D&D 5E 5e's new gender policy - is it attracting new players?

[Shemeska]

What's kind of ironic is that adhering to a strict and literal policy of "never have any speech squashed" leads to more restricted speech in practice, due in part to failing to address power dynamics. If you support peoples' right to speak their minds, then you should support some speech being forbidden some times. Forbidding some speech makes it safer for others to speak their minds, thus leading to greater freedom of speech (and less hegemony in that speech) in practice.

To those who say they value freedom of speech, but refuse to make a space for that speech to be freely given, their espoused values are in conflict with the practical results of their chosen path of action. If you let everyone speak their mind freely, it's just the loudest and most belligerent that get heard, and I'd hardly call that freedom of speech - there are many voices silenced in that cacophony. It's not a complex idea, but it can be counter-intuitive, and it's practical, rather than ideological, so it lacks that dogmatic panache.

The Paradox of Tolerance as Popper termed it is a real thing and very useful to keep in mind, but there's always the difficult point of where to draw the line in defining what speech is intolerant at what point and where we place restrictions. Just direct threats of violence? Any speech that offends, or just offensive to some? Everyone on every side of every issue firmly believes that they're punching up, and it can lead to zealotry far too often by those of us convinced that we're right and morally justified.

That said I heartily approve of inclusive language in any game that I play or write for. I want to write material that's fun and which I and my audience can relate to (even if they don't often find popular culture providing them with role models or representative examples that mirror themselves in many ways).

 

[lowkey13]

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[I'm A Banana]

But who decides what speech has to be forbidden in order to make a safe space for other speech? What will you do when those in power decide that your opinions are dangerous,labels your speech harmful and forbids it to make it "safe" for their side to shout you down?

Short answer: If everyone's goal is in maximizing the voices heard, it's pretty clear what speech you need to stop: speech that makes the less powerful less willing and able to speak up is speech we should be (voluntarily) silencing, so that we can hear their voices better. That's part of what policies like the OP's do: they say "here, we'll make an effort to not do things that make it a negative experience for you, so that you can be comfortable saying what you want."

Why this feels weird to me sometimes: the powerful often have trouble recognizing that they are powerful. Look, I'm a fairly "standard" (heh) middle-class cis het white guy, I certainly don't feel powerful, I've got bills and hassles and panics and people are jerks to me sometimes and I'm stretched financially thin and if I was powerful, maybe I wouldn't! And what, now I need to watch what I say or someone's going to get offended? What makes them so important that they can shut ME up? I'm nothing special, and I deserve to be heard, too! Now I need to police my speech?

Turns out, that feeling ignores history, society, context (as feelings often do). I don't feel mighty, but compared to, say, a middle-class cis gay white guy, I am - just that one change suddenly puts me in a group with a long and storied history, continued to this day in many areas, of making people like him unwelcome. It doesn't even really matter what my personal opinion of his bedroom activities is - I could be *studded* with bright shiny rainbow pins, it doesn't affect the power dynamic between us. Socially, historically, contextually, the group I'm a part of has made the group he's a part of victims in some often-monstrous behavior. That history doesn't affect me on the daily, but it could very well affect him on the daily, depending on how close he is to it (if he's maybe from one of those areas that still makes his people feel unwelcome). If I want to hear from him all of his great ideas, then I want to provide a space where its effects on him are minimized, where he can feel free to voice his ideas without the fear and anxiety that would prevent him from talking about those ideas around people like me. Without that, he might just opt not to speak - why risk it? - and thus his voice goes unheard.

The Paradox of Tolerance as Popper termed it is a real thing and very useful to keep in mind, but there's always the difficult point of where to draw the line in defining what speech is intolerant at what point and where we place restrictions. Just direct threats of violence? Any speech that offends, or just offensive to some? Everyone on every side of every issue firmly believes that they're punching up, and it can lead to zealotry far too often by those of us convinced that we're right and morally justified.

I don't think it's ever really a "settled" issue; it's always a negotiation and those lines are very fluid. For me, I think what's important is to realize is that me refraining from saying things keeps others talking, and that means that when I say something I shouldn't (as we all do), the problem isn't so much that I've offended someone as it is that I've silenced them. I want them to be enthusiastic participants in the world around me, and sometimes that's going to mean I cram a sock in it. In the interests of hearing from groups we don't hear from as often, I can freely choose to cram a sock in it once in a while.

 

[lowkey13]

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[I'm A Banana]

Meh. That's just another way of saying that the voices that matter are those that claim the role of victim, which is hardly empowering. Instead, you just get 1) multiple people claiming that they lack power (which is what you're seeing now), and 2) the weird situation where claimed powerlessness is, in fact, power.

What matters is the actual power dynamic, which means taking into account history and society, not just claims of victimhood.

In America, compare the status of gay men to the status of, I dunno, Christians. Both have claimed victim status, but only one has that claim supported with historical evidence. Not that Christians couldn't be the less powerful group in certain contexts, just that in general, they aren't.

The actual power dynamic can be hard to get at sometimes, especially with claims of victimhood being a regular tactic, but nonetheless, the actual power dynamic is what matters.

Better to say that it is best to be civil to everyone, and there is a reason we have two ears and only one mouth.

"Be civil to everyone" includes the idea of making a safe space for the less powerful to speak, but you seem to be against the latter judging by your previous paragraph.

 

[lowkey13]

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[I'm A Banana]

That's the danger in judging, don't you think?

I think that it's the outgrowth in exactly what you have said that has allowed everyone to claim the mantle of "victimhood." Which I think both does a disservice to real victims, as well as makes purported victimization a powerplay- which inverts the dynamic.

I don't think that's a danger, I just think that's an element that is at play. Sometimes, people will claim victimhood when they are really the wielders of power. These claims should be measured in regards to their particular contexts. Those wielding more power should yield ground to those wielding less. It's not always clear, and in those cases, it's reasonable for each side to make concessions to the other in the interests of meaningful dialogue. And it's not a process that is ever complete or universal.

There is no universal power dynamic. The power dynamic in Birmingham, Alabama is different than the power dynamic in P-town, Mass. For that matter, the power dynamic in New York City is different than the power dynamic in Riyadh is different than the power dynamic in Moscow. Which is why your approach does not work. The marginalized of one time are not the marginalized of tomorrow, and the marginalized of one area are not the marginalized of another.

This doesn't invalidate the approach, it merely describes what is required for the approach: to evaluate each context. The approach is hard, but doing things in the real world often is.

What I do know is that, in general, free speech is a good thing. Valuing free speech does allow the victims to speak, as it is a value-neutral principle. Free speech is what allowed the progress of gay rights- yes, in the pre-Stonewall era, it required much more courage than today, but free speech often carries with it private consequences. Free speech is what has allowed for many of the great civil rights advances of our time- not because people demanded the silence of others due to victimhood, but, instead, because free speech allowed their voices to be heard, and because the arc of history bends toward justice.

Nobody is disputing the goodness of free speech. If you want free speech, then you want to respect claims of victimhood, because that ennables freer speech than ignoring that claim - you must respect the claim of others that they cannot speak freely, and do what you can to remedy that situation. Else you're left with an environment that simply perpetuates the message of the powerful and diminishes the message of the less powerful, compromising the goal of free speech.

I argue for private civility, but not silence. I only learn by hearing the viewpoints of those I disagree with; absent that test, my own opinions became flabby and desiccated.

You should learn, then, from this viewpoint: when everyone talks, it's only the loudest who are heard. If you value freedom of speech, it's essential to create a place where voices that do not speak very loud can be heard. If you don't, then it's hard to believe that you truly value that freedom: you certainly don't seem to want to do this thing that would broaden it.

 

[lowkey13]

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[seebs]

The view that it's important to create places where non-loud voices can be heard, and the view that everyone should be able to be heard, are not incompatible. The key is that you want to create some places where you specifically give preference to the people who have a hard time being heard... But don't do that everywhere or universally.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

...when everyone talks, it's only the loudest who are heard.

In a room, yes. In a nation, no. The metaphor is a broken one. Martin Luther King was able to march on Washington even with every bigot in the country trying to shout him down, but a hostile remark at a gaming table can easily drive its target away. So why are we even talking about freedom of speech? The idea of creating a safe, tolerant environment for D&D has nothing to do with the subject. The space is not a public forum, it's Brad from Accounting's rec room, and the players aren't there for political discourse, they're there to pretend they're killing orcs. Jenny may spend all day exercising her freedom of speech by marching in a Pride Parade, and then have her evening ruined if someone drops a homophobic remark at the table. It's both ridiculous and irrelevant to say that this remark silences her own speech -- ridiculous because it obviously doesn't, and irrelevant because, even though it doesn't, it's still a bad experience for her. So when Brad requests no homophobic remarks at his table, he's not taking some principled stand on the meaning of free speech one way or the other. He's just trying to make sure everyone has fun.