Word: assassin
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...Assassin hones moral acuity. By moral I mean not a value derived from the Almighty, but an understanding of human nature distilled from experience, what Samuel Johnson defined in his 1756 Dictionary as "such as is known or admitted in the general business of life," what contemporary judges mean when they speak to jurors of moral certainty. The game alerts players to the potentialities of surprise, and especially surprise betrayal, and betrayal is part of the general business of life, even undergraduate life at Harvard. In Assassin, not a stranger but an acquaintance or friend becomes stalker, raptor, assassin...
...Evil sneaks inside, steals laptops, burgles rooms, even rapes. Against such intrusion Harvard deploys police, guards, locks, and awareness, what all of us see as a common and largely successful effort against harm. We glance at the stranger, report the lurker, lock the door. About all that Assassin teaches little. No one calls the game Perimeter Defense or Scotland Yard. Yet our continuous awareness, sometimes great, sometimes less, of external threat frequently deflects our attention from the very real harm now and then occasioned by people inside the gates. Assassin is basic training against date-rape...
...nothing else, Assassin deserves praise for encouraging undergraduates to think well while always remembering they are involved too in a game demanding some level of awareness. Harvard tends to reward total thinking, the welding of reader with book, the stopping of time in darkroom or laboratory. But only in the rarest of situations is such focus wholly safe. Always a scrap of mindfulness must caress the environment, noting perhaps the softly closing door, the far-off squeak, the scent of perfume or smoke or fear, the look crossing someone's eyes. Full and undivided attention encourages all sorts of surprise...
...more importantly, Assassin teaches undergraduates how easily the raptor succeeds. Students often remind me of my chickens, twisting heads sideways and down to see with single eyes, always facing the light while scratching, never enjoying the stereo view of hawks and owls and eagles. Like my hens cooped north of my barn, students raised in safe, nurturing environments expect little danger from outside let alone within, and when trouble erupts--the automatic feeder capsizes or a gunfight develops outside Holyoke Center--behavior becomes chaotic. Hens explode from hen house, students run in circles or gawk at shooters (although one dropped...
...Assassin offers a different slant of light, the different light that reveals facets of character otherwise hidden, that jolts alertness. Some undergraduates--mostly male I suspect--love the game, and I am glad they do. So long as the Republic requires young men to register for compulsory military service, its universities must necessarily support the skills on which its freedom depends, and a bit of Assassin leads players to remember the primacy of infantry. But undergraduates who enjoy the game grow familiar not just with action and masquerading but with betrayal and protection from betrayal, and in time join...