Something that I always thought about myself is that since early on I'm desensitized about violence, some of my earliest memories are related to that, and I always liked violent things in media. Maybe I just primed my brain for that. Still, it makes me think about how I relate to some games I played.
I grew up playing FPSes stuff like Marathon, Doom, Quake, Half-Life, and I was just a wee child when the Jingoistic Era of FPSes started - Think the early 2000s, especially after 9/11 - and being a child, I played some of these "USA Army F***Yeah!" games. And... I kinda feel nothing about them. I had fun, cause games are fun, but there is just nothing when I think about them now. Which is rather odd when I think about FPSes, because now, I have happy or fun memories of Marathon, Doom, Quake, Half-Life, Hexen and others. They were cool and had cool things, you were killing sick ass demons from hell, or headcrabs and zombies, or you were a cool mage doing magic. I didn't knew english at the time so I always made a story in my head and things like that.
What I'm trying to say is that if I look back now, I had a lot of fun with these games but not with modern military games. And when I think about it, I remember I was 9-10 years old when the US invaded Iraq for the second time, I remember seeing that on the TV. It made me feel nothing and thinking about it now, it's very odd. Still, I think there's an explanation.
I grew up watching news, after news and hearing people talking about how violent Rio de Janeiro is. As a child I would hear firefights between drug dealers against the cops or other dealers. I grew up seeing news about the police entering favelas to hunt down dealers, I saw the rise of Militias in the suburbs of Rio, the rise of religious intolerance in Brazil, I was fifteen when the biggest police operation in the history of the state of Ro de Janeiro happened. Its a lot and its common place. I'm not scared of these things anymore, I don't want to be shot or have my stuff stolen but hearing or even seeing stuff about people being killed because they were at the wrong place and the wrong time doesn't shock me anymore.
Hell, its so common to hear news about the police killing children here that you don't react to it anymore, you get angry and upset but its not surprising. Its a part of life.
And I think that relates to my issue with military stuff. You see recently, the last 3 or so years I've been replaying a lot of games that I liked when I was younger. Doom and Quake still holds up, Heretic, Hexen 1 and 2 are still very fun. Marathon is... Alot in both the best and worst meaning of it and that's really cool. Half-Life is about the worst day in a guy's life, so far. But there's one thing that I like in these games is that the threats feel understandable. Sick-ass demons from hell are killing everyone! Bad. Shub-Nigurath is sending her minions/kids to kill everything! Bad. Durandal is a crazy fucker! Bad. The Serpent Riders are killing everyone! Bad. Holy shit we craked the dimension and shit is going down the drain fast and the US Navy Seals are here to kill us all! Let's run! Bad. All of that is easy to get. Meanwhile Call of Duty 4, really isn't.
Wait, how? Think with me. Drug dealers are bad, they sell drugs and kill people. That is understandable. The police likes to invade favelas and then a lot of violence happens. They also invade homes/buildings/stores and steal from people, hurt people, kill people. In the end the problem - Crime and violence - never end. It never stops. I feel the same with American military stuff. It never stops. I've grown up seeing this shit never stoping, and its the US, a ton of European countries(?), Israel and its always the same. There's either some people invading where other people live and making a massacre, or there's a some people trying to steal everything others have. It becomes meaningless because most of the time we read from the perspective of the people that are doing what the cops do, they are just adding to this unending mess.
Which is why a lot of the time these modern things are just so... nothing. They are nothing. There's nothing but adding to the suffering. A guy uses a nuclear bomb on some random Middle Eastern city in CoD4 and that's just one of the things that happen, and it doesn't change anything. What's the point then?! THERE'S NONE! NOTHING EVER CHANGES FOR THE BETTER!
Anyway, this is getting way too long so there'll be a part 2, but in conclusion for now. I don't feel anything when I play or watch or read about the US army invading a foreign country, or when its Israel trying to steal people's lands. But that's it for now.
