bama has received an extraordinary amount of criticism from the tech, gaming, and blogging media regarding recent comments he made during a commencement speech to the graduating class at Hampton University. Most critics quote the following:
With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations; information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment. All of this is not only putting new pressures on you; it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.
These two sentences seem to have upset many who put a lot of their time and energy into media on these devices. While some have defended this brief statement on its own, I believe there is a much wider perspective here that few are discussing.
In order to see that perspective, it might first help to read more of the speech. Obama begins with a summarized history of how Americans overcame inequalities in the system and became empowered through education. He continues:
Education, then, is what has always allowed us to meet the challenges of a changing world. And that has never been more true than it is today. You’re graduating in a time of great difficulty for America and the world. You’re entering the job market, in an era of heightened international competition, with an economy that’s still rebounding from the worst crisis since the Great Depression. You’re accepting your degrees as America wages two wars – wars that many in your generation have been fightin
Meanwhile, you’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t rank all that high on the truth meter. With iPods and iPads; Xboxes and PlayStations; information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment. All of this is not only putting new pressures on you; it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy. It’s a period of breathtaking change, like few others in our history.
We can’t stop these changes, but we can adapt to them. And education is what can allow us to do so. It can fortify you, as it did earlier generations, to meet the tests of your own time.
As always, context is crucial. He first lists conditions that defined generations – civil war, segregation, World War II, and provides examples of how those generations used those conditions to their advantage to empower themselves through education. Obama then lists some of the conditions that will define our (well, my) generation.
Then comes the controversial bit. Giving a few examples, he suggests that modern media devices are more adept at providing information as distraction and entertainment, rather than empowering individuals to overcome the massive problems of our time. But he continues, stating that we are in a period of change and this technology isn’t going away, so we better “adapt” them to educate and empower. Obama isn’t denouncing iPods and Xboxes, he’s merely stating what I thought was a simple truth: they are primarily devices of diversion and entertainment (see YouTube video above). The ad divisions of Apple and Microsoft should be congratulating themselves that they’ve convinced so many that their devices are somehow necessary components of our daily lives.
Of course, for most of those complaining about Obama’s comments, their tech gadgets are necessary to them and their social structure. But Obama did not tailor his speech to hip, mostly-white bloggers living on comfortable salaries. He was speaking directly to the graduating class of Hampton University, a predominantly black university born out of the Civil War, with teachers like Booker T. Washington. Many of the graduating class have “folks back home” who are struggling to live and work in this desperate economy that has become all the more harsh to blacks. Obama was calling on the Hampton University class “to be role models for your brothers and sisters. To be mentors in your communities. And, when the time comes, to pass that sense of an education’s value down to your children.” This was not a call to throw away your PlayStation. He is asking this generation of young African Americans to selflessly strengthen and organize their communities, to graciously spread their educational empowerment to others, and to not selfishly indulge in a media-rich, capitalistic world that begs us to selfishly indulge.
As gaming hobbyists, we can easily insulate ourselves and inflate the importance of our hobby. And while one of the purposes of this site is to lend a hand in fostering the development of video games as a serious cultural and artistic force, it’s impossible to deny that games are made mostly to entertain and distract. That doesn’t have to be a criticism but, under certain contexts, perhaps it should be.
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