Michał Kłosiński

Silesia University, Katowice, Poland

Visions of an indebted man and neoliberal ideology in

Bioshock Infinite

This project was funded by the National Science Centre

allocated on the basis of the decision number

UMO-2012/05/D/HS2/03589.

Projekt został sfinansowany ze środków Narodowego Centrum

Nauki przyznanych na podstawie decyzji numer

UMO-2012/05/D/HS2/03589.

Summary/Introduction:

The main focus of this paper is to analyze and present

various economical motives inscribed in the story of a

multiplatform (PC, PS3, XBOX) game Bioshock Infinite and its rich

world. In the beginning I would like to focus on the economic

background and circumstances of the main protagonist and

antagonist at the same time: Booker DeWitt / Zachary Hale

Comstock. I propose to read this character as a virtual example

of an indebted man. This perspective opens up a new reading of

Bioshock Infinite focusing on the economic aspect of both the

existential status of the main protagonist and his involvement

in the creation and destruction of the game’s vision of Utopia

and power relations.

Part I

A story of an indebted man

“Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt”

With this sentence the whole story of Bioshock Infinite is set

into motion, with this sentence the motive is given to the

protagonist and the player who controls his actions. Who is

Booker DeWitt at the beginning of the adventure, in a small

boat going to a lighthouse to enter the flying city of

Columbia? He is an indebted man, a man with a gun prepared to

do anything to come clean. As the story of Bioshock Infinite

unveils the player learns more and more information about

Booker’s past and how he came to be a man with a debt. This

information can also be found in the Bioshock Infinite Wikia, which

states that:

In January of 1892, Booker became an employee of the Pinkerton's

National Detective Agency. While working as a Pinkerton, Booker garnered a

reputation by ending labor strikes with extreme violence. Around this time,

he met a woman who shortly after became pregnant. She died while giving

birth to a daughter, Anna. This, coupled with his dismissal from the Agency

for excessively violent behavior, sent him into a depression. He turned to

alcohol and gambling, which drove him far into debt.1

I am not quoting or addressing the matter of Bookers

involvement in the pacification of native Americans, I will

only mention that the war crimes he committed at Wounded Knee

led him to get baptized into Comstock, which is the key part of

his backstory2. My goal however is to focus on the question of

debt and socio-economical background of the main protagonist.

Booker violently pacifies the labor strikes, he is a man

absolutely immune to social solidarity, and we are talking

about an 18 year old boy here (Booker was born in 1874), a boy

who became a soldier at the age of 16. He was never a worker,

in fact he always worked as a mercenary, a paid thug. All this

adds up to him becoming a father at a very young age plus

losing his wife as soon as his daughter was born. Instead of

taking care of his child – Anna, he gambles and drinks,

eventually selling her to pay off his debts. This short sketch

of Bookers background shows that he is a model representative

of the precariat3: 1. He has no stable job; 2. He has 1 Bioshock Infinite Wikia: http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Booker_DeWitt [on-line], access: 15.09.2014. 2 Helen Lewis in her review of Bioshock Infinite writes that: “BioShock Infiniteis determined to make its largely American audience engage with aspects of its history that it would probably rather forget.” http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/03/moment-you-cant-ignore-bioshock-infinite [on-line], access: 15.09.2014. Her main thesis is that Bioshock Infinite could be a step to “make video games more human”. I would liketo challenge that belief by focusing on some of the worrying features of the game which point to the fact that it might, at the same time, be an example of neoliberal ideology at work. 3 Conf. Guy Standing: The Precariat The new dangerous class, Bloomsbury Academic: London 2011, pp. 7-20.

absolutely no social security; 3. Out of fear and lack of

perspectives he is driven to a state of absolute poverty; 4.

His future – represented by his daughter Anna – has been taken

away from him by his status of an indebted man.

The game of Bioshock Infinite fractalizes the story of Booker

DeWitt making it into a puzzle which every player has to put

together to realize what are the circumstances of the

protagonist. What or who Booker is at the beginning of his

journey is a tabula rasa, a tabula rasa with a debt, and it is

quite ingenious that the journey into the utopia/dystopia of

Columbia turns into a journey of a precarious man with a debt

to learn his own history and to retrieve his future (Anna). In

other words, Bioshock Infinite is a history of an indebted man with

all iterations of his relationship to debt as a part of his

very existence.

Two iterations of an indebted man: Booker DeWitt and

Zachary Hale Comstock

It is imperative to read Bioshock Infinite not only as a story

about a XIX century indebted man, an individual named Booker

DeWitt, but also a story about our contemporary social

condition, of our precariousness and specific power structure

governing it. In his work on the Indebted man Maurizio Lazzarato

relates to Foucault and Nietzsche in order to describe the

process of creating indebted man and its consequences. He

writes:

Debt creation, that is, the creation and development of the power

relation between creditors and debtors, has been conceived and programmed

as the strategic heart of neoliberal politics. If debt is indeed central to

understanding, and thus combating, neoliberalism, it is because

neoliberalism has, since its emergence, been founded on a logic of debt.4

One might ask what Booker DeWitt, a character placed in an

alternative vision of XIX century USA has to do with

neoliberalism? Is the world of Bioshock Infinite a neoliberal one?

There is definitely a hint about violence towards the workers

movement and Boxer Rebellion (China – against Christians and

imperialism), both in Booker’s biography, as well as in his

involvement in Columbia’s coup. What is interesting is that the

only worker movement onboard Columbia, the Vox populi is

effectively presented as a grim revolutionary alternative to

Comstock’s religious and racist extremism. The revolutionaries

who are rebelling against class and race oppression are

presented as savage, barbarous and bloodthirsty lot willing to

go to every length to obtain power. One must also point to the

fact that some reviewers5 have linked the Vox populi with the

Occupy movement which is an outrageous idea (and a neoliberal I

would like to say). But is it enough to call the world of

4 Maurizio Lazzarato: The making of an indebted man An essay on the neoliberal condition, trans. by Joshua David Jordan, Semiotext(e): Amsterdam 2012, p. 25.5 Conf. Conor Dougherty: A Videogame With a Political Philosophy, “Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition”, 2013, Vol. 261, Issue 67.

Bioshock Infinite a neoliberal one? No, but it is a world

representing the growing power of capitalism of the beginning

of the 20th century. This world is not yet neoliberal in a

sense that it has not yet capitalized on the financial break

with the gold standard, nor has it turned to corporations,

semiocapitalism etc. The feature which allows us to link the

perspective of Bioshock Infinite and neoliberalism is the debt and

precarization of the main protagonist as well as the working

class present in Columbia. We must underline that the logic of

human exploitation based on racism is pretty much the logic of

submitting man to debt in neoliberalism. Franco “Bifo” Berardi

quotes Deleuze and Guattari to show that neoliberalism is no

different than fascism:

So I would say that neoliberalism is the most perfect form of

fascism, in terms of Deleuze and Guattari’s definition. Competition is the

concealment of a war machine in every niche of daily life: the kingdom of

competition is fascism perfected. 6

Competition breeds violence, and violence is at the very

heart of Columbia, from its festivals where citizens can throw

stones at Afro-Americans, through the factories which produce

Vigors by exploiting lowest class workers, to the Comstock Bank

which reaps 50% tax on every transaction made in the flying

city. The competition lies at the basis of Columbia, a

6 Franco „Bifo” Berardi: The Uprising On Poetry and Finance, Semiotext(e): Los Angeles 2012, p. 95.

competition to survive – the most Darwinian element of the

capitalist ideology.

The flying city of Columbia represents Zachary Hale

Comstock’s twisted quasi-Christian morality coupled with a

racist economical exploitation of lower classes7. And Zachary

Hale Comstock is a religious iteration of Booker DeWitt, a man

re-born through baptism after the massacre of native Americans

at Wounded Knee. Who Comstock is, economically speaking, is

quite interesting in comparison to ever indebted Booker.

Comstock is an example of an entrepreneur, he creates Columbia

just like a corporation or a company – gathering funds,

technology and people (the founders) to establish a flourishing

business. Columbia flies around the world gathering cheap

workforce from countries such as China and becomes independent

from the US government by gaining immense military power. At

the same time, it gains economic independence by issuing its

own money (in this sense it is a capitalistic utopia, as the

philosophical utopia rejects money8). But Comstock is

infertile, and here is the main problem he faces – he does not

have a future. That is why he hast to buy his own debt, buy

his future from his other self. What Comstock does is to take

Anna from his past self, he legitimately steals his own future

and imprisons it in a tower guarded by a Songbird.

7 Tom Watson, in his review titled Moral Maze writes: “I don’t think I have ever played a video game that has confronted racism in such anupfront manner as BioShock. There are segregated toilets, exploited black workers and prejudice.” http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/04/reviewed-bioshock-infinite [on-line], access: 15.09.2014.8 Conf. Fredric Jameson: Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, Verso: London 2005, p. 12.

Comstock is the creditor Booker gives Anna to “wipe away

his debt”. But how did Booker “wipe away” his debt, how did he

“cleanse” himself? One of the most intriguing facts is the

dialogue which seals the deal Booker does with Comstock:

Booker DeWitt: (giving Anna to Robert) “What choice do I have?”

Robert Lettuce: “The debt is paid. Mister Comstock washes you of all

your sins.”

This paradoxical situation calls for our attention, as the

sinner is being forgiven by himself. The act of forgiveness

comes from Comstock to Booker, but as they are one and the same

person it becomes clear that Comstock is performing the very

same speech act which was used to baptize him. Booker who

neglected the baptism saying it was a “dunk in the water” is

here cleansed by none other than his creditor and not with

water, but with his words. The capitalist takes his daughter

away as a payment not only for his debt, but also for his sins.

Lazzarato writes:

When it comes to talking about debt, the media, politicians, and

economists have only one message to communicate: "You are at fault," "You

are guilty."9

9 Maurizio Lazzarato: The making of an indebted man… op. cit., p. 31.

Booker’s iteration – Comstock arrives at the scene of

history when the act of baptism cleanses him of his “original

sin” or of all his sins and guilt (maybe that is why he can

forgive Booker). But at the same time as Comstock leaves his

past behind, the act of baptism makes him an indebted man

again, this time – by becoming a Christion – he becomes

indebted for eternity to God. Moreover, Comstock becomes a

religious entrepreneur, a man who “works on himself”. Lazzarato

refers to this capitalistic phenomenon described at the end of

XIX century by Nietzsche as one of the main tools of

neoliberalism:

Debt as economic relation, for it to take effect, has thus the

peculiarity of demanding ethico-political labor constitutive of the

subject. Modern-day capitalism seems to have discovered on its own the

technique described by Nietzsche of constructing a person capable of

promising: labor goes hand in hand with work on the self, with self-

torture, with self-directed action. Debt involves a process of

subjectivation that marks at once "body" and "spirit."10

Zachary Hale Comstock is a perfect example of such process

of subjectivation. On countless images and in short propaganda

stories the player comes by in Bioshock Infinite, Comstock is

presented both as a martyr and as a self-made man. He is both a

capitalist and an indebted man. But to fully understand who

DeWitt and Comstock is, one has to understand that Comstock is

not stealing his own daughter from his past self. In fact

10 Ibidem, p. 42.

Comstock – the capitalist and eternally indebted Christian is

impossible of having a future – thus infertility. The only way

for him to gain a future is to buy it from Booker – the

indebted man whose future is taken from him. Booker as Comstock

is entering an endless circle of creditor-debtor with himself,

and that establishes an economic power relation. Furthermore,

as we have seen in the dialogue that seals the deal between

Booker and Comstock, this power relationship goes beyond

economy into religious and metaphysical one. Lazzarato writes:

Credit or debt and their creditor-debtor relationship constitute

specific relations of power that entail specific forms of production and

control of subjectivity – a particular form of homo economicus, the "indebted

man." The creditor-debtor relationship encompasses capital/labor, Welfare-

State services/users, and business/consumer relations, just as it cuts

through them, instituting users, workers, and consumers as "debtors.”11

Comstock tries to do the impossible here and that sets the

whole story of Bioshock Infinite into motion. He is trying to buy

his own debt, but at the same time he is trying to perform an

act of forgiveness upon himself. He is trying to retrieve the

future at all costs with use of his capital. But the story of

Bioshock – coupled with neoliberal philosophy – shows us that a

man cannot retrospectively buy his past debt nor can he absolve

himself of his past sins, he cannot buy his future back: Anna

becomes Comstock’s prisoner and an investment – she is not his

child, she is a tool, a biological capital which he could not

11 Ibidem, p. 30.

produce as an infertile man. Her purpose is equal with

prolonging the existence of Columbia – Comstock’s business.

On the other hand, we have Booker DeWitt who follows the

same pattern but in reverse: he has paid his debt by selling

Anna, but he wants her back, and the only possible way to do so

is to go into the future and combat himself, the debt

collector. But by going into the future he must once again

become an indebted man and a sinner, that is why the only thing

he remembers at the beginning of the game, when we meet him, is

the same sentence which marked the deal with Comstock: “Bring

us the girl and wipe away the debt”. Booker cannot escape being

indebted for as soon as he kills Comstock there will be no one

to pay for his debt nor forgive him his sins.

The creditor – debtor relationship of power is in fact a

circle (maybe the same one that the theme song of Bioshock tells

us about). It is impossible to break this circle because in

this particular situation the creditor is at the same time the

debtor. One cannot pay his own debt, loose his future and then

come back to retrieve it – that is what Bioshock Infinite tells us

– that the only way to break the vicious circle of neoliberal

relationship is to die. That is also why Booker must die during

his baptism into Comstock, he must die a sinner, he cannot be

absolved, because it is the act of forgiving the sins which

creates the capitalist, the creditor.

Part II

TINA - There is no alternative

Bioshock Infinite is a story about an indebted man. But this

sentence does not solve the most important questions which must

be posed after playing the game and experiencing its world.

First problem posed here is the possibility of recovering one’s

debt of future. And this question must be posed not from the

perspective of Booker DeWitt, but from the perspective of the

player, and in this particular situation by an European player.

In his stunning analysis of the European economic and social

situation after the recent Greek crisis, Berardi asks about the

status of relationship between money and time that is stored in

banks and represents the futures or pasts of the debtors. He

comes into a very interesting conclusion:

The crucial mystery, the crucial enigma, the crucial secret in the

financial age of capitalism is precisely this: is the money that is stored

in the bank my past time, (the time that I have spent in the past), or is

it the money that ensures the possibility of my buying the future?12

I think we are speaking of an enigma, because nobody knows about the

future, nobody knows what is hidden in the future time of debtors. So the

only way to solve this enigma is with violence. Either you pay, or you are

out. Either you give your present time as payment for the future time that

you have stored in German banks, or you’ll become poor. So in order to

avoid being expelled from the European Union, the Greeks and the Portuguese12 Franco „Bifo” Berardi: op. cit., p. 84.

and others are obliged to become poor. Recession, impoverishment, misery:

this is the way we are paying for our (imaginary) future: debt.13

And what if we want our futures back? What answer does

Bioshock Infinite give us? The hero of this story is as precarious

as one can be, a precarious sinner, indebted man. But probably

the most intriguing reading of the story of Bioshock Infinite would

be focused on the idea of wiping one’s debt by himself. What

can we do, we the precarious, we the indebted, we who played

the story of Booker DeWitt? First of all, we can go into the

capitalistic city in the clouds and try to take back our time

with violence. We are already branded as thugs, outlaws,

sinners – what do we care? And this is not a coincidence that

the hero of Bioshock Infinite, our hero, the hero of our times is

branded an outlaw as soon as he enters the capitalistic

paradise to take back what should have never been taken from

him. But Bioshock Infinite works against any true and intentional

fight with the neoliberalism: it shows that there can be no

community, no alliance, no friend except one’s particular

interest, one’s individual future. We as Booker never join the

Vox populi – it is even shown that that particular possibility in

the vast space time of alternatives leads nowhere14. This

brings us to the realization that Bioshock Infinite is on the side

of the neoliberal, that it’s story doesn’t give the indebted 13 Ibidem, p. 85.14 Matthew Murray in his review writes that: “The conflict with the working-class »Vox Populi« boils down to an overly simplistic »don’t become those you hate« message.” http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2417083,00.asp [on-line], access: 15.09.2014. This overly simplistic message that the reviewer notes shows how the theme of workers movement turns into an exceptionally well made anti-worker political admonition.

man any real choice, does not show him any possibility of

forming a movement, of combating neoliberalism. What it does

instead is to shift the guilt from the capitalist to the debtor

making them one and the same person. This science-fiction and

paradoxical outcome must be deconstructed to show how

neoliberalism constructs a prison, an unavoidable circle of

debtor-creditor relationship with only death as an alternative

to escape it. By constructing a time-space alternative history,

the player is led to believe that Booker DeWitt and Zachary

Hale Comstock are one and the same person, and that only by

killing oneself before one chooses the wrong path in life, is

the only way out of bad future outcome. But according to the

game story killing Comstock “in the crib”, during his baptism,

does not wipe away the debt, does not prevent our precarious

protagonist to be little less precarious than he was or will

ever be. Furthermore, by annulling the act of baptism and

turning it into murder of Comstock – the religious alternative

of protagonist, a part of a community – the game story leaves

Booker on a road to be an indebted sinner. The question of debt

remains the same, the only thing that changes is the creditor

who will sooner or later come for Booker’s belongings. This is

a paradox, as the player is made to believe that what he does

is for the greater good, but at the same time he agrees for his

protagonist to remain an indebted man – the only real

alternative to religious extremism.

Here we arrive at the second question: why is every

community movement in the game a cradle for extremism,

fanatics, racism and bloodshed? Why is the Christian baptism

presented as the easiest route to Columbia – a theocratic

totalitarianism? Even more – the necessary route to even enter

the city (every newcomer has to go through baptism to be let

into the city). Why is the Vox populi, the only worker’s movement

in the game fighting for social rights and equality no

different from its oppressors? Why is it reduced to hints

pointing us to totalitarianism and communist propaganda or

populists15? The answer is simple: because Bioshock Infinite is

unable to present any alternative to neoliberalism, it is not

meant to side with or promote neither revolutionaries, nor

religious community. Moreover, this anti-communitarian

atmosphere promotes the absolute individualism of the

protagonist, another future hinting at him being a product of

neoliberal ideology. Paul Callagham is one of the few

critically oriented readers of Bioshock Infinite who focuses on the

change of trends that made the game more mainstream oriented

than its previous series. He writes:

15 Adam Serwer in his article and interview with Kane Levine, one of the makers of Bioshock Infinite clearly states that the Vox Populi are “populist extremists”: “Here, the ruling Founders—white nativist worshippers of America's Founding Fathers who seek to preserve the city as a neo-Confederate paradise—clash with populist extremists called the Vox Populi, who claim to represent the downtrodden.” http://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/05/irrational-games-bioshock-infinite-creator-ken-levine-interview [on-line], access: 15.09.2014. One could ask, why is the worker’s movement organization depicted as a populistmovement? Why is fighting for equality and social privileges considered “populist”? This is an outward example of neoliberal propaganda newspeak which works against any symptoms of community movement. The dismissal of Vox Populi serves a political objective which neither Serwer nor Levine even take into consideration. In a quest to present America’s shady history to Americans neoliberalism hides its ideological poison.

It feels less a response to a dominant ideology than an affirmation

of one. As a result, the game itself, and the values of its creators, has

become a focus for the ways in which the wider games industry treats

underrepresented groups, violence and nuanced issues of race. In its early

stages, BioShock: Infinite explicitly makes a statement about its themes.

The player is given the choice to either punish or save an interracial

couple in front of a baying crowd at a fair. The surrounding imagery,

dialogue and sound are racially charged, and it is clearly intended to be a

shocking moment. Shocking it is, but it is then followed by the player

brutally killing guards and police when his true identity is discovered,

robbing the moment of any real opportunity for thought or nuance, and

reducing it to the very thing it wanted to critique - a sideshow at a

fair.16

Callagham’s reading challenges the immaturity and paradox

of shallow critique the game proposes by utilizing violence and

thus nullifying any argument it could have made. It is quite

sensational how this paradox has eluded most of the reviewers

who tend to blindly agree to this strategy of “fighting fire

with fire” calling Bioshock Infinite a reflection on or critique of

violence.

Another paradox of the world presented in Bioshock Infinite is

absolute lack of alternative, it is literally a world with

infinite alternatives with no alternative for Booker you are

playing. And I do not mean various possibilities given to

complete the main story (like choosing to kill a person or

not). My point is that the story of Bioshock Infinite is a story of

alternatives which you have no way of choosing. In fact, what

16 Paul Callaghan: (Bio)shock to the Mainstream, “Metro Magazine”, Winter 2013, Issue 177, p. 98.

Booker does with help of his daughter is to reduce the

alternatives because they seem to form a loop of misery for

both of them. Why speak about alternatives now? It might be

refreshing to look at the Bioshock Infinite, a game built on the

utopian vision of flying city of Columbia from the perspective

of Fredric Jameson’s reflection about the political

implications of utopian representation. Jameson writes:

Yet it is not only the invincible universality of capitalism which is

at issue: tirelessly undoing all the social gains made since the inception

of the socialist and communist movements, repealing all the welfare

measures, the safety net, the right to unionization, industrial and

ecological regulatory laws, offering to privatize pensions and indeed to

dismantle whatever stands in the way of the free market all over the world.

What is crippling is not the presence of an enemy but rather the universal

belief, not only that this tendency is irreversible, but that the historic

alternatives to capitalism have been proven unviable and impossible, and

that no other socioeconomic system is conceivable, let alone practically

available. The Utopians not only offer to conceive of such alternate

systems; Utopian form is itself a representational meditation on radical

difference, radical otherness, and on the systemic nature of the social

totality, to the point where one cannot imagine any fundamental change in

our social existence which has not first thrown off Utopian visions like so

many sparks from a comet.17

This long quote from Jameson’s introduction to his book on

utopia is extremely important in the analysis of Bioshock Infinite.

There are two main perspectives I see of reading the utopian

17 Fredric Jameson: Archeologies of the Future The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions, Verso: London 2005, p. XII.

impulse and utopian program present in the game: 1. As an

utopian depiction of systemic totalities; 2. As completely

anti-utopian project – in neoliberal sense. The first reading

focuses on the things I have already mentioned in this paper,

such as the critique of religious totalitarianism and a

thought-provoking vision of indebted man. The second reading

focuses on Bioshock Infinite as a simulacrum18 of alternative worlds

and choices, a simulacrum of choice given to Booker. The

simulacrum of alternative is best seen in the scene in which

Booker gives his Daughter to Robert Letuce. He absolutely has

no choice, he has to give her away as the laws of the universe

forbid him from moving on if he doesn’t replay this moment from

his past. He might be able to go to alternative storyline, but

he is unable to alternate it, meaning that the alternative will

always have the same outcome, ergo – it is not an alternative

at all. And Jameson would probably say that if there is no

alternative, then the utopia has to create one. And what does

the utopia about lack of alternatives give us? The ultimate

alternative: self-sacrifice of Booker DeWitt, his death. In

this sense I believe that Bioshock Infinite represents an anti-

utopian utopia or dystopia. It is a simulacrum of utopia, it

gives infinite alternatives which all lead to one neoliberal

outcome – the realization that the indebted man is as guilty as

the religious entrepreneur. Before Booker is drowned he is

being held by his daughters from alternative worlds, the

dialogue goes as follows:

18 I am using the notion of simulacrum after Jean Baudrillard, Conf. Jean Baudrillard: Simulacra and Simulation, trans. by Sheila Faria Glaser, The Univeristy of Michigan Press 1995, pp. 1-25.

Elizabeth: You chose to walk away.

Elizabeth: But in other oceans, you didn’t.

Elizabeth: You took the baptism.

Elizabeth: And you were born again as a different man.

Booker: (whispers) Comstock.

Elizabeth: It all has to end.

Elizabeth: To have never started.

Elizabeth: Not just in this world.

Elizabeth: But in all of ours.

Booker: Smother him in the crib.

Elizabeth ensemble: Smother… smother… smother…

Elizabeth: Before the choice is made.

Elizabeth: Before you are reborn.

Preacher Witting: And what name shall you take my son?

Elizabeth (on the right side): He’s Zachary Comstock.

Elizabeth (on the left side): He’s Booker DeWitt.

Booker: No… I’m both.

(He is drown by different Elizabeths)

The final dialogue is not only grim but it marks a very

important anti-utopian moment in Bioshock Infinite: the

nullification of all alternatives. Booker is drown so that no

choice will be made, so that no future will be chosen, so that

no alternative will be born. This also marks a dramatic shift

in our reading of Bioshock Infinite. The simulacrum of infinite

choices and alternatives crumbles as the moment of making the

alternative – baptism – turns into a murder, “smothering in the

crib”. The choice of words is not without meaning in this

scene, as “smothering in the crib” points to the fact that we

are dealing with a newborn here (not only in a sense of

baptism). The crib is nothing other than the very possibility

of being reborn – one of the motives present in many utopias.

We must also remember that with this act the flying city of

Columbia will never be constructed, and thus there will be no

Utopia, no possibility of any utopia. To sum it all up, Bioshock

creates a vision of utopia following a theocratic program, but

at the same time it delivers a stunning solution to the utopian

impulse which was the foundation of its story – it turns in an

anti-utopia in the sense of eliminating possible alternatives.

This paradox makes it not only a very valuable experience for a

utopia reader, but also a very interesting material for a

general socio-economic critique of neoliberal ideology present

in various virtual world representations.

Bibliography:

Baudrillard Jean: Simulacra and Simulation, trans. by Sheila

Faria Glaser, The Univeristy of Michigan Press 1995.

Berardi Franco „Bifo”: The Uprising On Poetry and Finance,

Semiotext(e): Los Angeles 2012.

Bioshock Infinite Wikia:

http://bioshock.wikia.com/wiki/Booker_DeWitt [on-line], access:

15.09.2014.

Callaghan Paul: (Bio)shock to the Mainstream, “Metro Magazine”,

Winter 2013, Issue 177.

Dougherty Conor: A Videogame With a Political Philosophy, “Wall

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