Snowden, Greenwald inspired to publish gov't spying secrets by video games, comics

A profile by the Advocate of journalist Glenn Greenwald, who reports on government spying techniques, looks at the relationship between him and Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who leaked confidential government secrets to Greenwald.

Most fascinating (and maybe concerning) is the lens which Greenwald and Snowden view justice. It's through comic books and video games.

An excerpt from the profile that recalls how Snowden came to leak information to Greenwald:

Snowden continued to insist he was no hero and was just trying to do the right thing as Greenwald fired questions, trying to isolate what informed Snowden’s sense of right and wrong, until Snowden gave Greenwald an answer he didn’t expect but immediately understood. It wasn’t Hegelian theories on power structures or Ron Paul rhetoric about privacy; it wasn’t Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals (Greenwald’s greatest influence) or Jeffersonian notions of government. It was comic books and video games. “You have good guys who are forced to do difficult but good things,” Snowden said to Greenwald, a bit embarrassed. ...

“It’s not a simplistic ideology. David (Greenwald's partner) is one of the most complex, intellectually curious, and sophisticated people I’ve ever met, and he’s the one who convinced me that being influenced by the moral dynamics of a comic book or video game is no less noble than being shaped by a novel or a book,” Greenwald reasons. “You can watch The Matrix and take it as an action movie, or you can delve into all its greater existentialist meanings. All of the narratives in these comic books are about these single individuals devoted to justice who have the willingness to be brave, who can defeat even the most powerful edifices of evil.”

@eScarry