Video Game Politics

Michael Gerson, Washington Post columnist and former speech writer for George W. Bush (he coined the term "Axis of Evil"), published a piece on Friday July 6 entitled "Where the Avatars Roam." Essentially he asserts that because the online game Second Life lacks any sort of rule enforcement mechanism, which he confuses with libertarianism's limited government philosophy, we can expect the vice and violence of the video game world to enter the real world should we adopt libertarian policies. Here's my letter to the Post in response:

Michael Gerson's recent column "Where the Avatars Roam" (Editorials, July 6) displayed a misunderstanding of libertarianism that borders on sheer ignorance. In the piece, he argues that because the online video game Second Life has little in the way of centralized governance, and because libertarians support a world with limited government, therefore if libertarian policies are adopted, we should expect the same vice and violence that occurs in the video game to occur in the real world.

The error comes in confusing the limited government propounded by libertarians with the limited responsibility characteristic of video games such as Second Life. While libertarians certainly do believe that spontaneous order will produce the best – not perfect, but best – society, spontaneous order is built upon interactions between people within a community. In such communities, laws and rules will naturally develop to protect individuals from those who may abuse their rights by hurting others: in the real world, where people cannot hide behind false names and personalities, communities "spontaneously" develop and impose consequences to sexual predation and terrorism that are not present in video games.

Of course, the anonymity of video games makes personal responsibility a difficult concept to realize, and so at the end of the day, players of Second Life operate as they do because they are aware that the game is nothing more than a fantasy world with no bearing upon or relation to the real world. Now if only Mr. Gerson could realize that.