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The two are not mutually exclusive! I don't see it as "but." I see it as "and." If that is the ONLY thing that you want to talk about, then fine.

They was intended to be statements about the 1970s. "Not that much of an outlier" and "not that rare" were only intended as neutral statements about the commonality of those opinions at the time; no moral assessment or exoneration was attached. But I'll accept that they didn't sound that way to...

I'm sorry we can't find common ground, but I appreciate you being polite throughout the exchange. Sure, and I think those factors are interesting too. What they were, why they worked in the 1970s, why they don't hold sway today, and whether they might reappear. I'm feeling frustrated again...

I think those are comments on the 1970s, not on Gygax specifically ...?

Possibly my response to @Steampunkette in post #980 will help.

Basically, yes. "The times were more sexist" is my attempt to explain why he didn't.

I suspect it's not that people didn't see it, back in the day. It's just that a greater percentage of them agreed with it.

My focus is on the listeners, not the speaker. The speaker said what he said, and the words are what they are. Nothing changes that. I think "These statements are sexist" is bleeding obvious, and not actually that interesting as a topic for discussion. The changing perception of those words...

I accept that the two things seem inseparable to you, but they seem very separate and distinct to me. As for "Why bring it up?"--well, I think the difference in impact with regard to the norms of the time is interesting in its own right. I didn't expect that idea to be so foreign to so many...

Sigh, well, clearly I'm making a muddle of this whole discussion, and I'm regretting wading into it. I think ... and this may be overly pessimistic ... that there are people today who privately hold opinions pretty close to (or even beyond) GG's, but they know they can't get away with saying so...

But I'm not defending him! What I said is that his views probably sound more extreme viewed through the prism of today than they did in the 1970s because public opinion has shifted in the past 50 years. I don't mean to say that his statements weren't borderline in the 1970s, but today they're...

I never took the harlot table seriously. I've always found it funny.

I've never denied that feminist ideas were out there, though. I don't get why this is supposed to refute me. If that's what you're getting, then you're not actually reading what I'm saying. I've explicitly stated that this is not my point. I've said that I personally don't like the things he...

I'm getting very frustrated with how you all are arguing against what you have decided I'm saying without listening to what I've actually said. Because I have explicitly denied holding any of these opinions. I'll quote myself again, from up thread.

Because it's true, and because it provides context. Not justification. Context.

I do it because I find it easy to organize my thoughts that way. But since it annoys you, I'll try to keep it to a minimum here. You make a lot of points about how popular the (as it was called at the time) women's liberation movement was in the 1970s. I don't deny that it was popular, that it...

No, I'm just saying that I think people are not taking the context into account when judging his words and that his statements probably sound more extreme to us today because of that. I think you can't underestimate the difference between a pre- and post-internet world. People had to get hard...

I mean if he'd been born in, say, 1988 rather than 1938. His views (both his opinions and his perspective on what one can and can't say) would have been formed in a very different environment. And I've gotta go game, so I'm bowing out, at least for now.

Compared to a tweet or something today, I'd say yes. There just wasn't that same sense of talking to the world where anybody could find it. Even these discussions here probably reach a bigger audience, or at least, we all know they could do so if someone were to find them and link to them. Two...

Sort of. They are one thing among many. I think you misunderstand my argument. I have never said that he couldn't help writing sexist material or that no one else in his time would have written anything better. At most, I'm saying that the lack of social consequences meant that he took less...