June 18, 2007
Second Life is Virtual;
Control is an Illusion
Nearly seven million people around the world have a virtual counterpart,
known as an avatar, who inhabits a cyberspace dimension called Second
Life. I recently joined their ranks to find out what all the commotion
is about.
Now I am twice as confused as I was before I went digital. I have yet to
figure out how to maneuver my avatar through cyberspace or meet anyone
else in the virtual community. That’s not surprising. I don’t own (and
don’t want) a cell phone or an MP3 player or a PDA, and only last year
learned to IM (instant message). I’m like – not just so yesterday – but
so hopelessly Jurassic.
I
wasn’t always so technologically feral. Back in the late 1970s I was
writing and editing electronically, and in the early 1980s I was using a
data network to e-mail colleagues around the country. I’ve had a desktop
computer in my home since 1983, before most people had one at the
office.
These days, I relish my role as relic. If recent media reports are even
half accurate, it appears that Second Life’s digital dominion is just as
fraught with danger and darkness as the hardcopy version. According to
The Washington Post, one Second Life avatar reportedly raped
another earlier this year. Another user posted to her Second Life blog
her disgust at finding herself next to an underage sex club. Other
avatars apparently act out sexual fantasies that include child abuse.
Why is this news? Do we really think we can escape from ourselves by
fleeing to the virtual world? That’s virtual, not virtuous. We cannot
change our essential selves merely by donning a digital mask. Having
said that, I do not believe we human beings are inherently evil or
malicious. I do know we are inherently wounded, emotionally and
spiritually, and all of us live and act out of these deep-seated
injuries in ways that mystify us as much as anyone else.
Out of these inner wounds, we feel empty, isolated, alienated,
powerless, unloved, unworthy. We then seek out drug highs or sexual
encounters, however humiliating, simply so we will feel something –
anything – instead of that terrifying inner void. No doubt part of the
lure of Second Life and other simulated worlds is the driving desire for
greater control over events and situations than is possible in “real”
life.
If
that is the attraction, then it really is an illusion, as is the belief
in control. Witness the United States’ real-life experience in Iraq. Our
current administration invaded that nation under the hubristic delusion
that our military might was enough to determine the outcome. Yet the
humble improvised explosive device (IED), in the hands of a cunning and
ruthless opposition, has made it impossible for the world’s lone
superpower to stage-manage events. Perhaps this country was never in as
much control of anything as some of us liked to imagine.
Iraq - and Second Life - offer many lessons for those wise enough to
heed them. Control is an illusion cherished most by those who feel
hopelessly out of control of their lives. And a Second Life is an
interesting experience, but one life at a time appears to be more than
most of us can handle.
© 2007
North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
Click here to talk to our writers and
editors about this column and others in our discussion forum.
To e-mail feedback about this column,
click here. If you enjoy this writer's
work, please contact your local newspapers editors and ask them to carry
it.
This
is Column #CT040.
Request permission to publish here.
|