At some point in everyone’s life, there comes along works of art or entertainment that genuinely surprise you with its unexpected heart and profundity. Likewise, they somehow affect your inner world and how you see the world around you in a way that is unique to your own experience. For myself, a few come directly to mind, namely Spider-man, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars. Now, as a young adult, Hideo Kojima’s Metal Gear Solid series has firmly landed on that list.
When I was first truly introduced, it appeared on the surface to be little more than a campy, melodramatic, action-packed, sci-fi spy thriller. I was sold on that premise alone, but it’s so much more. This series was a true labor of love from a well read mind and a true cinephile who took inspiration from a variety of classic 20th century films and literary influences. Beneath the hard genre shell was a juicy, thought provoking center full of fascinating questions, commentary and ideas, ideas that always tickled and intrigued the mind, even if they weren’t always masterfully communicated.
Free Will vs. Biological Determinism
Genetic potential, biological determinism and choice or free will are powerful themes and concepts in the series. The elite soldier and hero, David, code name Solid Snake, wants to be free from being a political puppet all his life, feeling as if he never had a choice beyond following his training to fight and kill for others. Likewise, the villain, Liquid Snake, the clone brother of Solid Snake, is obsessively insecure over his perceived inferior biology compared to his brother, feeling himself a slave to his biology and incapable of escaping the shadow of their father, known as the Big Boss, the greatest warrior of the 20th century.
The story concludes that although our genetics do determine part of what we are and predict our potential, our biological lot in life does not determine the quality and fullness of life that we have the daily choice and freedom to live. Although our biological imperative is indeed to pass on our genes to future generations, at the end of the day, our choices to teach, love and act selflessly towards one another are ultimately of greater importance to pass on to future generations than even our own genetic code, as they are what make the future worth living.
Perceived Reality, Information Control and the Awesome Power of Memes
What is our reality and who determines what that is or should be? Information and knowledge to which we have the most immediate access is what determines how we perceive and understand the world around us, is it not? Memes, not “those” memes, but rather as they are described by Richard Dawkins, are much like genes. In essence, memes are knowledge, traditions, beliefs, theories, values, culture, patterns of behavior and so on. They are any idea that any individual or society at large transmits from one generation to the next to be imitated into the future of the social structure. What we are doing right now is in fact memetic.
In the information age in which knowledge and information is being rapidly digitized and our world increasingly globalized, unfettered, centralized governments, multinational corporations and the power elites that influence them both can increasingly tug on the threads of human events and trends on a global scale by trying to control the flow of information to the public. If this sounds too conspiratorial, remember, there’s a reason why one of the first things that authoritarian regimes do is ban books or any other media, art or language that could potentially express dissenting opinion and challenge their imposed orthodoxy. He who controls the flow of knowledge influences both the individual and society’s perceptions of truth, fiction and the nature of reality.
The power elites of the Metal Gear Solid universe are known as “The Patriots”. They pose the idea that in this digital information age in which knowledge and data is naturally unfiltered in an environment where “uncomfortable truths”, “inconvenient beliefs” or dare I even say “fake news” are easily distributed, it is the duty of the elites to socially engineer society by deciding what knowledge should be known and who deserves the privilege of knowing it. In contrast, the heroes, agents Solid Snake and Raiden, appear to believe in a much more open and free market place of ideas, wherein you might truly break free from “the matrix”, so to speak, when you realize that there is a war for your heart, mind and soul, when you dare to challenge your perceptions and question your supposed reality. Find the memes that matter to you, the ones you know are true and teach others why you believed enough to fight for whatever it is in winch you believe.
Coercion or Free Choice: How Do We Make the World a Better Place?
A core concept of the plot that developed all of the core conflicts of the series was the mysterious will of the Boss. The world was effectively split in two by the force of the world’s government superpowers following World War 2 and everyone was forced to chose a side. The Boss became disgusted at how she was forced by her government to betray her personal beliefs and loyalties to the ones she loved because of the fickle shifts in the political winds. The Boss instead dreamed of a world made right and whole by “letting the world be.”
Major Zero, leader of the Patriots, took this to mean that an ideal world was a world completely globalized without borders. in this world, all information was controlled and regulated and the military-industrial complex created and exploited so that the Patriots could manipulate the world into the image of their twisted ideal world. Big Boss came to believe that the only right solution for soldiers was to band together in a borderless militarized society of his own making, free from national loyalty, control or ruling ideology. Soldiers would never have to betray their own again and would serve nobody but themselves. Believing that the natural state of mankind is a chaotic state of war and conflict without structure or hierarchy, his free nation of independent mercenaries would be free to fight in proxy wars for anyone willing to pay for their services in a war economy of their own making. By forcing disorder and chaos around the world, they would force the world to take the shape of Big Boss’ own ideal world.
The United States, the Boss’ nation and government, forced her to pose as a traitor to her country, framing her for treason. Likewise, they lied to Big Boss about her loyalties, forcing him to kill her to protect American interests. Unlike Big Boss and The Patriots who used force to enact their misguided view of the Boss’ dream, the Boss despised her government’s coercive monopoly on force to make her and those she cared about violate the dictates of their conscience. She believed that instead of forcing people to do what you want through threat of force and killing one another in needless wars, the world would be a better place if we were to work together for common interests, promoting voluntary action and honoring nonaggression in pursuit of peace.
Big Boss saw the error of his ways before death and rightly said, “You were right. It’s not about changing the world. It’s about doing our best to leave the world the way it is. It’s about respecting the will of others and believing in your own.” It was actually Solid Snake who followed her dream by divorcing himself from petty international feuds, using his skills in combat and espionage to fight for peace and by providing transparent information to expose and discredit the machines of war and those who would drive them instead of perpetuating the endless cycles of war.
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This doesn’t even scratch the surface of the ideas that permeate the Metal Gear Solid series and these are merely my own takeaways from just a few of their messages, but that’s what makes them surprisingly beautiful. Hideo Kojima made a series that somehow almost seamlessly blended serious drama, shameless camp, grounded realism, fantastical surrealism and science fiction, historical fiction, real geopolitics, philosophy and conspiracy theories all into a hot gumbo of deliciousness, but none of that was ever the point. The point is to share what he believes are some of the most important lessons of the modern age to pass on for the betterment of future generations, chief among them the need for peace in an increasingly destructible world. After all, is not peace one of the greatest gifts we could give the children of the future?