Freddy Purcell –
For our final Phil on Tap of the term (maybe the year as well…) we welcomed one of our Fresher’s representatives, Ahmed Helmy, for a fascinating and personable talk. There hasn’t been a talk led by a student, let alone a fresher, in all my two years at PhilSoc. I believe this goes for the older members too. So, I think Ahmed earned a lot of respect for this talk and has perhaps opened the door for other student speakers in the future.
The talk began with the question, if we world travel as Maria Lugones suggests in her 1987 paper, then what is the self constituted by? World-travelling being the way that individuals maintain a sense of self while moving between different socio-cultural contexts. Lugones uses this idea to understand the experiences of outsiders to the mainstream like immigrants, as they shift between trying to fit into a culture and their default self. World-travelling therefore suggests that the self is fragmented, existing across multiple different contexts. It is this idea that Ahmed brought into the world of MMOs (massively multiplayer online games, for the non-gamers).
Ahmed asked us to imagine Joe, a 29-year-old corporate lawyer, disenchanted with the daily grind. So, after work, he enters an MMO to become Lucien, a fantasy character. As Lucien, Joe can behave recklessly and in all the other ways life as a corporate lawyer prohibits. Ahmed argues that this character is therefore clearly a part of Joe’s self, allowing him to express a different part of himself.
From this example, Ahmed stressed the importance that such online worlds have for the self, arguing that they provide an anchor and a survival mechanism that allows the individual to express themselves. He pointed out that fantasy worlds are often thought of as escapist, in a belittling way that makes them out to be a waste of time. However, in the case of Joe and Lucien, it seems like fantasy worlds aren’t being used to take the individual outside of themselves but are instead a place where the self can truly exist.
Ahmed then proceeded to add weight to this argument, referencing how MMOs have been known to help people form friendships and develop social skills. The argument then being that if fantasy worlds can shape your reality and relationships, then why would they be any less real than the actual world? Ahmed therefore brought the talk to the conclusion that if we world travel to MMOs in Lugones’ sense, then it seems our digital selves are as real as our offline ones, and maybe therefore the digital world is equally real too.
With this conclusion, we had one of the most heated debates we’ve had at Phil on Tap this year, mostly centring around the question of whether fantasy worlds are just escapism or a temporary crutch for the self before they develop and enter the real world. If you have any thoughts on this topic, we would love to hear them below! Furthermore, if you’re interested in this topic, be sure to check out Ahmed’s essay here. Otherwise, until the next time!
Bibliography
Lugones, M. (1987) ‘Playfulness, “World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception’, Hypatia, Vol.2, N0.2, pp.3-19.