Survival of the fittest

BioShock may seek to overtly portray a dystopian vision of the Randian Objectivist world, but Far Cry 2's subtler inducement of truly egoist action is perhaps the stronger case against it.

*Spoilers throughout*

Dumped into an ecologically lush but thoroughly blood-soaked environment from the beginning, the player-character is given little choice but to slaughter to survive. Best I can tell, literally every mission nearly requires at least one death, and some have that as their sole and explicit purpose. Interchangeable, nameless enemies are burnt, blown up, macheted, and sniped--and in most cases, they are killed for the benefit of the player, even if that benefit is as small as a briefcase with a single lonely diamond in it. This behavior is encouraged, even required, to progress in the game.

However, being prepared to unleash carnage for personal gain is not the indictment of egoism about which I wrote at the beginning. More damning is the exact opposite: the lengths to which the player will go to stay alive. With no more than a handful of exceptions in the entire game, every single person is either out to kill the player-character or perfectly willing to do so if the PC stops obeying their every whim. Outside of small designated safe zones, anybody who sees the PC will shoot at him; PCs quickly learn to shun roads when practical so as to avoid the ever-present patrols. Clearing out a guard post gains at most an hour's respite before new guards arrive.

In a world with these constant pressures, the player quickly needs to become stronger. Though the player-character was sent into Africa to chase the Jackal, that narrative is nearly lost in the frantic attempt to stay alive and earn better defenses. Any sense of principles or purpose in the mission is lost almost immediately, as the PC is dragged into factional conflicts that have engulfed the region.

Even in just that aspect, Far Cry 2 makes a powerful case that unless institutions already exist to provide protection and ensure the integrity of the capitalist system, anarchy is far from Rand's depiction. When nobody expends any effort to keep you alive unless you are useful to them, life rapidly degenerates into a constant struggle to become valuable as soon as possible. It is certainly difficult to imagine industry or culture arising in an environment where anything is subject to being destroyed at any time.

More shocking than the existential fear produced by this Hobbesian world, however, is a critical twist immediately prior to the end of the game. Throughout the game, the PC acquires "buddies," NPCs who help out with missions and rescue the PC when he is in danger. This seems quite altruistic of them, particularly the so-called "second buddy," who gains little from constantly saving the PCs life. In turn, the PC has the opportunity to sacrifice resources that otherwise would be used to keep the PC alive in order to save the buddy when necessary. Thus, the buddy relationship becomes one piece of humanity in the midst of chaos.

At the end of the game, all the buddies gang up on the player-character, trying to take a case of diamonds the PC was going to use to save refugees' lives (an almost jarringly redemptive bit of good at the end of a trail of blood). In the end, it was all about money.

That is perhaps the ultimate informal critique of Objectivism: it reduces all relationships to convenience. As soon as one's usefulness runs out, the relationship is dissolved. Beyond that, while Randians might suggest that a reputation for honoring deals and promoting relationships is in the long-term best interest of the rational egoist, in a world without institutions, a world full of people whose survival depends on violence, a reputation for anything other than strength is a reputation for weakness.

In a world in which we constantly fight to survive, the long term can be pretty short.


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