Are people constantly yelling at you to stop playing World of Warcraft so you can hose the dried human-waste off your bony shanks? Do your parents get down on you because you forget to feed your little brother every time you babysit? Why don’t they understand that it’s not your fault he hasn’t leveled up enough to pour cereal and milk into a bowl?
Don’t worry! People have finally made it possible to justify the hours spent playing World of Warcraft. Before World of Warcraft and Philosophy, it was easy for people to label WOW as an addicting game that turned its players into grease-slicked zombies with no value to society. Now that there’s a book with both “World of Warcraft” and “Philosophy” in the title, no one is just grinding for pvp armor or selling at the auction house. Now everyone is thinking.
You can tell this book is serious business because it has that washed watercolor look like someone found it at the bottom of the ocean on top of Socrates’s lost memoirs. That thoughtful looking eye in the top left corner doesn’t hurt either. It’s quite a contrast to the eyes of World of Warcraft players, which are at least bloodshot and more than likely stewing with conjunctivitis.
From Boing Boing,
Plato, Socrates, Nietzsche, Adam Smith… Sure, they were all great thinkers, but how long would they have lasted in Ulduar?
Continuing with the ongoing Popular Culture and Philosophy series, World of Warcraft and Philosophy, (Wrath of the Philosopher King) will be hitting bookshelves on November 1st. This collection of essays and short fiction addresses the ethics, economics, and metaphysics of Azeroth and its inhabitants. Along the way, the collection takes quick excursions on issues of gender identity, leadership, hate speech, and the likelihood of the IRS auditing a troll. Add in shoutouts to Machiavelli, Gary Gygax, and Thomas Jefferson (and, yes, even Cory Doctorow) and you’ve you might find yourself leveling up in intellect as well as your combat skills.
I think Plato would probably last as long in Ulduar as I would last in Ulduar. This is assuming that the inhabitants of Ulduar realize that my body is made out of delicious meat. It was wise to “add in shoutouts.” That makes World of Warcraft and Philosophy the hippest book since that Carson Daly released that tell-all about Total Request Live.
This looks like a pretty interesting read. I’m particularly curious about the IRS auditing a troll part; I had a monopoly on silver rods at the auction house for the longest time, and I never paid any taxes.
