I was particularly haunted by it because one participant, Dreamz (picture left), did something incredibly deplorable: he promised to give immunity to Yao-Man (picture right) in exchange for a truck that Yao had won. But when it came time to deliver the immunity necklace to Yao, Dreamz renigged.
Why did Dreamz break his word? He claims it's because he was just "playing the game." But I think greed overcame him. Dreamz grew up extremely impoverished and was homeless for a large extent of his life. When he realized that renigging on the deal would win him a seat in the final 3 (amongst whom the jury would choose to award the 1 mill to) he could not resist the urge to betray Yao.
I think Dreamz made a bad choice. He could not hope to get the jury's votes after such a treacherous move. Now he not only looks like a malicious liar on national tv, but he did it for nothing, utterly in vain.
But this whole treachery brings up an even more interesting issue:
When you play a game, how far is too far? On one hand, a game is removed from reality so presumably the player should be removed from "real" moral culpability for his backstabbings. But on the other hand, there is an intuitive sense of morality that operates even in the midst of a game. Thus we talk about being sportsman-like and deplore cheaters.
People who think that "it's just a game" and thus their character is insulated from impugnity should remember this line of reasoning:
If you are willing to cheat me when it's just a game and the stakes are low, I can only imagine what you are willing to do when it's "for real" and the stakes are high.
A cheater in games is a cheater in life.
Do you agree?
(Caveat: The only exception is when the explicit premise of the game is to tell lies. E.g., Mafia, B.S.)
4 comments:
that's the complicated thing about Survivor. it's a given that there will be lying, but the game doesn't explicitly lay out the rules about why kind of lying, and in what circumstance, is acceptable and such. so Dreamz, after sincerely making the deal, I think, backed out of the deal thinking, well, it is a game after all. but he didn't realize that while lying is a given, the other contestants get pissed about lying (especially if you take a 65k truck in the deal). I guess the trick is to lie without any incuring the blowback of lying.
please ignore all the grammar/typo errors in the previous post :(
Survivor does straddle an interesting moral grey area. I think, from all the seasons I watched, the unspoken moral code is this: You can lie once and betray once. Anymore than that and you're considered a stinker. And you can ommit as much as important info as you want without incurring any moral indignation.
I don't know how I missed this post! It's a belated response but I TOTALLY agree with you. I don't even watch survivor and I'm already all burned up! If I did watch, I'd chuck a pillow at dreamz (or rather my tv screen with images of dreamz). What kind of stupid name is that anyway?
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