When it did, its triumph was usually temporary and reprisal brutal. In reality, the worker’s revolt occurred more frequently in the fears of the privileged than it did in history. “They’ll take your guns! They’ll take your life! They’ll take your wife!” These are the tamest elements of that reactionary fantasy. Unlike the purely imaginary environment of Rapture, the attitudes reflected in Columbia were propped up by racists, segregationists, and robber barons by the oft-invoked specter of an imaginary mob revolt, captured all too well by Infinite’s Vox Populi. My great-grandparents were union activists my grandfather sheltered his African-American students from a race riot at his school. Labor activism, worker’s rights, and the fight against racial and ethnic hate are neither ancient issues nor fantasy. Second: I came into Infinite with high expectations for discussion of American Exceptionalism and all its attendant issues. It’s only because it is a good game clearly produced by thoughtful and intelligent people that it deserves this discussion. As a story about personal guilt and redemption, as a meta-commentary on storytelling through the lens of quantum physics, as a character piece dealing with its protagonists, Infinite richly deserves its praise.
Its central story is clever, its protagonists likable, and its ending moving. First and foremost, I like Bioshock: Infinite. Obviously, spoilers are going to happen from this point on. Much like Columbia’s treatment of its underclass, Infinite uses race and class concerns when convenient, but only as part of the background noise. It draws on the symbols of oppression to make us uncomfortable, but refuses to provide answers for those being oppressed. It’s unfortunate that the game, in its use of race and class oppression, is arguably falling prey to these behaviors.
But two of Infinite’s strongest themes are the danger of nostalgia eclipsing reality and the empty use of symbols without truly embracing their meaning. It has no obligation to espouse or further any particular philosophy. Of course, a video game is neither a textbook nor a piece of propaganda. Bioshock: Infinite is daring in many ways – but when it comes to politics, its appeal to the middle is a privileged statement in itself.
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