And I think responsibility for moral content of a piece fully in the hands of the content creator. Now do you see what I mean about no standard acceptable across culture?
Consequences of playing "EVIL" races
And I think responsibility for moral content of a piece fully in the hands of the content creator. Now do you see what I mean about no standard acceptable across culture?
shawnhcorey
wizard
No, I don't. Injustice is injustice the world over.
Celebrim
Legend
Also you: "What is good or evil, right or wrong is subjective; it changes from person to person."
So which of these contradictory things you are saying do you expect people to believe? And if they are contradictory, why would you expect people to believe any of them?
What I was trying to get at is that a common response to concerns about the ways RPGs express racism and racialisation is to say But its not racist to hate an essentially evil races such as [insert fictional race here].
This is an attempt to judge the value/morality of the fiction by what is going on within the fiction. My view is that this is flawed, and often verges into apologism. The relevant question, in my view, is not what is going on in the fiction nor what is going on from the point of view of the cultrual object itself but rather what actual, real-world phenomena and processes are at work in this object?
I think it goes the other way also. To pick an easy example, the novel The Quiet American depicts morally objectionable content (eg colonialism, terrorist attacks upon civilians, etc). But that doesn't make it morally objectionable. On balance, despite some problems Greene has in articulating the significance of race in the story and the situations with which it deals, I think the book is morally powerful.
I think we're agreed (unless I've misread your posts, in which case I apologise especially given the trickiness of this discussion) that one problem with "evil races" is that it presents the outlook and conceptual apparatus of racialising and racist thinking in a completely casual way, as if it were quite unproblematic.
Given that you seem to be agreeing with @shawnhcorey, and so - broadly - was I, you may have misunderstood my point. See my post just upthread of this one for more.
As I said to shawnhcorey, if in fact I've misunderstood you I apologise.
shawnhcorey
wizard
What makes them racism is labelling groups based only on the category they're in. Labelling elves good is just as racist as labelling orcs evil.
Celebrim
Legend
That's not how that works. That's not how any of that works. That's not what racism is. That's not how alignment works. That's not even how English works.
I would love to have an honest conversation with you. I would love to have an honest debate with you. I tried when I initially responded to your post to extend to you a very charitable interpretation of what you were saying, and indicate as much sympathy as possible.
But if you are not interested in discussing this, just say so. I'll be happy to drop it.
No, it would appear that I misunderstood you-- what you're describing is known as a Thermian argument and it's almost intentionally designed to miss the point that a fictional universe that justifies its own moral values... was also designed to do so.
That doesn't mean that it's not saying the message someone else is objecting to, it means that it's trying harder to say it.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I'm a bit unclear - are you in fact objecting to fictional universes (or parts thereof) having internal moral values that are inconsistent with what we generally find acceptable in reality?
If yes, that seems to put some rather strict limits on those who create fiction.
I'm not. All I am saying is that when trying to justify the internal moral values of a work, claiming that they are "objectively true" within the setting of the work is the opposite of a justification. It's the author trying to deny their responsibility for their work by denying their authorship of their own work... thus denying any intentional purpose for which they might have done what people are objecting to.
It also carries the very strong implication-- right or wrong-- that the author also thinks "that's just the way it is" to some extent in the real world. Morality is not an objective metaphysical force in real life; one only makes it so in fiction when trying to say something very specific about morality or when imitating a work that said something very specific about morality.
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