D&D and Racial Essentialism

[Desdichado]

I don't find it philosophically troubling in the least.

I do, however, find it relatively boring.

 

[Merkuri]

Does every race need a whole slew of cultures? Realistically speaking, yes, if there were another species of sentient beings on this planet they would probably have multiple cultures, but from a feasibility standpoint it makes worlds a lot harder to create.

One could rationalize the one-race-one-culture thing by saying that the norm for a race/species is for it to be close-knit and have one culture, and humans are the exception. Humans breed like rabbits compared to the long-lived races, and they need room to spread out and grow. Where elves or dwarves are content to stay in their forests and mountains humans overpopulate and need to expand. This leads to humans being more spread out and diverse than the otehr races.

The other races may even see humans as a cancer on the world, and might feel threatened by their fast breeding and expansionist thoughts.

I think if you had a world with two races (humans and something else, probably) then it would be worth fleshing out that other race so that it has a variety of cultures, but when you've got a large (and ever-growing) number of races it seems like a lot of effort to flesh out each one to the same extent.

And actually, going bck to my first paragraph, would another sentient species on this planet really have a set of different cultures? For all we know having to evolve on a planet where there's an entirely different species of people may have polarized us to the point where we unified early on into one culture. Even if there's no physical conflicts there will probably be conflicts of some sort between these two races. It's us versus them. Reminds me of the end of Watchmen (the comic more than the movie).

 

[pacdidj]

I don't find it philosophically troubling in the least.

I do, however, find it relatively boring.

I find it philosophically troubling, because if you're comfortable with the notion (even in a work of fiction) that whole hypothetical groups of sentient beings with more or less the same thinking/feeling capacity as humans could be completely evil and worthy of extermination, it is only a small step from being comfortable with the notion that whole groups of humans can be completely evil and worthy of extermination. Personally I would find even a work of fiction based on this notion deplorable.

 

[Silvercat Moonpaw]

Does every race need a whole slew of cultures? Realistically speaking, yes, if there were another species of sentient beings on this planet they would probably have multiple cultures, but from a feasibility standpoint it makes worlds a lot harder to create.

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?

The other races may even see humans as a cancer on the world, and might feel threatened by their fast breeding and expansionist thoughts.

This could raise the question of why those races aren't trying to kill humans off. Or why they didn't try back when there were too many to kill.

For all we know having to evolve on a planet where there's an entirely different species of people may have polarized us to the point where we unified early on into one culture.

This idea I whole-heartedly endorse: Make humans have one culture just like all the other races. (You don't have to pick just one Real culture and alienate some people, pick common elements across lots of Earth cultures and weave something new from that.)

 

[Celebrim]

I find it philosophically troubling, because if you're comfortable with the notion (even in a work of fiction) that whole hypothetical groups of sentient beings with more or less the same thinking/feeling capacity as humans could be completely evil and worthy of extermination, it is only a small step from being comfortable with the notion that whole groups of humans can be completely evil and worthy of extermination.

I don't think that that follows. It requires me to believe that the groups 'human' and 'non-human' are indistinguishable.

Personally I would find even a work of fiction based on this notion deplorable.

Did you mind the movie 'Alien' much?

 

[Celebrim]

Does every race need a whole slew of cultures? Realistically speaking, yes, if there were another species of sentient beings on this planet they would probably have multiple cultures, but from a feasibility standpoint it makes worlds a lot harder to create.

It isn't just a feasibility standpoint either. Generally in science-fiction set in a galactic mileu with many races, humans are represented as monocultural as well. Part of that is from the standpoint of feasibility, but part of that is simple literary device to contrast the human position from a non-human position in a clear manner.

And note that this isn't a judgemental position necessarily either. You don't necessarily need to be claiming that the human position is inferior or superior to the non-human one. They are just different.

To be completely open with what makes me uncomfortable in this discussion it is the assumption by some that in order to show respect for 'The Other' you have to make them exactly the same as yourself. In other words, if I show humans as being multi-cultural or otherwise diverse, and I show some other race as not being multi-cutural and relatively undiverse, some are suggesting that this is disrespectful to 'The Other'. Quite bluntly, I consider the reverse to be true. If the only way you can only treat 'The Other' respectfully is to imagine that on every substantive point, humans and non-humans must be the same, then really you are completely uncomfortable with the idea of the 'The Other' entirely.

The fact is 'The Other' is alien by definition. If you feel compelled to write away any feature that would actually make an alien different, then you are engaging not only in a dangerous willful blindness but lack any capacity to empathize with 'The Other' in the first place. Both are to me very dangerous, and speaking as a computer programmer with interests in ethical AI, I find both assumptions to be both appalling and horribly dangerous.

So, I find an imagined setting where the aliens within it share and do not share various important features with humanity to be one that is much more mature, sophisticated, and compelling than one where everything - regardless of biology - shares all the fundamental characteristics of humanity. That the 'alien' is nothing more than a human in a different shape is insulting.

 

[pacdidj]

I don't think that that follows. It requires me to believe that the groups 'human' and 'non-human' are indistinguishable.

It absolutely does follow: if a sentient-being thinks, feels, and interacts in substantially similar ways to human beings (as do fantasy dwarves, elves, and even orcs), its distinguishability from human beings is decidedly limited. Therefore it is a small step from viewing these other groups as monocultures, some worthy of extermination, and viewing some human groups as monocultures, some worthy of extermination. Unless you're proposing some other distinguishing feature between humanity and every other sentient race/species/whatever in the game, like "humans have immortal souls, while no other race does". But, that pushes the essentialism even further in a philosophically troublesome direction.

Did you mind the movie 'Alien' much?

Well, yes, but for different reasons. I'm not big on Sci-Fi Horror films. I find them pretty dull. I did watch it though, and I wouldn't say that the eponymous aliens in the movie thought, felt, or interacted in ways at all similar to the poorly acted human characters.

 

[Celebrim]

And actually, going bck to my first paragraph, would another sentient species on this planet really have a set of different cultures? For all we know having to evolve on a planet where there's an entirely different species of people may have polarized us to the point where we unified early on into one culture.

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.

 

[Ariosto]

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.

 

[Celebrim]

wouldn't say that the eponymous aliens in the movie thought, felt, or interacted in ways at all similar to the poorly acted human characters.

That's because they are aliens.

They also would appear to be "hypothetical groups of sentient beings with more or less the same thinking/feeling capacity as humans".