Pedantry
Well it’s shooting fish in a barrel, but I just have to say something. I know it’s an easy target, people getting university degrees in video games. But so what? Did I ever sign the International Agreement on Not Shooting at Easy Targets? Not that I remember.
And there is actually a serious point to the whole matter – which is that people seem to have no idea that there is, or there can be, or it is possible to imagine that there is, any difference between education as vocational training and education as a good in itself. If vocational training is the only purpose of education, then fine, teach people to design video games, there’s good money in it. But if it has anything to do with ideas about valuing understanding and knowledge as intrinsic goods for humans, then teaching people to design video games at university might not be such a brilliant idea. Maybe that would be a better subject for technical colleges. But meditation on such possibilities seems a bit scarce in video game circles.
More such research will boom, says Janet Murray at Georgia Tech’s School of Literature, Communication, and Culture. ‘There is this critical need for the game designers of the future to be broadly educated in the liberal arts,’ she says. ‘It’s not surprising that several people working in game design at higher levels hold degrees in film.’
So…broadly educated in the liberal arts means having a degree in film? Not history, not philosophy, not French or German, but film? Will education in the future be carried on entirely by means of pictures? With the slight limitations that implies? One can’t help wondering. The fish are a little too comfortable in their barrel.
We’ve had a similar issue here over degrees in computer games.
However, rather than shooting fish in a barrel, a degree in programming computer games sounds about as valuable as a degree in accountancy or engineering.
Yes, that’s my point (unless I misunderstand yours). That programming video games is a lucrative job, but that’s not the same thing as education, and the two should be sorted out for purposes of discussion and evaluation. The article forgot to do that.
Although I can understand how it may not seem it on the face of it – film is actually an academic subject in exactly the same areas and ways that English Literature is. Indeed, the two do exactly the same things – they take a form of communication and expression and study it. Through film one studies history and philosophy in exactly the same ways as one does in literature. Simply because one watches the film and doesn’t read them in text doesn’t mean that there isn’t a great deal to be learnt, nor that the knowledge gained of human society is any less rich.
But computer science or engineering, or law, or medicine – they are not ‘academic’ in the traditional sense, but we don’t sneer at them.
Well but the two don’t do exactly the same things. I’m well aware that film is now an academic subject (I have close relatives who teach it). But I maintain that one precisely doesn’t study history and philosophy in exactly the same ways as one does in literature. (Actually I think literature is a somewhat dodgy way of studying those subjects too, but that’s a separate issue.) One studies them in a different way: via pictures instead of via language. I know one is supposed to pretend the two are identical, or else that the difference doesn’t matter, but my whole point is that they are not and it does. I don’t claim that there isn’t a great deal to be learnt by watching a film, but I do claim that there is a great deal of knowledge that cannot be taught via pictures, and that to pretend otherwise is to encourage mental impoverishment.
I’m not talking about sneering, PM, I’m talking about the difference between vocational training and education, and that distinction does indeed apply to computer science or engineering, or law, or medicine.
I agree with your general sentiments, but could you clarify one thing for me: Are you actually suggesting that Universities should not offer degrees in Video Games?
If so, are you not bound (for the sake of consistency) to also suggest that other vocational subjects (eg engineering) not be taught there?
I don’t know, Richard. I’m not sure what I’m suggesting – not sure I’m suggesting anything. Partly because of exactly the consistency issue you mention. I thought of all that while writing the N&C. I do realise universities are full of all sorts of vocational subjects. (But then again there are others that universities are usually not full of: hairdressing, car repair, real estate selling, etc.) But (or so) I wrote the N&C in such a way as not to suggest something explicit, but rather to raise questions.
And I’m not the first person who’s ever raised them, of course. People in, at, of universities have been discussing this kind of thing for decades. I have an idea that some vocational subjects are (now – they weren’t in the past) included in universities because there is considerable overlap with more ‘normal’ university subjects. Medicine: biology. Engineering: math. Law: philosophy, English.
But still I take it to be a legitimate practice to raise questions even if one doesn’t have answers to one’s own questions.