D&D General "Red Orc" American Indians and "Yellow Orc" Mongolians in D&D

[Vaalingrade]

No. The other explanation is some people went out of their way to justify the prejudices of the time, and most people just didn't think about it much. That entirely fits my observation of people about, well, everything.

I don't want to describe it on thread, but explain Sunset Towns to me then.

It wasn't just a few lucky bigots that hit the power lottery, it was society writ large to the point where the enlightened folk were afraid to rock the boat.

 

[Mordhau]

What exactly is the argument about here?

Is any one arguing that the Conan stories do not have some appalling racism in them?

I just don't see why the level of moral culpability of a man who died nearly a century go is really all that important.

 

[Filthy Lucre]

What exactly is the argument about here?

Is any one arguing that the Conan stories do not have some appalling racism in them?

I just don't see why the level of moral culpability of a man who died nearly a century go is really all that important.

At least online and in progressive and far-right spaces I've noticed that, it seems, people struggle with this idea of moral greyness. Not in the sense of ambiguity but in the sense that bad people can and have done good/great things and good people can and have done bad/terrible things.

Why is it so hard for people to say that, for example, the FF's were racist slave owners but that they were also brilliant statesmen? Or that H. P. Lovecraft is the father of modern horror/weird fiction but was also racist, sexist, and generally misanthropic?

 

[Mind of tempest]

At least online and in progressive and far-right spaces I've noticed that, it seems, people struggle with this idea of moral greyness. Not in the sense of ambiguity but in the sent that bad people can and have done good/great things and good people can and have done bad/terrible things.

Why is it so hard for people to say that, for example, the FF's were racist slave owners but that they were also brilliant statesmen? Or that H. P. Lovecraft is the father of modern horror/weird fiction but was also racist, sexist, and generally misanthropic?

because it asks the question are we and different and to those that care that is the scariest question in the world.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't want to describe it on thread, but explain Sunset Towns to me then.

It wasn't just a few lucky bigots that hit the power lottery, it was society writ large to the point where the enlightened folk were afraid to rock the boat.

If you think that's beyond "don't think about it much", you don't pay attention to how little people question what goes on around them about all kinds of things. That doesn't make it less a problem--in fact, you can make an argument that passive acceptance of bias is a bigger problem than more active forms, because its so hard to root out--but its still a different beast.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Why is it so hard for people to say that, for example, the FF's were racist slave owners but that they were also brilliant statesmen? Or that H. P. Lovecraft is the father of modern horror/weird fiction but was also racist, sexist, and generally misanthropic?

Well, in the first case because it calls into question a lot of national mythology.

I don't actually see many serious Lovecraft fans who aren't aware of how terrible he was in many ways. You get occasional oddities where he seemed to dive beyond his xenophobia (the Great Race of Yith come to mind) but they were exceptions.

But a lot of cases are very complex, where someone was very positive in some cases and really bad in others, or where they changed across their career to at least some degree in one direction or another.

 

[Cadence]

RE: Of their times

I sometimes imagine an algorithm that could go through and give people a percentile ranking of how good/moral/etc... they were among all people living in their society at the time.

Is someone at the 80th percentile at some point in a very sexist/racist/bigoted place better or worse than someone at the 20th percentile in a more enlightened place? (I assume someone who fought against some -isms, but participated in others would have very different percentile rankings in different eras).

 

[pemerton]

I just don't see why the level of moral culpability of a man who died nearly a century go is really all that important.

I at least was not saying anything about his culpability. I was simply pointing out that he was racist, and blatantly so. (Likewise I don't take @Dungeonosophy's OPs to be saying anything about Bruce Heard's moral culpability. They are comments on the work and the sensibility/outlook that underpins it.)

The Souls of Black Folk was written before REH was born. Had he ever read it? I think that has some bearing on the "for his time" discussion.

 

[Malmuria]

When the recent 5e errata came out, I saw some people on twitter complaining about it and saying that the changes are a reaction to a new "moral panic" around the game and would be compared to the satanic panic of the 80s. I don't think that's the right comparison though. I wonder, instead, if early 5e products (esp, imo, Core, Volo's and TOA) will be read in a roughly analogous way as we might read Orcs of Thar today, ie. as products "of their time."

 

[Filthy Lucre]

When the recent 5e errata came out, I saw some people on twitter complaining about it and saying that the changes are a reaction to a new "moral panic" around the game and would be compared to the satanic panic of the 80s. I don't think that's the right comparison though. I wonder, instead, if early 5e products (esp, imo, Core, Volo's and TOA) will be read in a roughly analogous way as we might read Orcs of Thar today, ie. as products "of their time."

Definitely not for this forum... BUT, I actually think there is something to the idea of a new "moral panic" very broadly speaking especially where liberalism is being challenged conceptually.