Ultimately, it is Andrew Ryan and his abandonment of objectivism that brings Rapture to its knees. Instead, as is often the case, what destroys Rapture is succinctly summed up by that most famous of sayings: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Of course, it all goes wrong.īut it isn't the idea of working towards self-interests that brings Rapture down, nor is Bioshock necessarily the scathing critique of objectivism as which it is so often portrayed. Scientists are free from ethical complaints, while capitalists are unbound from overwhelming taxation and bureaucracy. ![]() Advertisementįor a while, as depicted by the backstory that the player uncovers throughout the game, Rapture is the thriving, progressive place that Ryan dreamt of. ![]() ![]() Having seen the pain that he believes communism and an active state can cause, Ryan concocts a plan to build the ultimate objectivist paradise, an underwater city free from the stranglehold of state influence, where the best and brightest are free to do as they see fit. Ryan's days of being able to act as pleases in his pursuit of his own self-interests are over. His American Dream doesn't last long, though in the face of the economic depression caused by the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the US government takes more control over its financial systems in order to prevent the same economic catastrophe from happening again. In Bioshock, Ryan moves to the United States to escape communism, and in doing so uses his intelligence and foresight to become a wealthy businessman in the comparatively free West. Both Rand and Ryan grew up in the Soviet Union under strict communist governments, experiencing the kind of poverty and injustice that sometimes results from a system where individual liberty is side-lined in favour of helping the whole. Rapture's founder and ruler, Andrew Ryan, is Bioshock's less-than-subtle embodiment of Ayn Rand. But the real message of the game goes deeper than this simple warning. When you arrive in Rapture, the city has already fallen into chaos and decay, the vast majority of its surviving inhabitants having been consumed by the gene-altering "plasmids" that instil both superpowers and insanity on its users. Objectivism in Bioshock is seemingly presented as a failure. Ultimately, society rules itself, "without Gods or Kings."Įnlarge / Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged is a classic slice of Objectivism. In doing so, the theory runs that each person creates a personal situation where they feel accomplished and happy. What is objectivism? In short, it's the idea that society flourishes if each of its members focuses on their own self-interests over the interests of others, and without heavy-handed intervention from the state. ![]() Objectivism-a controversial political philosophy created by the Russian-American philosopher Ayn Rand in the mid-20th century-is what stands between Bioshock having a hokey sci-fi plot, and one that gives it worth well beyond its now-waning technical offerings. Whether players realise it or not, those words-No Gods or Kings, Only Man-plastered above the golden visage of the game's big bad, Andrew Ryan (an interesting contradiction in itself), set a tone that's carried through the entirety of the game. Fewer still are as effective nearly a decade on. A place where "the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small." As videogame intros go, few are as ambitious, or as forthright, as the protagonist's descent into the murky depths that envelop Bioshock's underwater city of Rapture. "No Gods or Kings, Only Man." No higher authority than that of reason and rationality.
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