Grand Theft Auto Wall Street

I read in the paper today that playing Grand Theft Auto is good training for the business world. Personally I rather doubt that stealing cars and shooting people is good training for anything other than, perhaps, car theft and homicide. Certainly the corporate world tends to try and conduct its operations a little more discreetly. In certain more, shall we say, relaxed jurisdictions they may indulge in a certain amount of judicious homicide and who knows possibly the odd car theft as well but I very much doubt if the people actually doing the deed are earmarked for board positions.

Of course, as I can almost hear the author wearily explaining, the article referred to the mindset and ethical standards that appear to be promoted by such games as GTA. Thank you sir, I would never have figured that out by myself. Too busy stealing cars and killing people I guess. I suppose it is possible that such games might promote a mindset not out of place in the corporate world. Certainly a healthy lack of ruth is not exactly a handicap in most large businesses. On the other hand very few of the murderous, car stealing drug dealers of my acquaintance expect government assistance when they make a pigs breakfast out of their business dealings.

Seeing games like Grand Theft Auto as a parable for the ethics of the business community may be appealing but it does make one wonder what our corporate overlords used as inspiration before about ten years ago. The corporate vermin of the nineteenth century by and large had a dull and religion laced upbringing yet they managed to get up to tricks that would make the inhabitants of Liberty City go pale and say "Oh what nasty people". Naturally there will be a handful of maladjusted losers who will go on murderous (and vehicle intensive) sprees as a result of playing Grand Theft Auto. However one thing ten thousand odd (and some of them have been very odd) years of human history has taught us is that people rarely need an excuse as good as "the video game made me do it" before indulging in crazy, blood spattered anarchy.

One of the principal mistakes that many people seem to make is to regard every obnoxious, irritating or pointlessly violent and depraved innovation as if it were the first time the previously innocent, Eden dwelling human race has been exposed to such corruption. I am not necessarily advocating that we should feed hallucinogens to our children (unless they just won't shut up) or organise cage fighting in high schools. But when I hear of all the actual violence, car theft, murder, drug dealing and generalised mayhem that the human race puts up with (and commits) on a daily basis I'm not sure that a video game is our major priority. At worst it might be a symptom but certainly not a cause. I've played Grand Theft Auto, not often because I'm not very good at that sort of game. Nevertheless I gained a moderate amount of amusement from it and I haven't felt the slightest desire to steal a car (or bike, fire engine, boat, helicopter or tank) and kill a bunch of people. Sadly it doesn't seem to have been particularly useful in my increasingly pathetic attempts to climb the corporate ladder either. Possibly I'm missing something, or possibly I'm just a normal(ish) person who is unlikely to base my life on a freaking video game.