Three years ago, a computer stand-alone game called Detroit: Becoming Human suddenly caught fire. Xiaobian did not immediately play this game three years ago. Three years later, I played this game with the attitude of trying it out, and after playing it, I was deeply touched and had a lot of thoughts in my heart, and now I want to talk about my views on the connotations of Western culture contained in this game.
Detroit: Change is an interactive movie game with an artificial intelligence theme produced by Quantic Dream.
The three protagonists, from left to right, are Connor, Marcus, and Carla
The game is set in Detroit in 2038, in which Detroit has become one of the economic centers of the United States due to the successful industrial transformation, and the industry that helped Detroit return to the top is bionic manufacturing. Players will play as Marcus, Carla, and Connor as three bionic men. Advance the game's story through tough choices. The fate of these three protagonists and even the fate of Detroit as a whole is determined by the player. Is it to help bionic people become real people? Or help humans suppress the revolt of the bionic humans? Detroit's fate is in your hands.
To be human or not to be human? Is this a question worth thinking about?
Bionic humans have far superior intelligence and judgmental analysis capabilities
When the bionic man has human emotions, is the bionic man still a human? If not a person? What is the definition of that person? In the game, the bionic man has human emotions and is no longer a cold machine that only obeys instructions. Eventually, a large number of bionic people will strive to become a real person. Carla stepped forward when her adopted daughter Alice was abused by the family, Marcus regarded the elderly he cared for as a father, and Connor understood the value and meaning of his life when he hunted down abnormal bionic people. But in the game, these characters have never been recognized by mainstream Western values, why?
God occupies an important place in Western culture
Because in Western culture, only God, God, can create the world and create man. In Western culture, the idea of god has always occupied a major position, even though humanism has always emphasized the greatness of man, human dignity. God still has an unshakable place in Western culture. Even the Renaissance extolled a great deal of praise for man's beauty, praised man's greatness. Nor is it an absolute opposition to God, but only to feudal theology and the exploitation of the papacy.
Western science and technology have advanced by leaps and bounds, but there are still scientists who believe in theology because they believe that what they do is God helping them to explore the mysteries of the world. So the mainstream thinking in the game is not to recognize the bionic man as a real person. For in the eyes of the people, only God can create man. Man cannot create man, which is determined by the god-based ideas of Western culture.
Nietzsche, famous Western philosopher, literary critic, poet, thinker
Many years ago, Nietzsche shouted that God was dead. By the time Nietzsche uttered these words, the traditional values of the West were on the verge of collapse. In the game, if people can create new intelligent species, where is the status of God? The Simulated Life Company has become the new God, the Bionic Man has become a more advanced species, and where is the status of human beings? This is a major question raised by Detroit: Becoming Human, in today's rapidly changing science and technology, can God, the traditional Western cultural value system still be maintained? How should Westerners choose between traditional religious culture and science and technology? This is a question worth thinking about in the West.
Carla: Typical Western-style mother figure
Carla, a nanny-style bionic man. She was purchased by a languishing middle-aged man. Carla was kind-hearted, and when she found out that the man always beat up his own daughter, Carla stepped forward. In order to protect Alice, the mother and daughter began a long escape. Carla needs someone to be taken care of, and Alice needs a mother who loves her and cares for her. The unrelated mother and daughter have gone through hardships just to escape from Detroit and gain their own freedom. Carla became a true mother in the process, and she had come to see Alice as her daughter. Alice also begins to get to know Carla, seeing her as her guardian.
Carla takes Alice out of her hellish home
Mother, the most respectable person in the world. It doesn't matter if a person is a general in the limelight or a business leader who calls the wind and rain. Mother is always the softest concern in a person's heart. Mothers always leave the best for their children, always standing up when their children are in danger. Carla does the same in the game, where she is even forced to rob for Alice. When she was taken into a concentration camp by the army, she always considered the safety of her daughter. Western culture has always had a praise for the mother from the heart, as early as the Renaissance, one of the three masters of the Renaissance Raphael has already created "The Sistine Virgin", the baby in the painting is cute and lively, and the mother is kind and gentle. This is the embodiment of the Westerners' heartfelt praise for mother culture.
The Virgin mary in the Sistine is the mother of God and the mother of man, because her son Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man
The Virgin mary in Western culture is the ideal mother of Westerners. She is kind, loving, and has the gentleness and beauty that a woman should have.
And The carla in the game is also a reproduction of Western motherhood culture. Carla has the good character that all mothers have, she is gentle and kind, and always smiles at her daughter. She was industrious and did all the housework. Although she is only a fragile female bionic person, she will always be a strong and respectable mother.
Carla with daughter Alice
Marcus: Moses of Bionics
Marcus is the leader of the Bionics in the game, leading hundreds of thousands of Bionics. Before becoming the leader of the bionic man, Marcus had been serving and caring for an old painter and regarded the old artist as his father. Marcus was industrious and capable and loved by his adoptive father. But the good times did not last long, and the adoptive father's own son came to fight for the family property, taking marcus's father's life and everything in marcus in the chaos. Poor Marcus is thrown into a garbage dump, where he escapes by chance and strengthens his resolve to rebel against humanity and become a true human being.
On the night of his father's death, Marcus decided to become a real person
Marcus has always remembered his father's teaching, that is, to decide who he really is by his own actions. This is the connotation of humanism, deciding who you are and using actions to realize the awakening of self-consciousness. Bionic humans also need a humanistic baptism of thought, because every intelligent being has the power to determine its own destiny.
Marcus became the leader
Marcus eventually established his own base on a rundown freighter, and the name of the base was Jericho. Jericho is an important allusion in Western culture. The legendary Wall of Jericho blocked the way for the Jews to advance, and God destroyed the wall with divine power, allowing the Jews to easily invade, and Since then, Jericho has become an important base for the rise of the Jews.
The Wall of Jericho, said to have been destroyed by God
Marcus led the homeless bionics, and Jericho was the base of their rise. Namcus is naturally moses of the bionic man in the game. Can he write a new exodus in Detroit? We'll see in the game.
Moses led the Jews out of Egypt
Reflection of reality, lamentation of helplessness
Detroit in the game has unlimited scenery, but the real Detroit has gone bankrupt. In the face of the bionic rebellion, the U.S. government in the game is administratively efficient, the army is recruited in a timely manner, and the real United States has been dying from the blow of the new crown epidemic. Although game makers have envisioned the problems that Western civilization might face in the future, they probably did not expect them to come so quickly.
The real-life Detroit is bankrupt
During the COVID-19 pandemic, anti-intellectualism and theological ideas in the United States overwhelmed the correct statements of scientists such as Fauci. Do you believe in God or in science? As race problems in the United States intensify, will minorities rebel like bionics? A large number of capitalists have become titans of the economic world through the Internet, will these capitalists influence the country like the simulated life company in the game?
Can Christian culture save the West?
In that sense, Detroit: Changing people only raises the question, but it doesn't say how to solve it. In my opinion, the so-called universal values of democracy, freedom, and equality that Westerners think of themselves as can no longer save the rapid decline of Western society. Western culture, Western civilization needs to find a new way out. Perhaps this new way out is in the rising East.