M.A.R. Barker, author of Tekumel, also author of Neo-Nazi book?

[billd91]

Lovecraft was just a loon, and didn't hide anything. Barker was clever enough to hide his views.

Hiding your views is an indication that you know they are, at least socially in your environment, unacceptable. In many environments, this is innocuous such as avoiding controversial subjects at work like religion and politics. But when it comes to writing Neo-Nazi fiction under a pen name, that's a little more extreme.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think this pussyfoots around a more incisive take on what might be the case here, which is that it's neither racist nor Islamophobic to point out that there's a non-negligible portion of contemporary Islamic culture that engages in antisemitism, and that's where the Venn diagram overlaps with Nazism. To what degree this may or may not have been related to Barker's apparent engagement with Holocaust denial I can't speculate, but the possibility is one that should at least be acknowledged.

Mod Note:

Before I became a Mod, I posted something about the Islamic world’s reactions to that infamous Charlie Hedbo cover. Problem is, I edited it poorly, and instead of just singling out the radicals, I essentially pointed at the world’s entire Muslim population…and didn’t notice until I was slapped with a sitewide 1-2 week ban. While it was unintentional on my part, I deserved that ban.

This seems to be in similarly perilous territory, but isn’t accidental. So I must act: 7 days away from this thread.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Not action in his day job, tho'.

Mod Note:

Very few people have some version of “Nazi Sympathizer” as a day job. Doesn’t make it any less vile or dangerous when performed as amateurs.

 

[Hussar]

When I refer to a dungeon as Gygaxian it's not a compliment but I get your point. And I was fine with them getting rid of Lovecraft's image on a bust for an award. But I'm not so fine with the idea of removing his name from everything as some people desire.

I'll ask again. Is there any nuance here? Can we recognize someone for their contributions to our hobby while simultaneously acknowledging the bad? Or is the best course of action to remove them from any lists of contributors or influences? Like I said, Gygax is still listed in 5th edition D&D. We're still honoring the guy for his contributions.

Oh absolutely there is room for nuance. A “one size fits all “ solution is just as bad as doing nothing.

 

[Bilharzia]

The number of such Fascist groups active in the USA in that period (the KKK only being the best known) was so high that this alone doesn't signify anything. As a percentage of the adult male population they probably accounted for more Americans then than the percentage of such involved in the TTRPG hobby today. (No, seriously, look it up if you feel inclined to doubt this.) So that's nothing in and of itself.
...
One thing I'm not going to accept, though, is the accusatory word excited which suggests that I'm grasping at straws to find excuses for what Barker did. I'm not looking for excuses because there are none; I'm looking for explanations which are not the same thing. Please refrain from suggesting otherwise because having just discovered these things about the author of a setting I've loved for decades I am not in the mood to be polite with people making hints that I'm tarred with the same brush.

So you on the one hand claim that membership of a Fascist group is "nothing in and of itself" - so common you consider it insignificant, and on the other you "suspect":

As someone who's been familiar with Temumel for two decades now this is what I suspect was the biggest influence on MAR Barker when he did these things. He was a convert to Islam, and took on board antisemetism from that route rather than via US-based neo-Nazi groups.

That it is Islam which is to blame for Barker's behaviour - well, you are making this claim in your previous post! How is it that you feel fine making that inflammatory claim with no evidence? Despite the direct connection Barker had with a Fascist father!

 

[Hussar]

One of the larger issues, and this goes back to the point about nuance, is that people always seem to want a single standard that always applies instead of taking each issue as case by case.

Look at this thread. People invoked Gygax and the notion of legacy. As well as people like RPG Pundit. Thing is, these are all individual problems and you can’t really connect them. They have to be treated separately.

Trying to make blanket solutions doesn’t work.

 

[Tantavalist]

Since there's nothing I can say that won't be taken badly and result in an escalating argument I'm going to do what I should have done one post ago and just bow out of this thread. I'm honestly surprised mods haven't locked this already and it's clearly coming.

RIP Tekumel and WTF Prof. Barker?!? can stand as my summary of the situation. The Tekumel fandom was a twitching corpse with little chance of a rebirth before this. Now? There won't be any new blood entering the fandom and a lot of those in it have had our enthusiasm killed.

 

[mythago]

Which I consider part of basic human to human decency. (Not to mention a religious obligation for many.)

What religions adopt the Anglo-American criminal burden of proof as an obligation?

And it’s untrue that “basic human decency” means adopting this criminal burden of proof for all our interactions and decisions. Nobody does this on the regular. It’s a fake moral standard that gets whipped out when we don’t like what’s being said or we do like the person it’s being said about.

 

[MGibster]

Lovecraft was just a loon, and didn't hide anything. Barker was clever enough to hide his views.

Lovecraft didn't have to hide anything because millions of his contemporaries would have agreed with them. Being a Neo-Nazi in the 80s and 90s was something that you had to hide from polite society.

 

[Fifth Element]

Seems to me that it's just more accepting of a vastly more diverse group than the straight, white, STEM-oriented, anglophone males that ruled the roost 40-ish years ago. That is to say, it doesn't strike me as "broadly left-liberal," so much as just "no longer defined by exclusive white guys."

That sounds like a distinction without a difference to me, speaking as a straight, white, anglophone male.