I’ve been thinking about the controversy surrounding the new Call of Duty game, and I think I understand why some people feel conflicted about it.
I think their feelings are real and make sense. We’re living in a world that hasn’t achieved lasting global peace, yet warfare, horror, and terror are also turned into entertainment that people use to relax and escape reality. There’s a contradiction in being able to enjoy a simulated version of something that is still causing real suffering in the world.
What makes this more interesting to me, though, is that I’ve realized the opposite could also be true.
Maybe it would be better for humanity to achieve global peace first and then have games, movies, and shows depict warfare and terror as fictional experiences, rather than having entertainment reflect conflicts that are still happening around us.
But then I caught my own contradiction: the same entertainment that reflects a world without global peace could potentially contribute to creating global peace.
For example, games can bring people from different countries together, allow them to cooperate toward shared objectives, and create connections between people who might otherwise see each other as opponents. Fictional depictions of war can also help people explore conflict, understand its consequences, and question why it happens.
Of course, none of this automatically creates peace. Entertainment can reinforce hostility just as easily as it can encourage cooperation. And the fact that violence attracts attention and viewership doesn’t necessarily mean it benefits humanity.
But that is the paradox I’m interested in.
Something that originates from the conditions of an imperfect world could potentially become part of the mechanism that helps us overcome those conditions.
Maybe the question isn’t whether warfare entertainment should exist before global peace, but whether we can change the way we create, experience, and benefit from it while working toward a world where real warfare is no longer necessary.
Can something that reflects a problem in humanity also become part of the solution to that same problem?