[MUD-Dev] RE:

[Sellers]

Travis Casey wrote:

> For that matter -- what is "the human condition"?  Is there only
> *one* "human condition"?
 
> To me, the very phrase, "the human condition", reeks of projecting
> your own values and morals onto others.  It's like "the meaning of
> life" -- there are lots of different people who will tell you that
> life means a lot of different things.  By the same token, I can
> imagine quite a number of "human conditions".

The "human condition" is generally taken to be the idea that people
are either in conflict or they're boring (okay, that's an
over-generalization, but in fictional terms it's basically correct).
Conflict comes in three overall varieties: within yourself, between
people, or between one or more people and the environment
(occasionally conflict between a person and the gods will spring up,
but these can generally be put into one of the latter two
categories.)

So this has nothing to do with projecting anyone's morals onto
others.  This "human condition" has been around since the Epic of
Gilgamesh, been discussed as far back as Plato and Aeschylus, and
been presented in every culture that has created stories about the
struggles of their people and heroes.

And the original poster (Raph?) was correct, I think: even Spongebob
Squarepants does a better job of presenting aspects of the human
condition than do our multi-million dollar games.  Of course, our
overall ignorance of and disdain for the cathartic aspects of
examining the human condition may have something to do with this.

Mike Sellers
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