In Dialogue with the Gaming Community: Critical Engagement, Responsibility, and Hope

I have had a lot of time away from my PC over the past few weeks as I have been working at conferences and being on retreat starting tomorrow. It has delayed my content and my ability to deep dive into games, but I have had one theme stuck in my head of late and that is critical engagement. So I want to talk about this thread of thought as it relates to the mission of Phenomena Gaming and how to tie some threads about Phenomena Gaming which may be confusing.

It all started with a conversation with Mrs. Aly-Cat on Discord about my goals for why I am writing. As has been mentioned in previous posts, I am wanting to build up gamers to be leaders for their own causes in the community emulating the characters from video games we all know and love. However, Aly had mentioned that not everyone wants or can handle the stress of leadership and it made me realize I might be missing a step. That step is being deliberate about teaching critical engagement as the primary step before any thoughts about leadership. While my posts have high levels of reflection, taking a second to name teaching critical engagement as a primary goal is important. I really want to teach people how to critically engage their environments around them.

Another theme I have been thinking about is responsibility, namely reflecting on the line of being each other’s keepers. In thinking about a variety of different media, I’m concerned about a problem I see as fundamental which is individualism being used and promoted as a means to evade responsibility for how our actions affect others. This influence is becoming more problematic as we think about increasing isolation in society and the rising tide of fascism.

However, there is hope and it lies within each of us in relationship. We all have the capacity to peer into each other’s eyes and hold each other as individuals but also part of a great community of existence.

What is Critical Engagement?

I use the term critical engagement to mean a process of active reflection where people actively look at messaging, societal images, and beliefs to build one’s own identity. The emphasis is on active. It is easy to teach critical thinking as a set of reflections with distance and no engagement. However, the hard and important work to find stability in the constant change of identity is to continuously live a life of critical engagement. The Legend of Heroes series is a great example for why critical engagement matters. (Some spoilers ahead, skip the next paragraph to avoid spoilers).

Throughout the course of the series, allies become enemies and enemies become allies. C, the man who assassinates Chancellor Osborne at the end of Trails of Cold Steel 1 ends up being a former student named Crow who was in your class. At the end of Trails of Cold Steel 3, Rean becomes possessed by a demon and brings forth the Great Twilight. He has to be locked away while his students have to escape and work to bring him back. Rufus Alberea switches from a neutral observer to main enemy in Cold Steel 4, back to party support in Trails Into Reverie. Careful attention to people’s motives is necessary to follow all of these transitions. Crossbell is also a nation where lack of critical engagement and grounding contributes to the nation being taken over by Rufus Alberea twice.

Making space to reflect on your circumstances is vital in order to prevent harsh surprises or being dragged to activities or beliefs not in-line with your consciousness. The Great Twilight in Cold Steel 3, 4 and Trails Into Reverie is a dark cloud which forms around peoples’ auras and turns their feelings into aggression and outrage. Critical engagement and empathy from party members in these games is the only way in which they are not sucked up into outrage.

I love Crossbell. Such a unique character in the Trails Series.

We are Each Other’s Keeper

For me, critical engagement of the world and media has given me a deep sense of wanting to be a mother hen. I am scared for the trends which are arising. For me, critical engagement has given me a strong sense of responsibility to leave the world better than I found it. The hard part in writing this blog is actually highlighting this sequential progression for my own beliefs and not assume everyone will have this same drive or even wants to have this same drive or can handle this same drive. This progression from critical engagement to responsibility is as natural to me as breathing, but I also spent my undergraduate and graduate school education reflecting on human behavior and ethics and my working career promoting social justice. This is a privileged and difficult luxury because I have had years to study and reflect but knowledge has consequences.

The biggest challenge in thinking about this question of being each other’s keeper is looking at how individualism has diminished our sense of responsibility and awareness of others as individuals. Death Stranding is a premier example of the consequences of individualism. As a porter, Sam only cares about money for transporting goods back and forth at the beginning of the game. He is forced to have a BB, with whom he starts to bond as he learns more about how the BB’s were made. The politicians are trying to reunite America only to further their own lusts for power. The world of Death Stranding is cold, dark, and hazardous. Everyone looks out for themselves to attempt to survive and empathy is often punished because of the monsters which lurk in every tar puddle.

Death Stranding has been a great social reflection and I’m hoping to get a podcast episode about Death Stranding in the near future because I think the experience of Death Stranding and its reflection on the sixth great extinction is valuable given the various crises we face in our world. It also is a great game to show the reawakening of empathy in certain characters. Much more to explore in the future. The main point being critical engagement has led to a reluctant sense to take on responsibility for making things better. I find this similar to my own journey of embracing more leadership because I do not have a great desire for leadership, I’ve just fallen into roles with increasing responsibility over time.

What is My Hope for Society?

I still have hope for people even though we have major challenges. I think we can create warm and loving communities and build practices to improve our critical engagement. We can make space for calm and a space for examining our world. I want to help people find a love of critical engagement as a key first step. And this gives me a base for a curriculum. Hopefully by the end of the year, I will have a module session to build a foundation of critical engagement which I can start offering. I think that is a good goal to make. I’m looking forward to sharing my love of critical engagement now and into the future at Phenomena Gaming. If you like my work or want to support the channel, please go to www.patreon.com/phenomenagaming and subscribe. I want to upgrade my microphone and my own Zoom account to host interviews.