This summer a few things happened to me that, though unconnected on their surface, have combined to produce a prolonged bout of introspection. Also, I don't have a job yet, so I just have too much time to think about this stuff.
The things that happened are:
1) I graduated college,
2) I engaged in a very heated discussion alongside a classmate of mine against my mom and a couple of her friends, and
3) I re-played Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
The first one is pretty self-explanatory, as there has been no shortage of puff pieces in numerous publications about how simply being a part of my generation means that I'm an entitled and ineffective burden on society, which is not exactly the way to boost the confidence of a new generation eager to enter the real world and start contributing to it.
The second thing was a bit more complicated, and lasted pretty much for the entire dinner. But I'll try and break it down here. Essentially, my mom and her friends (who were about her age) were arguing with me and a classmate of mine from high school who's just a couple years younger than me. The debate revolved around the older people's conception that our generation has, on the whole, less meaningful relationships and ways of communicating, due in large part to technology. We tried to counter with arguments like "technological change has always happened and has always shook up culture, like the printing press" and similar stuff but by the end of it we seemed no closer to convincing them. What's more I had a similar conversation around the same time between my grandparents and my best friend and I. I got the sense from both of these conversations that the older people felt the changes being wrought by our generation's use of social media and other such technologies was unprecedented for the changes being wrought upon our social landscape, and what's more such changes were unquestionably terrible overall in their effect on our development and lives.
And the third thing up there perfectly encapsulates where I was coming from in those debates (it helps that I was in the middle of my playthrough when that conversation happened). Deus Ex: Human Revolution is a game not just set in the future, but about the future, much like the way Far Cry 2 handles war. But where Far Cry 2 had a very definite message about war, Deus Ex's element of personal choice allows it to do more than just deliver one message, or even multiple messages. Deus Ex basically puts you into a very well-crafted world with its own political problems and actors and lets you decide how to respond.
In 2027, human cybernetic augmentation has become widespread, basically just this side of mass commercialization. The consequences of this development are widespread and manifold. On the one side are advocates of the technology who see it as the next step in human evolution. Embracing technological change on this scale is not just necessary for our development as a species, but is in essence our destiny, the culmination of hundreds of years of scientific progress. On the other hand, there are many who fear the dangers human augmentation can bring with it. Granting unnatural strength and abilities to everyone unchecked may do little more than usher in a Hobbesian nightmare of constant war, all against all, where the richest citizens who can afford the technology and drugs necessary to sustain its use can triumph over the lower classes, presuming they don't just chuck cars at them in an effort to be done with the whole thing more quickly. And then there are those in the shadows who see a future in the technology, albeit one carefully structured and controlled according to what they perceive as humanity's best interests.
Deus Ex exposes you to these viewpoints by placing you into a world where they already exist and letting you explore. As you read e-mails, books, and digital newspapers and overhear conversations by people on the street (not to mention occasionally getting involved in their problems), you manage to get a sense of where proponents of every argument are coming from. On the one hand, your boss David Sarif, head of a leading producer of augmentations, is adamant about the good this technology can do in the world and the opportunity it offers humanity as a species to transcend its mere physicality. On the other hand, he engages in shady practices all the time, occasionally asking you to join in as he displays a stark mentality of the ends justifying the means. Bill Taggart, the head of the anti-augmentation lobby, has supporters who are so extreme that they frequently resort to terrorism in opposition to the spread of this new technology. But then you get on his PC and read an e-mail from a woman about how his book and message managed to help her turn her life around and get back on track after a bout of suicidal depression.
At its core, the story and world of Human Revolution is about the societal tensions that arise when progress occurs, which is to say all the time. Change is never neat and never wholly bad or good. It is messy and different, and those are about the only constant things one can say about the process. And frankly, I feel that message rings a lot more true than "things now suck because they were just better back in my day". But what elevates the game is that it does give you the option to reject this progress. Choice is an integral part of the game, from how you talk to people to how lethally you want to approach situations. The view the game has of the central issue isn't made explicitly clear, and the player is left to draw their own conclusions. If Deus Ex does have one singular message, it's "Be Adaptable", which is made very clear by the last level of the game, which represents a stark change in gameplay from the entire rest of the game. If you've been dead-set on one particular playstyle for the whole game, you will be thrown for a loop for the last hour or so.
It's not like what I'm experiencing now is anything new. Generational debates have happened pretty much ever since there was more than one generation around. As Grampa Simpson said "I used to be 'with it'. But then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm 'with' isn't 'it' and what's 'it' seems weird and scary to me...it'll happen to you." But this divide has never been more apparent than right about now, as technological developments occur in such rapid succession that generational divides are not only deeper than they've ever been, but can occur even more frequently. And games like Deus Ex offer an interesting and constructive lens with which to approach these sorts of discussions. On the one hand, we can yell at each other until we're blue in the face about the precise value of Twitter to society at large. Or we could realize that change isn't necessarily good or bad. It simply is, and always has been. It shouldn't be demonized or glorified outright, but recognized as a constant which must be approached with a measured and calm mind.
A measured and calm mind that can invent arm-blades you can use to pull off sweet takedowns.
