Friday, May 11, 2012

Friday Quotations: The whole book is like this.

"The decisive increase in importance and consequent proliferation of the logistical flowchart in the postwar period is the central element in the overlfowing of the military sphere into all other spheres of human activity.  The transformation of a nation into logistical potential leads to the transformation of the reality of the world of nations into a virtual reality.  That is to say, the traditional elements and relationships of sociopolitical and cultural reality become increasingly virtualized.  All walks of life and all institutions, while maintaining there conventional appearance, tend to be determined more and more by the dictates of the logistics of perception, communication, politics, strategy, economics and so on.  Accepted modes of reasoning, interpretation, and decision making in these fields are subordinated to logistical considerations--the anticipation of threat, coordination of resources toward the minimization of contingency, security (rather than defense)--and survive only to legitimate processes they no longer govern."  ---Patrick Crogan, Gameplay Mode: War, Simulation, and Technoculture.

I really let the blog go to fallow this week, didn't I?  Ah well.  There's been a recall on four of my videogame related books, so the days ahead will be full of rushed reviews, which I'm sure will be a delight to all comers.  Crogan's book is in this number; it is simultaneously the best book I've ever read on the connections between videogames and military endeavors, and exactly six words too long in every sentence.

Later Days.

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