Disco Elysium | The Ideological Dissection
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 28 ก.ย. 2024
- #DiscoElysium #videoessay
Greetings everyone! If you like what you see, be sure to like, comment, and subscribe! Follow me on Twitter @GriffinMuffin89
I encourage discussion about whatever I bring up in the video - comment below. Keep it civil though.
We're here again with another video delving into the narrative-rich game - Disco Elysium. While in my last video, I explored the narrative techniques employed to tell the story of Harry du Bois and his journey to rediscover his identity. This time - we're talking about ideology.
For those who've played, Disco Elysium contains four political ideologies: fascism, ultraliberalism, moralism and communism. What does the game have to say about contemporary ideologies? Are they coping mechanisms? Are there new meanings to the existence of each ideology? Let's find out.
If you're wondering why I haven't made a video in a while, here's the reason. The place I live in Melbourne for most of 2021 was in-and-out of lockdown. When this happens, my priorities turn to looking after my family - which means less time to research, write and create videos. I don't do TH-cam as a job and have no intention to become a big-and-famous content creator so I'm not at all concerned if I fall out of the algorithm.
I do this stuff cos I love talking about games like Disco Elysium. If you wanna chat with me more about games like Disco Elysium, feel free to ask for an invite to my Discord.
Thanks to all the brilliant people who've watched my Disco Elysium video - or have been with me since the beginning.
Thanks to Bruno Nascimento for the awesome art used in the thumbnail and the wall title card.
Special thanks for Billy Tynan's work with the music.
Resources:
Humankind, Rutger Bregman, 2020.
Materialism, Terry Eagleton, 2017.
Why Marx Was Right, Terry Eagleton, 2018.
Narcissism and entrepreneurship: Evidence from six datasets, Leung et al., www.sciencedir...
![Disco Elysium, Acid Communism, and Revolutionary Art [SPOILERS]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/-DQcMRuKqRg/mqdefault.jpg)
![Disco Elysium, Acid Communism, and Revolutionary Art [SPOILERS]](/img/tr.png)
My last full playthrough was also as a Communist Superstar cop. Paired with the Inexplicable Feminist Agenda and heavy psychedelic use you're basically RPing as John Lennon (but instead of getting shot, Yoko left him)
I wish I did high Inland Empire as Communist Superstar, the amount of trippy stuff I would've seen. I did Inexplicable Feminist Agenda as a fascist. Felt appropriate considering people I've met online haha.
@@GriffinMuffin High Empathy, Inland Empire, and Electrochemistry, as well as going for Communist, Superstar and anti-authoritarian/ sjw dialogue options is pure HippyCop.
Makes it ironic for me that I avoided playing this game for a long time bc I thought it would just be a 70s-style cop show procedural played straight. (where a lefty drug-addict would *never* be the protagonist)
Fun fact: endurance actually hates the fact you are a feminist as his duologue when you have it and select that choice he'll remark "no that can't be."
I remember that, yeah. Physical Instrument doesn't like 'girly' stuff either.
Brilliant video, thank you.
Brilliant analysis of a brilliant game. I feel lucky to be contemporaneous with this game. This was probably the best political breakdown of the various paths in it. DE is truly a masterful, artsy, political compass test.
Great video, and a service for all of us that didn't play the directors cut edition
Fucking amazing analysis!
I like how you do talked about moralism in this context. While the game does take the side of communism, the way you described moralism as really a degradation of liberal principles to one of control. I feel people who then are self describe liberal can then re contextualize what they believe in to one where it is actually productive. (And also not act as a smug asshole because they feel they are above it all)
So, the basic premise by some TH-camrs and other reviewers is that Disco Elysium is biased towards Communism. Although it takes jabs at all its political ideologies, with Communism it uses the fantasy setting to argue that we should ignore all the real world evidence that Communism always epically fails, and put forward the premise that it could work, maybe. Fair enough, although it does not take the "wipe the slate clean" approach with other political ideologies. This video argues that the game is fair and unbiased towards any ideology; however, I want to counter that argument with the actual conclusion of the video as displayed as text on screen:
"Each political quest has been written to exemplify a new thesis towards the ideology being discussed:
Fascism: Being an ideology fueled by a frustrated middle class, feeling outgunned in sexual competition.
Ultraliberalism: A belief system to justify narcissism.
Moralism: A reason for the state to grow and evolve to control the unruly mob
Communism: A humanist outlook of the future."
As you will notice, only communism is represented in a wholly positive way. Fascism and Ultraliberalism are straight up representations of people's own inadequacies. Moralism is also given a very negative representation. If you consider all the things that people could say about each ideology, and rank those views from most positive to most negative, it is hard not to draw the conclusion that Fascism, Ultraliberalism and Moralism are all drawing from the bottom of the list, while communism is drawing close to the top of it's ranking.
I'm not saying Disco Elysium is a bad game, or even a biased political game. I'm just pointing out that the conclusion of the video does not match the premise.
that's because communism in real life at it's core is deeply humanistic
communism does sound much better than any other ideology also in real life, so what do you wanted the writers to do - lie? I think it was balanced enough with the constant reminder that it will always fail
@@zacnieprawisz9171 Surely Communism "sounding better than any other ideology" is massively subjective. I would think Moralism and Ultraliberalism sound better to some. Hell, maybe even Fascism. Lying implies there is some objectivity in the point, which there isn't. Besides, you miss the main point which is that I am not criticizing the game, only this opinion video that claims the game is balanced politically yet has a summary that makes only one option sound good. I'm not saying the game isn't balanced, just that this video makes a very unconvincing argument.
"only communism is represented in a wholly positive way" bro, we know you havent played the game, the criticism of communism is the harshest in the game, communism has self criticism as a vital part, and its harsh criticism of communism is one of the best parts of the game, and its why the game is at its core presenting a hopeful view of betterment.
Also being biased is not bad, I will never not be biased towards the laboring class rather than the propertied classes.
"ignore all the real world evidence that Communism always epically fails" while this is a horrible way to portray the historic achievements of communism, it completely goes against what the game does in its portrayal of communism, it focuses front and center its failures, it is deeply critical of it.
@@zacnieprawisz9171 Communism might "sound much better than any other ideology" but no other ideology has more than 200 000 000 people as body count.
Deeply humanistic at it´s core indeed.
moralism is progressivism.
Tbh, in all my research for moralism, I didn't see progressivism pop up. But I can see why I didn't come up, an article I've now read says the two terms (liberalism/progressivism) have become conflated. I decided to refer to liberalism in the video because so much of the humour, to me, was directed at liberals. Thank you for the comment.
I can t say I agree, progressivism is a primarily social movement, where as moralism is both a social and economic movement.
Progressivism isn t represented in game because for the most part it is a distinctly american thing(more or less) and the game has a more European outlook.
Progressivism is primarily a result of the Democratic party of the US trying to unite different groups by focusing on what they agree, wich is mostly stuff relating to equality between minorities, betweeb races etc. As such progresives are composed of anything from hard core socialists, to center rights like market liberals.
Anyway such a union between parties isn t usually present in multi party sistems.
Anyway moralism is a standin for centrist parties usually, wich while they pretend to be different, when it comes to polycies usually aren't, they just use different talking points.
The Moralintern is more of a stand in for the west, and EPIS a stand in for the EU.
@@Somajsibere economic progressivism is basically just neoliberalism.
moralism is more or less the combination of free market liberalism economics and social progressivism.
@@T.R.A.I.N.I.N.G. Fair point.
Ok, I have watched the whole video and have some thoughts. I hope I am not too late.
I am kind of disappointed with the video. The title states that this is a ideological dissection of the game, but I don't see one. Statements by the game are often accepted without reflection. Ideology is reduced solely to Harrier Du Bois. I hoped there was more back and forth between the game and you. Anyway, I want to write a response comment because I have issues with your video and hope to discuss them with you.
Let's start with Fascism, as it is the first section and the most disagreeable position. One of the largest issues I see with the portrayal of Fascism in Disco Elysium is that there is no such thing as RL Fascism in Disco Elysium. The term "Fascism" is invoked in the game like it exists within the same context and history of RL, however this is simply not true. There is no Hitler or Mussolini in the history of DE Fascism. There isn't even an explanation for the term given to your by your inner voices unlike every other ideology. Your Endurance even dismisses all attempts to lable yourself to something more accurate like a Traditionalist or Nationalist. This screams being written by leftwing author and there being no justification for said label.
This simply doesn't work because the world was never ravaged by Fascism but by Communism. The "Fascist" Suzerainty wasn't even an absolute monarchy, considering that it is stated by Joyce that there was a constitution and a parliament, placing the monarchy firmly into Moralist territory. Furthermore the "Fascism" of the Suzerainty lacked an ethno-nationalist aspect as René and and learning through a check with Gary there being a Suzerainty faction of ethnic Seolite Admirals shows. Additionally, there were no mass politics or grand ideological goals. But let's move on. We can talk about that in other comments.
Something I found strange is your ignorance towards Humanism and Christianity in the context of Moralism. Moralism is a very straightforward fusion of Christian philosophy and Liberalism, aka Humanism. It's not without reason that some say that Humanism is Christianity without the God. Moralism has even been secularised to the point that it isn't even considered a religion by many of its adherants, which mirrors IRL adherants to an extent. I can speak more about Moralism and Ultraliberalism but I don't think they are too important in the grand debate. Let's tackle Communism.
Communism is treated relatively uncritically in the video. Communism, for all its thoughts, is still treated as the best future for humanity. In the end, I find the conclusion to be unsatisfying and how your improve. I personally hope for a discussion in the future.
Good video and analysis overall however I was a bit disappointed that you didn't expand on where the communist vision quest takes Infra-Materialism as it ended up being one of the more powerful moments in the game for me. Although the theory sounds ridiculous from a real world perspective it is proven to at least be somewhat correct because you can successfully build the block structure that the two other communists fail to to as long as your Harry is sufficiently dedicated to communism. Even Kim isn’t able to rationalise the event despite often being critical of anything supernatural.
Although I don’t remember how much it is hinted at in game this also ties into the theory that the hole in the world was possibly partly responsible for the downfall of communism in Revachol by it consuming the etheric power of the Communist movement.
I was also surprised that you didn’t mention the part of the moralist quest where you can basically volunteer to be disappeared although that doesn’t really touch on the Ideology as much beyond the Moralintern’s desire to be remove elements that threaten the status quo.
You can argue that three seconds should encourage you. You can also argue those three seconds are a sign you should be focused on helping people instead of playing card games.
Actually you CAN do a sober fascist run through a duologue choice with race theory on measurehead or with a crabman to get wasteland reality to remove all alcohol buffs and be sober
Damn I didn't consider that. Lucky I said "I don't think you can do" haha
@@GriffinMuffin yeah you can doesn't mean you really should as I had also did a no drugs run which is really difficult
Are there spoilers in here if I haven't finished the game yet? 😯
Yes, definitely play it at least once
This was incredibly educational, Thank You!
Also, the talk about communism being able to create different architecture reminds me a lot of surrealism and its relation to communism through Ernst Bloch and other authors, which is something that is still very relevant tho not that popular outside academia. Because of the supposed "end of history" that liberals proclaimed in the late 80s, communism also returned being associated with imagination, poetics, magical realism, and the overall ability to imagine different futures (although classic marxist-leninist weren't in agreement). I comment a long time ago in another video that I thought the developers were Deleuzian because of this, rather than "real" communists.
Excellent job!
Great job.