************************
Re: Public punishments:
************************
Punishment on MUDs shows a return to the medieval. While penal
systems in the Western nations that form the backbone of the Internet-
-the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia--have
ceased to concentrate upon the body of the condemned as the site for
punishment, and have instead turned to 'humane' incarceration and
social rehabilitation, the exercise of authority on MUDs has revived
the old practices of public shaming and torture. The theatre of
authority in virtual reality is one which demands and facilitates a
strongly dramaturgical element. All actions on MUDs must be overt,
every nuance of experience must be manifestly represented for it to
become part of the play, and so punishment must be flamboyant. The
virtual world of a MUD exists in its dramatic strength only in the
minds of its players, but the play enacted in the virtual world
emulates the physical rather than the mental. The public spectacle of
punishment, which Foucault describes as disappearing from the Western
political scene between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is
alive and well on MUDs.[8]
-- from CULTURAL FORMATIONS IN TEXT-BASED VIRTUAL REALITIES --
By ELIZABETH REID
emr@xxxxxxxxxxx
emr@xxxxxxxxxxx
emr@xxxxxxx
Re: Public punishments:
************************
Punishment on MUDs shows a return to the medieval. While penal
systems in the Western nations that form the backbone of the Internet-
-the United States, Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia--have
ceased to concentrate upon the body of the condemned as the site for
punishment, and have instead turned to 'humane' incarceration and
social rehabilitation, the exercise of authority on MUDs has revived
the old practices of public shaming and torture. The theatre of
authority in virtual reality is one which demands and facilitates a
strongly dramaturgical element. All actions on MUDs must be overt,
every nuance of experience must be manifestly represented for it to
become part of the play, and so punishment must be flamboyant. The
virtual world of a MUD exists in its dramatic strength only in the
minds of its players, but the play enacted in the virtual world
emulates the physical rather than the mental. The public spectacle of
punishment, which Foucault describes as disappearing from the Western
political scene between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is
alive and well on MUDs.[8]
-- from CULTURAL FORMATIONS IN TEXT-BASED VIRTUAL REALITIES --
By ELIZABETH REID
emr@xxxxxxxxxxx
emr@xxxxxxxxxxx
emr@xxxxxxx