D&D and Racial Essentialism

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

The fact is 'The Other' is alien by definition.

But is it in reality?

I think what some people react to is the fear that they will stereotype out of ignorance like racists of old. They don't want to label "The Other" as anything in case the Other finds an offensive portrayal (as unlikely as that may seem).

Also some people arguing against an alien other may just be obsessive about accuracy, and in lieu of having an alien culture to study their accuracy sense can't stand anything other than the setting "human".

EDIT: And just speaking statistically if increase the number of alien species to be found don't you also increase the chances at least one will be as, if not possibly more, diverse as/than humans?

You don't necessarily need to be claiming that the human position is inferior or superior to the non-human one.

Unfortunately many times that's exactly what happens. So people react against it. They see it as arrogance because only humans get the glory. It's what I was saying earlier about this sort of information being smug.

...mature, sophisticated....

I don't think these two things are part only of portraying the Other as other, nor do I think they are inherently lacking if the Other is played just like Us.

 

[Celebrim]

But is it in reality?

I can't address this question as fully as I would like, because it would quickly get the thread closed. I can only answer, with qualifications I can't go into, "Yes."

But, to the extent I can answer it by continuing in this solely hypothetical part of the discussion, the answer is, "Having no examples of racial 'Others' fully of our sophont class, we can't really know. However, to the extent that we can imagine 'The Other' as both different to and alike to ourselves, and to the extent that we can easily demonstrate plausible material causes for those differences, then we can again answer, "Yes, it is plausible that in reality at least some aliens will be truly alien, and in fact, the odds would seem to favor that any alien we meet would have fundamental biological differences with humanity that would lead to alien modes of thought and behavior." We can also demonstratably assert that even among near kin species like chimpanzees, there are differences in modes of thought and behavior that make them subtly unalike to us and I think its reasonable to believe that even if chimpanzees were are mental peers that at least some of those differences would persist.

I think what some people react to is the fear that they will stereotype out of ignorance like racists of old.

Those who find they are motivated by fear should take courage. And actually, I don't agree with your pop psychology, but refuse to go further down that path lest it further encourage people to continue the 'you have badwrongmind' charges. As I said way way earlier in the thread, if we get to the point where this thread is about accusing each other of racism, it's over.

They don't want to label "The Other" as anything in case the Other finds an offensive portrayal (as unlikely as that may seem).

Rather, they don't want to label 'The Other' as anything but positive. They are completely happy to label the surrogate 'self' group in negative ways.

Also some people arguing against an alien other may just be obsessive about accuracy, and in lieu of having an alien culture to study their accuracy sense can't stand anything other than the setting "human".

Again, I don't want to start postulating too much about the motives of other real groups, because it will quickly become political and insulting. If we want to postulate about something, lets confine it to hypothetical groups.

Unfortunately many times that's exactly what happens. So people react against it. They see it as arrogance because only humans get the glory. It's what I was saying earlier about this sort of information being smug.

My first gut level response is to want to say, "So?" You mean I can't postulate that humanity might be in the right? Am I allowed to postulate that humanity might be in the wrong?

I don't think these two things are part only of portraying the Other as other, not do I think they are inherently lacking if the Other is played just like Us.

Once again, people are responding to me as if I made a binary qualitative claim, when in fact I think you'll see that I made a quantitative claim.

 

[pacdidj]

Biologically speaking, its not hard to imagine a species which evolved toward low physical and mental diversity. We might imagine a sentient herbivore species that achieved a competitive advantage because the low physical and mental diversity increased tolerance and cooperation and decreased conflict and violence. They became a successful race farmer/planners that appear to humans to be veritable clones. In fact, they may well be clones, reproducing parthegenicly or using cloning technology when it becomes available.

If a writer in this race postulates the existance of humanity - a fractious, argumentative, competitive, predatory, and violent species - very likely large numbers of commentators will accuse the writer of practicing 'racial essentialism' and of having defective and appalling morals for imagining that a race with every bit as much capacity for rational thought as their own should be so appallingly diverse. And, they may well demand that all good minded people read only writers that make every alien race that they create just as monocultural as their own.

Meanwhile, the writer weaps, because he knows that should his race thereafter encounter humanity, there will be no real empathy between their two peoples.

Okay, great! You've just written a compelling description of a sentient species substantially different in feeling, thought, and interaction from human beings. And, you've poignantly illustrated how these differences could lead to conflict between said hypothetical species and humanity.

It's a lot more interesting and compelling than this, for instance:

ORCS WORSHIP GRUUMSH, THE ONE-EYED GOD OF SLAUGHTER,
and are savage, bloodthirsty marauders. They plague the
civilized races of the world and also fight among themselves
for scraps of food and treasure.

What you've written is also a far cry from hypothesizing a race that in many ways resembles humanity in feeling, thought, and interaction (the drow come to mind here), and casting them as an absolutely evil monoculture, probably worthy of extermination, despite these similarities.

Also, I don't know what kind of weirdos you've been living around if the aliens from Alien/Aliens/Alien Ressurection or any other installment of that tiresome saga seem similar to humans in terms of their modes of thinking/feeling/and interacting.

 

[Celebrim]

EDIT: And just speaking statistically if increase the number of alien species to be found don't you also increase the chances at least one will be as, if not possibly more, diverse as/than humans?

Quoting myself much earlier in the thread:

"...presumably most realistic races are going to be as diverse individually as humanity, and most realistic races will come from planets having as many historical cultures as humanity. I say most because it's an open question whether diversity is a salient trait of humanity. Perhaps other races will be near clones that look on us as being extremely hetrogeneous, or perhaps conversely other races will have been around 300 million years and have as much genetic diversity amongst them as say is found amongst insects as a whole and yet will still consider themselves one people. We just don't know."

Why is it that people keep insisting that I've offered only two constrasting choices, and that if I don't believe one then I must believe the other?

Oh yeah, it's because I'm communicating with a bunch of @#$!@# humans.

 

[Celebrim]

Okay, great! You've just written a compelling description of a sentient species substantially different in feeling, thought, and interaction from human beings. And, you've poignantly illustrated how these differences could lead to conflict between said hypothetical species and humanity.

It's a lot more interesting and compelling than this, for instance:

It may be more interesting and compelling, but the two things you try to contrast are fundamentally identical except for the degree to which I've grounded the racial essentialism in something you understand. I could just as easily create an interesting and compelling justification for the given description of orcs.

What you've written is also a far cry from hypothesizing a race that in many ways resembles humanity in feeling, thought, and interaction (the drow come to mind here), and casting them as an absolutely evil monoculture, probably worthy of extermination, despite these similarities.

No, it isn't. If you can do what I did, then you can hypothesis an absolutely evil monoculture worthy of extermination on the very same logical grounds. The only disagreement then would be over the ability to define 'evil'.

Also, I don't know what kind of weirdos you've been living around if the aliens from Alien/Aliens/Alien Ressurection or any other installment of that tiresome saga seem similar to humans in terms of their modes of thinking/feeling/and interacting.

Once again, notice how I'm now accused of be aberrant, defective, 'badwrongmind' because I claim to be able to empathize with 'The Other'. This gets really tiring.

 

[pacdidj]

Pacdidj, you should be warned then that the game of Dungeons & Dragons includes Demons and Devils and Monsters from mythology and folklore. Someone who takes only "a small step" to go from reading or watching a story, or playing a fantasy game, to believing that murder is okay is probably suffering from a mental illness.

Ariosto, I actually have much less of a problem with Demons/Devils than with human-like races like drow, orcs, goblins. Demons in most characterizations don't seem to be capable of completely free, rational, uncompelled thought, and differ from humans in other significant ways, i.e. immortality, in most cases not having/caring for offspring, not creating any kind of discernable culture or expression. I'm okay with this sort of personification of evil, just not the atribution of absolute evil to otherwise human-like entities.

Also, I don't think it's a small step to go from reading a book to committing murder. What I said was, it's a small step from enjoying reading about the wholesale destruction of orcs, drow, or human-like races, to enjoying reading about the the destruction of human beings. I find both a bit disturbing.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

...I don't agree with your pop psychology, but refuse to go further down that path lest it further encourage people to continue the 'you have badwrongmind' charges. As I said way way earlier in the thread, if we get to the point where this thread is about accusing each other of racism, it's over.

Would it have helped if I'd put in more qualifications that I knew it was an amituruish attempt at psychology at the time I wrote it? I can never be sure when I write something like that whether I should sound sure or unsure. And am never sure afterwards whether it was my lack of skill or the reader's making an assumption. (Not to accuse you of doing something wrong, it just seems to happen many times on the Internet and like most humans I crave an answer to the puzzle.)

Rather, they don't want to label 'The Other' as anything but positive. They are completely happy to label the surrogate 'self' group in negative ways.

I quite agree and find it nearly as bad as portraying humans as "the best". ("Nearly" because I love laughing at stupid humans.)

Again, I don't want to start postulating too much about the motives of other real groups, because it will quickly become political and insulting. If we want to postulate about something, lets confine it to hypothetical groups.

Sorry, I was using myself as an example. And thought I was being hypothetical by not pointing out anyone in particular.

My first gut level response is to want to say, "So?" You mean I can't postulate that humanity might be in the right? Am I allowed to postulate that humanity might be in the wrong?

Are you postulating right/wrongness based on being a member of a species or based on the education that their circumstances might have given them which yes can include what species they are but is not an automatic trump card? (Or something else, because otherwise I'd be accusing you of being binary again.)

Once again, people are responding to me as if I made a binary qualitative claim, when in fact I think you'll see that I made a quantitative claim.

Why is it that people keep insisting that I've offered only two constrasting choices, and that if I don't believe one then I must believe the other?

Oh yeah, it's because I'm communicating with a bunch of @#$!@# humans.

Which is exactly the answer I want to give you.

I'm really sorry I accused you of having a binary position. Or even implied.

 

[Ariosto]

But are you going to create a slew of cultures for humans? Because if you are why not just add the races to those culture rather than assuming culture and race always have to be separate and thus each race needs an entirely different slew than the others?

It was not the game function of Gnolls (and was not the fictional function of Gnoles) to be part of 'culture'. It was their function to have 2 Hit Dice and to do horrible things to human burglars who came for their treasures.

Likewise, the "racial essence" of Bugbears (introduced in Supplement I) was filling the gap between 2 HD Gnoles and 4 HD Ogres. Their monstrous appearance made identification of risk levels easier, as one could (apart from "specials") count on Bugbears fighting as 3+1 HD with AC 5. Their monstrous behavior, par for the course, reflects reputation in the reaches of the Ocean of Story whence they originated.

Dwarves and Elves and Hobbits were included to make for variety in pawns, the Hobbits apparently as a blatant sop to Frodo-fans. All anyone really got in terms of "culture", beyond the roughly medieval trappings, was the note that "Elves are of two general sorts, those who make their homes in woodlands and those who seek the remote meadowlands."

Even the treatments of human types -- Bandits, Berserkers, Brigands, Dervishes, Nomads (Desert and Steppes), Buccaneers, Pirates and Cavemen -- were as "monsters" described in terms of military organization and other combat data.

Elaborations since have naturally been at least slightly influenced both by the origins of elements and by the nature of the original D&D game, what it was "about" and how it was played.

One thing I would note, though, is that myth and folklore are nobody's "intellectual property". The depictions of many monsters in 4E are at odds even with those of 1E. Green goblins and kobolds, and black (gray?) orcs with human-like (instead of pig-like) faces are minor examples. An awful lot of "fluff" was introduced in the 2E and 3E eras, apparently most often as new players' primary source on those subjects -- and an increasingly "canonical" one in their eyes.

Moreover, the game-purposed "essence" -- monster type as guide to combat strength and treasure -- that was already undermined in 3E seems pretty well blown away in 4E. The design is quite different from 1E.

Considering that, I think it likely that WotC will continue to turn out many flavors of almost everything but flumphs. It seems to me that the GSL virtually forces third parties to create new variants of monsters. If people will pay enough for products specifying cultural variations, then I reckon we shall see such things.

However, the game's combat focus suggests to me that radical departure from monsters being things to be killed so as to take their stuff is unlikely. I would expect exceptions that are notable because of the rule, not wholesale transformation into "just people, too".

One particular case seems pretty much to have turned the stereotype upside down: "good guy" Drow, the D&D counterpart to sparkly vampires!

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

However, the game's combat focus suggests to me that radical departure from monsters being things to be killed so as to take their stuff is unlikely.

I was never referring only to D&D: I was addressing all portrayals and anyone who'd listen. I can hope someone in D&D gets my message, but nevertheless I don't expect to be listened to.

 

[pacdidj]

I could just as easily create an interesting and compelling justification for the given description of orcs.

Yes you probably could, but that would require presenting another, legitimate ethical position driving the conflict between humans and orcs. This was exactly my initial point: I think players frequently recast these one-dimensional baddies in a much more interesting, and less philosophically troublesome light than the inherited canon does.

If you can do what I did, then you can hypothesis an absolutely evil monoculture worthy of extermination on the very same logical grounds. The only disagreement then would be over the ability to define 'evil'.

Once again, notice how I'm now accused of be aberrant, defective, 'badwrongmind' because I claim to be able to empathize with 'The Other'. This gets really tiring.

You can hypothesize anything you want to, and I'm not trying to attack you here. I think you have a valid and interesting point.

My point is that there's a big difference between creating something truly alien to explore an alien worldview, and creating a human-like 'race' just to be the baddies and filling them with all sorts of orientalist stereotypes (as do Tolkien and C. S. Lewis, with the orcs and the Calormenes respectively). The latter to my mind reflects both a degree of authorial laziness, and a somewhat troublesome philosophical perspective.

I find it more interesting when an author, or a DM, takes the time to illustrate a realistic source of conflict between humanity and an 'other', as opposed to simply casting the 'other' as inherently evil for no good reason, despite the fact that they think, feel, walk, talk, sing, etc. like us. You did this in your post above, which bears strong resemblance to the conflict at the heart of Ender's Game, one of my favorite novels.