Allegory VS Interpretation

[Umbran]

But nobody at the table was to blame for it. The other players didn't have the cultural context to know that the material was offensive. Why should it be their responsibility to deal with it, rather than the author's?

Because the author isn't there, and time travel to go back and fix the issue is not available to us.

 

[Umbran]

I also don't think we can completely take away any responsibility form the person who is offended.

The distance from this, to just blaming the victim, is rather short. Do be careful with that.

 

[Umbran]

It's not a connection most kids would make I think.

What connections kids make depends on the overall context. One work may not have an impact. If you are surrounded by the stuff, it becomes nigh inevitable. Surrounding cultural context matters as well. If you live in a country with virtually no Jewish population, and there's no discussion elsewhere in the culture, then yeah, your kids are unlikely to make a connection.

If, instead, you live in a culture in which a Jewish child might be asked by their young friends whether they could come over to visit, so that they could see the Jewish father's horns... the connection is probably more likely.

 

[Zardnaar]

What connections kids make depends on the overall context. One work may not have an impact. If you are surrounded by the stuff, it becomes nigh inevitable. Surrounding cultural context matters as well. If you live in a country with virtually no Jewish population, and there's no discussion elsewhere in the culture, then yeah, your kids are unlikely to make a connection.

If, instead, you live in a culture in which a Jewish child might be asked by their young friends whether they could come over to visit, so that they could see the Jewish father's horns... the connection is probably more likely.

Most Jews here seem to be Israeli backpackers. Bit of a culture shock for them in the 90s when my family ran a backpackers.

 

[MarkB]

Because the author isn't there, and time travel to go back and fix the issue is not available to us.

Yeah, but I raised that example as something to be avoided in the first place by being more careful as an author. Since it's a hypothetical example we can indeed "go back in time" to the original cause and try to fix that.

 

[Ryujin]

Of course you should be able to watch it. But you should be armed with the knowledge that it is art with the purpose of promoting white supremacy, right?

Thinking about modern day works, if an author or director or an artist were trying to create a work that was as intentionally harmful as Birth of a Nation, don't you think it's the responsibility of editors and producers and, oh I don't know, sensitivity readers to tell them "Hey this is pretty harmful stuff"?

I think that if someone produced something like "Birth of a Nation", today, it would be a hard invocation of Poe's Law.

 

[Mercurius]

The distance from this, to just blaming the victim, is rather short. Do be careful with that.

Just as the distance from eschewing all responsibility for the "victim," or reinforcing their victimhood, is disempowering for that person.

Being offended by something in a book does not make one a victim.

 

[Mercurius]

There's a range between checking everything and checking nothing, though. If you're writing a portrayal of a particular real-world culture that you're expecting people to portray in their games, is it really too much of a stretch to bring in someone from that culture to look it over and make sure you haven't accidentally included some bad assumptions?

This isn't about the activity of the group, though. My example was specifically about what was written into a setting by that setting's author. And if that material turns out to be hurtful to someone, it isn't in the act of roleplaying it that they feel that hurt - it's in the act of reading it in the first place. That can't be undone simply by walking away from a table.

Again, this isn't about what anyone at the table did. It's about what the writer of the supplement did when they wrote it.

I personally don't think its necessary, at least in the context of a fantasy world which, by definition, does not include real-world cultures. Even if it does, or cultures closely derived from real-world cultures, I have no issue with the author creating their own version of it. It doesn't have to be accurate to reality, and is just a take--even if a pejorative one. That is part of the freedom implicit in the creative act.

Now I don't have to like it. I have the right to be offended or find the portrayal to be problematic. But because I believe in artistic freedom, I'm not going to try to censor it or get rid of it. I don't have to read it or run it at my table.

There's also the problem of "bringing someone from that culture." If I'm writing about a fantasy version of the Incan Empire, who do I consult? A modern Peruvian? If I'm doing a wuxia setting, do I ask my Chinese friend? What if he or she knows little about ancient China? And of course there's the matter that wuxia itself is fantasy, not a realistic depiction of a real-world period or culture. At a certain point it becomes rather absurd.

A fantasy world is its own thing, with its own internal logic that has nothing to do with our world. If a fantasy race is completely evil, it only needs to make sense within the context of the fantasy world. If I were writing a story set in our world, I'd definitely want to do my research about whatever I'm writing about.

As for reading something and being hurt, this is where we run into the problem of trying to adjust everything that may offend anyone in any way. Where do you draw the line? Some people are easily triggered and believe the solution is censoring or getting rid of that which offends them, when the core issue is rooted more deeply and won't be solved by such actions.

 

[Umbran]

Being offended by something in a book does not make one a victim.

No, but you seem to have left out that offense actually has a point, or maybe you have missed that point.

Generalizing from "in a book" to "art" to encompass TV, film, books, music and so on...

Real-world people are influenced by art, right? Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably a solid example of this, in a positive sense. But, there's also a negative sense, where depictions in art have negative impacts on real people.

This is part of what I was on about when talking about responsibility - the things you put in the world impact the world. If you are not considering what the impacts of your work may be, or are making poor choices, you can have a negative impact on real people.

Not to say that someone's fanfic is going to be directly responsible for some kid beaten up in a schoolyard, but the aggregate of artistic works is relevant. Offense isn't just about it being distasteful. It is about how your art may be part of maintaining or worsening the unwarranted conditions that real people live under.

 

[Janx]

Just as the distance from eschewing all responsibility for the "victim," or reinforcing their victimhood, is disempowering for that person.

Being offended by something in a book does not make one a victim.

Poe's law and all. Mein Kamf disproves you right there. It specifically targets a group with hate.

But I think we can rule out works that specifically target a group with hate. Those are inherently offensive. That's their goal.

We can also imagine a book the espouses a political view that we agree with by demonizing opponents. That's inherently offensive to our political opponents, even though we know they are Wrong.

Let's carve that kind of thing out of the discussion. Some books are written to offend. The core subject isn't about that. It's about "I came to tell a story, and people freaked out" It's sort of the surprise, unlike what Salman Rushdi could have expected.

In the Striped Pajamas story, from what I could tell, it was about a boy dealing with their sibling changing gender. It wasn't intended to be anti-transgender (again, from what I can tell), but got stuff wrong like deadnaming the transgender person, using their old gender, etc.

Were the people who read it and objected to its handling, victims? Were they concerned about the material because they knew it was a work that would influence people on their views of transgender? I'm pretty sure the latter question is yes. You want the material to be right, because some transgender person has a young sibling and a book could help them understand. Especially because the book was praised and appears to be getting a movie or something.