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Cultures in D&D/roleplaying: damned if you do, damned if you don't
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7398378" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I very much disagree, but I find I lack the spirit to hit this trail again. Suffice to say that I feel that when you put out something for public consumption, it very much ought to be with the expectation that you can get honest and nonjudgmental feedback, that people will view your work charitably and with good will, and that they will fall to negative views of you only with the greatest reluctance. On that basis rests pretty much all of civil society.</p><p></p><p>Moreover, by making this argument I think you are making a huge cop out. You claim it's simpler than people make it, but then you have no revealed that you only if people never actually publish their thoughts but instead keep them private. Well, then it turns out your assertion that it is simple is completely hollow and weak, and in fact when you actually address the questions of the OP the way that I read them, then you concede that they are really complex and further fail to offer any real answer beyond that, yes indeed it is complex.</p><p></p><p>And finally, I find this whole 'its simple if you keep it private' bit reeks of instuitionalized discrimination. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You think? I'm actually of the opinion that this is all very simple, but for reasons very far from yours and which are much closer to this sentiment.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I should have been clearer what criticism I was making. I meant that on a certain level I think it would be cool to have a culture drawn from the Native American nations where each tribe really did have a unique identity, some climbing up from the underworld on a cornstalk, others coming down as voyagers from the stars, some made by the coyote spirit, and others rising up from the blood of a slain giant, or what have you (right off the top of my head, I can't recall the exact legends each nation had about itself, so I apologize if I messed up a reference). Low Fantasies and sometimes even High Fantasies are often grounded in the idea that the superstitions of the past are literal truth, and I think it would make a pretty cool setting. However, I think it's probably not something I would publish and not just because of today's too PC environment and me not wanting to deal with the distraction because to be honest I rather enjoy thumbing my nose at that crowd. Rather, it's one of those things like having Fagin be a Jew. It's not necessarily wrong, and it was well researched and grounded in reality (in that the character was inspired by a real person), and Dickens wasn't 'being racist' to create the character, and Fagin is in fact a complex and human character, but nonetheless I think like Dickens I would have edited it out when asked. There are distractions and then there are distractions that mean someone is missing the point and missing the point in a completely horrible manner. </p><p></p><p>Your views that the individuals within a race (and to a necessarily lesser extent a culture) differ more from each other than they do from other people outside of that society aligns with mine and you don't need to convince me of it. Indeed, I'm delighted to see you make your argument in this manner. Nor do you need to convince me that dissent exists within society, or in that there is a strange constancy to certain beliefs about how people ought to behave.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, there you go then.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I've seen it taken to the point that demons have to be presented as basically human and with free will or you are being racist. One poster actually suggested D&D's dragons because they were color coded was actually some sort of racist dog-whistle. So while I think we are pretty much on the same page here, there is some pretty radical extremism (or it least, it strikes me as such) regarding presentation of the alien or the monstrous as some sort of inherent othering and thus problematic. There is an irony about this I'll touch on in a moment.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>You are completely and utterly wrong here, again both by the dictionary definition and even in this case by academic definitions. The Nazi's were most certainly by every measurement a culture. Indeed, few cultures in the history of cultures have ever been so consciously a culture or were so conscious of the power of culture. They were the sort of culture that produced cultural ministries by the handful dedicated to promoting their culture, purifying their culture, and spreading their culture. They produced an entire body of unique philosophy, literature, art, architecture, and scholarship. In a very short period of time, owing to their consciousness about being a culture and the fact that they yoked much of Europe into the project, they produced a body of cultural works vaster than many other long enduring cultures. Indeed, the culture is unfortunately still extant and influential and has members that adhere to it. You are quite right that it is a very evil, venomous and destructive culture and the fundamental basis of the culture was absolutely indefensible, but it is a culture.</p><p></p><p>Are you anxious to deny it is a culture because you subscribe to the idea that all cultures are equally valuable and worthwhile? </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Oh much more than that. There is that German MP who hitches a ride with his American counterpart after the war is over. There are the Nazi sympathizers who are brutally murdered or tortured in retaliation, and most of all there is the German general at the end whose speech to his defeated is allowed to summarize the whole work. In essence, a Nazi is allowed to give voice to the feelings of the heroes. Watch it again.</p><p></p><p>And here we get to that bit of irony.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Does there? You see I get a feeling from these statements and the ones that follow them that I might be much more willing to call out a lot of different cultures as being evil and not just the usual white suspects. But on the other hand I also feel that there is vastly more humanity in the members of those cultures than you are used to conceding. You see, where I'm standing the line is drawn above all of us and we all far short of it, not just the Nazis. We're all on the wrong side of the line, and that means ironically we all make the cut. And if anyone gets killed out of this, it's only because they represented a clear and present danger and killing them was the tragic only and last available solution to preventing the triumph of evil and worse horrors.</p><p></p><p>I kinda find it weird that your like, "If the Nazi's are active combatants you can mow them down as faceless enemies, but the Turks... I wouldn't go that far." Like if I'm telling a war story I have some moral obligation to judge whether or not the opposing side deserves a nuanced presentation? And as far as that goes, the Turks don't exactly have clean hands. There are plenty of times that I think they could pass the bad enough to be faceless villains test you are offering even if I cared to accept that standard. No, I think you can tell a perfectly valid story of nuanced Nazi's mowing down faceless Americans, and I say that as someone who detests Nazis and is about as Patriotic as you can find. What I think you can't necessarily do and be moral about it is glamorize that or glorify the culture, and even more particularly what you can't do is glamorize or glorify the cause. But I don't think as a story teller you have to be making nuanced commentary about the Moors, Franks, Vikings, Romans, or whomever is on the other side. The other side is allowed to be the enemy in the story.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I agree; but this goes back to my point that the public sphere and the private sphere ought not be very different. If we don't have that assumption of good will in the public sphere, then we can't have the conversation. We have a bunch of people shouting at each other while sticking their fingers in their ears and generally emulating the antics of two year olds.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I would hope not. If there really was universal agreement over something, we might find reason to think that the differences between us were greater than we imagine. I'd love to get past the point where we think we can bring that one person of color into a conversation and they have the authority to speak for everyone that "looks like them". Out in the real world, races don't actually have single appointed and authorized spokespersons who can give you the take you need to know when you want to know anything, and yet we often treat them as if they did.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, I still disagree over who gets to "tell what story", which you probably aren't surprised by. I don't think there is anything shady about having characters and protagonists that don't look like you and don't have your life experiences, and if there were something shady about it, it only highlights how legitimate is the complaint of the original poster.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Why don't you try answering the question in the form I think it was asked, which is as I read it about producing works for public consumption. Though, as I said, I don't actually agree there is a big distinction except perhaps in the expected quality and organization and sophistication of the presentation.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7398378, member: 4937"] I very much disagree, but I find I lack the spirit to hit this trail again. Suffice to say that I feel that when you put out something for public consumption, it very much ought to be with the expectation that you can get honest and nonjudgmental feedback, that people will view your work charitably and with good will, and that they will fall to negative views of you only with the greatest reluctance. On that basis rests pretty much all of civil society. Moreover, by making this argument I think you are making a huge cop out. You claim it's simpler than people make it, but then you have no revealed that you only if people never actually publish their thoughts but instead keep them private. Well, then it turns out your assertion that it is simple is completely hollow and weak, and in fact when you actually address the questions of the OP the way that I read them, then you concede that they are really complex and further fail to offer any real answer beyond that, yes indeed it is complex. And finally, I find this whole 'its simple if you keep it private' bit reeks of instuitionalized discrimination. You think? I'm actually of the opinion that this is all very simple, but for reasons very far from yours and which are much closer to this sentiment. I should have been clearer what criticism I was making. I meant that on a certain level I think it would be cool to have a culture drawn from the Native American nations where each tribe really did have a unique identity, some climbing up from the underworld on a cornstalk, others coming down as voyagers from the stars, some made by the coyote spirit, and others rising up from the blood of a slain giant, or what have you (right off the top of my head, I can't recall the exact legends each nation had about itself, so I apologize if I messed up a reference). Low Fantasies and sometimes even High Fantasies are often grounded in the idea that the superstitions of the past are literal truth, and I think it would make a pretty cool setting. However, I think it's probably not something I would publish and not just because of today's too PC environment and me not wanting to deal with the distraction because to be honest I rather enjoy thumbing my nose at that crowd. Rather, it's one of those things like having Fagin be a Jew. It's not necessarily wrong, and it was well researched and grounded in reality (in that the character was inspired by a real person), and Dickens wasn't 'being racist' to create the character, and Fagin is in fact a complex and human character, but nonetheless I think like Dickens I would have edited it out when asked. There are distractions and then there are distractions that mean someone is missing the point and missing the point in a completely horrible manner. Your views that the individuals within a race (and to a necessarily lesser extent a culture) differ more from each other than they do from other people outside of that society aligns with mine and you don't need to convince me of it. Indeed, I'm delighted to see you make your argument in this manner. Nor do you need to convince me that dissent exists within society, or in that there is a strange constancy to certain beliefs about how people ought to behave. Well, there you go then. I've seen it taken to the point that demons have to be presented as basically human and with free will or you are being racist. One poster actually suggested D&D's dragons because they were color coded was actually some sort of racist dog-whistle. So while I think we are pretty much on the same page here, there is some pretty radical extremism (or it least, it strikes me as such) regarding presentation of the alien or the monstrous as some sort of inherent othering and thus problematic. There is an irony about this I'll touch on in a moment. You are completely and utterly wrong here, again both by the dictionary definition and even in this case by academic definitions. The Nazi's were most certainly by every measurement a culture. Indeed, few cultures in the history of cultures have ever been so consciously a culture or were so conscious of the power of culture. They were the sort of culture that produced cultural ministries by the handful dedicated to promoting their culture, purifying their culture, and spreading their culture. They produced an entire body of unique philosophy, literature, art, architecture, and scholarship. In a very short period of time, owing to their consciousness about being a culture and the fact that they yoked much of Europe into the project, they produced a body of cultural works vaster than many other long enduring cultures. Indeed, the culture is unfortunately still extant and influential and has members that adhere to it. You are quite right that it is a very evil, venomous and destructive culture and the fundamental basis of the culture was absolutely indefensible, but it is a culture. Are you anxious to deny it is a culture because you subscribe to the idea that all cultures are equally valuable and worthwhile? Oh much more than that. There is that German MP who hitches a ride with his American counterpart after the war is over. There are the Nazi sympathizers who are brutally murdered or tortured in retaliation, and most of all there is the German general at the end whose speech to his defeated is allowed to summarize the whole work. In essence, a Nazi is allowed to give voice to the feelings of the heroes. Watch it again. And here we get to that bit of irony. Does there? You see I get a feeling from these statements and the ones that follow them that I might be much more willing to call out a lot of different cultures as being evil and not just the usual white suspects. But on the other hand I also feel that there is vastly more humanity in the members of those cultures than you are used to conceding. You see, where I'm standing the line is drawn above all of us and we all far short of it, not just the Nazis. We're all on the wrong side of the line, and that means ironically we all make the cut. And if anyone gets killed out of this, it's only because they represented a clear and present danger and killing them was the tragic only and last available solution to preventing the triumph of evil and worse horrors. I kinda find it weird that your like, "If the Nazi's are active combatants you can mow them down as faceless enemies, but the Turks... I wouldn't go that far." Like if I'm telling a war story I have some moral obligation to judge whether or not the opposing side deserves a nuanced presentation? And as far as that goes, the Turks don't exactly have clean hands. There are plenty of times that I think they could pass the bad enough to be faceless villains test you are offering even if I cared to accept that standard. No, I think you can tell a perfectly valid story of nuanced Nazi's mowing down faceless Americans, and I say that as someone who detests Nazis and is about as Patriotic as you can find. What I think you can't necessarily do and be moral about it is glamorize that or glorify the culture, and even more particularly what you can't do is glamorize or glorify the cause. But I don't think as a story teller you have to be making nuanced commentary about the Moors, Franks, Vikings, Romans, or whomever is on the other side. The other side is allowed to be the enemy in the story. I agree; but this goes back to my point that the public sphere and the private sphere ought not be very different. If we don't have that assumption of good will in the public sphere, then we can't have the conversation. We have a bunch of people shouting at each other while sticking their fingers in their ears and generally emulating the antics of two year olds. I would hope not. If there really was universal agreement over something, we might find reason to think that the differences between us were greater than we imagine. I'd love to get past the point where we think we can bring that one person of color into a conversation and they have the authority to speak for everyone that "looks like them". Out in the real world, races don't actually have single appointed and authorized spokespersons who can give you the take you need to know when you want to know anything, and yet we often treat them as if they did. Anyway, I still disagree over who gets to "tell what story", which you probably aren't surprised by. I don't think there is anything shady about having characters and protagonists that don't look like you and don't have your life experiences, and if there were something shady about it, it only highlights how legitimate is the complaint of the original poster. Why don't you try answering the question in the form I think it was asked, which is as I read it about producing works for public consumption. Though, as I said, I don't actually agree there is a big distinction except perhaps in the expected quality and organization and sophistication of the presentation. [/QUOTE]
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