Personal thought and policy imposed on others are separate things after all, though one does beget the other. I haven’t played this game yet, but my takeaway was that the developers thanking the progenitors of modern communist thought wasn’t an endorsement of government policy created by those acting in their names at all. It usually starts and ends in the dissemination of the facts "people work too much and are valued too little", yes! but why? how? in the interest of who? anything beyond the word "greed" you love so much? human nature is the only thing you can think of? etc. Their type of American critique of capitalism is mostly based on knowledge of cause instead of real social science ( maybe academicism is repudiated by the American people idk), and this makes it easy for people to see fiction only as entertainment, not capable of carrying any real punch. Games like "the outer worlds" that try to not to be "a-political", still lack social science (not necessarily marxism, although I would love to. So, in the end, there are different ways to talk about the human condition beyond black and white views, DE follows a Marxist tradition that does it right ( although it could have failed) and not the liberal one we see in Hollywood and AAA games for example ( desperately trying to not be ideological and ending up being complacent to reactionary, and even fascist, views) The biggest lier is the one who forgot he's lying. In my, by now obviously, biased view, Liberalism has been using this "human nature not ideology" discourse as it's the main way to push an ideology. This is ultimately why they thank Marxist tradition in politics. This is a game critical of every ideology through materialistic ways and not discourse ( much less an appeal to morality and metaphysics). Marxism heavily influenced post-structural, post-Marxist thought and Critical Theory ( all which basically admits the impossibility of a communist with no need of perverting original marxism), therefore the Devs can be Marxists, without being Leninist, or Maoists, etc. English speaking world can learn a lot from this, especially when some of the common folks are so ignorant of what even is socialism, what is private property, surplus value, state apparatus, and other basic concepts.ĮDIT: Some people think the game tries to go beyond political views and point out that this type of art talks to deep human values, and not ideology, but, I still feel obliged to give my two cents everything is political and ideological, there's no escaping it. No matter your political position, if you like the way DE politics are written, you should endorse a real critical approach to Soviet culture instead of cold war mythical propaganda. Stalin was one of these fanatics, his propaganda ( and American for that matter) is a disservice to the great insights from the soviet experience intellectually it was always a struggle, there was never consent and they achieved very complex art (and theory) as a consequence. ( different from fanatism, religious or otherwise, that learns to live with its own explicit contradictions). Marxist poets, writers, painters, filmmakers and now game developers always wrote about the difficulties of mixing theory and reality, how contradictory some things were, and how they, as subscribers of a social SCIENCE, needed to do better. Marxism had the intention of being a science ( like Freudian psychoanalysis), so it writes in itself ways of being surpassed, and paradoxically, for that matter, it's still relevant to this day. Disco Elysium is complex and capable of engaging in political thinking because of this fundamental materialist education and its implications (its contradictions are well expressed in the game). The proletariat will never revolutionize because they read the critical theory of capital, they will act because it is in their interest, the bourgeoisie won't defend capital because they are evil, they will defend their way of life and their freedom to do. The mentioned artists ( and thinkes) always made sure to be as honest as possible about real conditions of lived life how ideology is supported by real context and action, and not the other way around like the liberals like to think ( the individual thinks (and acts) for himself through reason, and mistakes happen when there's insufficient reason). The "political education" she talks about, is exactly the capacity of having a materialistic view of politics and it's many complexities.
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