their goals parasites

“What is the difference between a parasite and a human?”?

Man creates. The parasite asks: “Where is my share??»

Man creates. The parasite says: “What will the neighbors think??»

Man invents. The parasite says: “Be careful, don’t step on the Lord God’s calluses…”

4. The ideal political-economic structure of society is unlimited capitalism, in which everyone enters into exclusively voluntary transactions with each other.

Like Andrew Ryan, Ayn Rand puts the principle of Altruism as the main enemy of Objectivism

“Whenever someone wants to force someone else to work for themselves, they appeal to altruism. “Forget about what you need,” they say. – Think about what anyone needs, but not you. To the state, the poor, the army, the king, god, the list is endless. How many disasters began with the words “think about yourself”? It was the king and the mob who lit the torch of destruction, it was the great shapeshifter, the ancient lie that chained humanity to an endless cycle of guilt and failure!»

Rand calls altruism “moral cannibalism” and points out the falsity of the thesis “one person’s happiness inevitably requires the suffering of another”. According to objectivism, the rational interests of people cannot contradict each other. However, it is immediately indicated that in the event of a confrontation, the dispute should be resolved through negotiations or free competition, which is positioned as fair competition.

Andrew Ryan thinks along similar lines.

I’ll say right away that I don’t completely agree with this point of view, why? Perhaps I will examine this topic separately, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

As you already understood, the Creator of the city of Rapture, Andrew Ryan thinks about the same as Ayn Rand, the interesting fact is that Andrew Ryan’s biography is similar to her biography, not to mention the names. Real name Andrei Rayanovsky, resident of the RSFSR, observed the October Revolution, where the Bolsheviks came to power, where unaffordable property began to belong to everyone.

“Let Rapture be the second outcome for me. In 1919, I fled from a country that exchanged despotism for madness, the Marxist revolution simply replaced one lie with another, instead of a single man – the king, who previously owned the labor of all people, an entire people began to own it. And then I came to America, where a person could own his own work, where he could lower the fruits of his genius, his muscles, his spirit.»

Soon he left to live in America, leaving a negative attitude towards communism and collectivism, where collectivism is understood as the coming of the Bolshevik power, where what was once yours began to belong to everyone.

Read the biography of Ayn Rand, or as she was called in the Russian Empire, Alisa Zinovievna Rosenbaum. Born in St. Petersburg, into a fairly wealthy family.

In 1917, after the revolution in Russia, the property of Zinovy ​​Rosenbaum was confiscated by the Bolsheviks, and the family moved to Crimea. And soon, she herself moved to the USA, leaving negative memories of the past.

Like the main Antagonist of the bioshock game – Andrew Ryne, she also created her Delight, but to tell the truth, only in a book called “Atlas Shrugged”

Her main idea, like Andru Raina’s, was the principle that the ideal of a creative person, living exclusively at the expense of his creative abilities and talent and striving to find his own happiness in life, is the most correct solution.

Atlas Shrugged. The main idea of ​​the novel is that the world rests on talented single creators, whom the author compares with the mythical titan Atlas, holding the vault of heaven on his shoulders. If these people stop creating (“holding the sky on their shoulders”), then the world will collapse. This is exactly what happens in the novel, when the Atlantean creators lose in the fight against a socialist-type government.

The city of Delight is built on the principles of objectivism, where capitalism plays a leading role.

The purest capitalism, where the property belongs to you, you work for yourself. An absolutely Free market, where supply and demand are controlled solely by buyers and sellers, the state does not interfere, and the market is driven by the invisible hand of Adam Smith.

"I don’t believe in God, there’s no invisible man in heaven. But there is something that has power over us all, a combination of our common efforts, a Great Chain of Production that unites us. However, only when we act in our own interests does the chain pull society in the right direction. The chain is too strong and unpredictable for any government to control. And if someone in front of you begins to claim the opposite… it means that he either put his hand in your pocket or put a gun to your forehead.»

The chain here means that same invisible hand of the market, where each cell of society, acting in its own, most importantly in reasonable interests, pushes the progress of society further.

As a result, we have an ideal society, isolated from the outside world, excluding any outside influence, a real utopia of capitalism, where everyone can create, create, open their own business, live for themselves.

This is probably why the creators of Bioshock made an underwater city, emphasizing the isolation of the city from the outside world.

“It was not at all impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the sea. What was really impossible was to build it somewhere else."

The creators of delight brought their city to perfection and this is where the difficulties began.

Monopoly and dictatorship, concepts that cannot possibly appear in such a place, but do appear.

Let’s start with Monopoly. A monopoly is one organization that controls the production and sale of one or more types of products; there is no competition in the market. Where does it come from in a Capitalist utopia, with pure competition??

The misconception is that in a completely free market it has nowhere to come from. Let’s look at an example from Bioshock. A monopoly appears when and only when on a free market, I emphasize, on a free market where state activity is reduced to a minimum, a product appears that never existed before, and there are simply no substitutes or substitutes for this product. Although in fairness, it is worth saying that similar products at a cheaper price should appear sooner or later, but this will take some time, and until this happens, the monopoly will remain. So, there was not enough time for the product to compete; this product destroyed the entire capitalism of Delight.

The product took the form called Adam, a genetic product created by a scientist named Bridget Tenenbaum. I don’t know for sure whether the name of the product is a reference to the English economist and thinker Adam Smith, or a reference to the first man created by God and the progenitor of the human race, according to the Bible (Old Testament). But I am inclined to the second option, then you will understand why.

Let’s figure out how it came to be, why a monopoly was formed around this product and how it ruined the delight.

From the plot of the game it is known that Adam is a special type of very valuable stem cells produced by the rarest species of Sea Slug, the peculiarity of these stem cells is their ability to turn into absolutely any other cell. With the help of ADAM, you can genetically change the structure of the human body, creating completely new, never before existing cells, and from them, in turn, entire tissues and organs with incredible properties. It’s like a man became a god.

But the problem was that no one wanted to finance the scientist’s project. I would like to ask why? Why couldn’t the scientist find investors?. There are two answers here, the creators of Bioshock wanted it so much and the second, human nature, capitalist society is not prone to risk and especially to things that can incur huge losses, because from the philosophy of objectivism, a person must act rationally and logically, in simple words, the capitalists of Rapture, they were simply afraid that the business would be unprofitable, or maybe they considered it crazy.

But except for one organization, whose name. Fontaine Futuristic. Soon ADAM made a splash on the market, people acquired abilities that they could only dream of before.

ADAM caused strong addiction among people, society began to collapse from the inside. Too little time has passed since the entire city became dependent on this product. Substitutes simply did not have time to appear, the absolutely free market became indifferent, and perhaps not profitable, to create competition, organizations for the production of Adam, Fontaine Futuristic.

What became a consequence where it was more profitable for entrepreneurs to do something else and simply buy it from Fontaine.

It’s also worth considering that objectivism does not deny the existence of the state and taxes, but there is a fundamental difference from the state that we are used to seeing. The state in Rapture aims to ensure individual human rights. Individual freedom, personal independence, in ethnic rules and laws, which were created by the only way of perceiving the world – the mind, where subsequently, with the help of logical thinking, man put forward these norms and principles. Which are based on the pillars that are voiced in the teachings of Objectivism.

Andrew Rhyne, violated the main principle of objectivism, he went against the individual freedom and personal independence of the inhabitants of rapture. taking advantage of his position, and seeing the effect this product produces, he establishes a dictatorship, seizing complete control over the Fontaine Futuristic company and the city.

As a result, we see how in an absolutely free market, where the state did not interfere, and people acted rationally, acting in their own interests, moving societies upward in technical and creative terms. Slides into a complete oxymoron, where an absolute monopoly and dictatorship is created. There is no talk of any free market or capitalism now.

Residents of delight began to riot, with slogans, "we are not the property of the region”, “the rapture is dead”, “we are leaving». Andrew Rhyne violated his own principles by turning Rapture into a cage for geniuses. And in general, creating an absolutely free society in an isolated system is at least strange

Delight took the form of dystopia, human life should have been considered the highest value, but became only a tool to achieve the goal. What exactly are the goals?? I suggest you find out for yourself and dive into the bathysphere and meet Rapture in the form where utopia led them.

Delight was not built as a temporary refuge for geniuses, but as a new home from which it was no longer possible to leave. Criticizing the game a little, I would like to find an answer to the question “how was Rapture built?“Did foreign states really allow such a structure to exist unhindered?? I can’t find a single logical reason why other states wouldn’t invade it. Andrew Ryne had only 2 options for how to build an underwater city.

First, the city appeared secretly; more than one state did not know about the existence and construction of the underwater city. But people must be blind and deaf to miss this.

And the second option, Andrew Ryan, took over absolutely the whole world and decided to build a city under water. Which doesn’t fit with logic at all.

BioShock Lead Game Designer: Ken Levine. He was clearly inspired by the novel Atlas Shrugged and put criticism of the philosophy of objectivism into the game. But by no means, Bioshock is not a direct criticism of it, it is the author’s own system, ideology and views on this topic, I would call it objectivism according to Ken Levine, why not. If in Ayn Rand’s novel, she populated her city with perfect people, without flaws, then Ken Levine populated Rapture with people with hidden vices and views, corrupting society from the inside. Often, the scientists of the city of Rapture were from camps who carried out experiments on people, artists and surgeons were almost crazy in their fantasies, and the founder of Fontaine Futurstic was a smuggler in the past. Perhaps Ken Levine wanted to show that you shouldn’t give freedom to everyone?