Why do people keep saying Bioshock is a condensed version of Atlas Shrugged? Has these people ever read Atlas Shrugged?
Atlas Shrugged was a long (long, long) book about the evils of "fairness", where a society depending on the talents of the superior treated them like pack animals, rather than gods among men. Governments appreciate these people and their deeds, but wishes to spread its profits among the undeserving. The masses subsist on the talents and the shining light of these supermen and superwomen, but fails to acknowledge their presence in the world. The envious and the talentless wishes to usurp the ubermensche, to warp them to either bring them down to their level or pull themselves on top of them.
This is not what Bioshock was.
Ryan and his city of Rapture was certainly influenced by the philosophy of objectivism, but he is clearly the villain of the narrative and Rapture is an obvious place of evil. If this had been a condensed version of Atlas Shrugged, or largely influenced by Ayn Rand, then the hero would trudge along through a city ruined by bureaucracy and jealousy as the discoverer of the secret of superhuman abilities through the use of ADAM. The government would try to extract the information to sell to the masses at a cheaper (and thus, inferior) price, the hero would step up and boldly say no, and bring down the corrupt system.
Bioshock seemed more like the equivalent of an Upton Sinclair novel to me. Greed hides behind a veil of ideological sentiment about liberty and freedom. Greed becomes envy. Envy becomes hate. Violent fate is achieved as a consequence to that greed, tearing down the disguise to reveal nothing but an ugly, misshapen face of darkness.
This isn't to say that Bioshock was an analogy on capitalism and socialism, like Ayn Rand and Upton Sinclair respectively tried to do in their books. But still, it always felt weird that Bioshock and Ayn Rand seem to go hand in hand in video game circles. Am I the only one thinking that or has anyone else felt the same way?
Atlas Shrugged was a long (long, long) book about the evils of "fairness", where a society depending on the talents of the superior treated them like pack animals, rather than gods among men. Governments appreciate these people and their deeds, but wishes to spread its profits among the undeserving. The masses subsist on the talents and the shining light of these supermen and superwomen, but fails to acknowledge their presence in the world. The envious and the talentless wishes to usurp the ubermensche, to warp them to either bring them down to their level or pull themselves on top of them.
This is not what Bioshock was.
Ryan and his city of Rapture was certainly influenced by the philosophy of objectivism, but he is clearly the villain of the narrative and Rapture is an obvious place of evil. If this had been a condensed version of Atlas Shrugged, or largely influenced by Ayn Rand, then the hero would trudge along through a city ruined by bureaucracy and jealousy as the discoverer of the secret of superhuman abilities through the use of ADAM. The government would try to extract the information to sell to the masses at a cheaper (and thus, inferior) price, the hero would step up and boldly say no, and bring down the corrupt system.
Bioshock seemed more like the equivalent of an Upton Sinclair novel to me. Greed hides behind a veil of ideological sentiment about liberty and freedom. Greed becomes envy. Envy becomes hate. Violent fate is achieved as a consequence to that greed, tearing down the disguise to reveal nothing but an ugly, misshapen face of darkness.
This isn't to say that Bioshock was an analogy on capitalism and socialism, like Ayn Rand and Upton Sinclair respectively tried to do in their books. But still, it always felt weird that Bioshock and Ayn Rand seem to go hand in hand in video game circles. Am I the only one thinking that or has anyone else felt the same way?
