Yes you probably could, but that would require presenting another, legitimate ethical position driving the conflict between humans and orcs.
I'm rather inclined to think that you don't understand me at all. For simplicity, let's call my aforementioned hypothetical species 'the Va'in'. The conflict between 'the Va'in' who are not diverse and the humans who are is not being driven by ethical positions much less 'legitimate' ones. The conflict is over biological identity. The question of whether we can make an ethical judgment about the biological identity is interesting, but irrelevant to the existance of the conflict. In this case, I choose biological inevitabilities that I don't actually think have ethical value. Neither the human diversity or the Va'in lack of diversity in and of itself has ethical value in my mind. It just is. But its quite possible to imagine biological identities which are indistinguishable from things we want to insist have ethical value. For example, the 'Aliens' I mentioned early have a biological identity that is inseparable from the act of torturing and eating other sentient species. Generally speaking, if we want to claim anything has univeral moral value it would be respect for sentient life. But in the case of the hypothetical 'Aliens' their biological identity requires them to not respect the value of sentient life. Whether you claim that we have the right to make the moral judgment of this as 'evil' or not, it still leaves us (and every other sentient species) locked in eternal conflict with the 'Aliens' and justified (one way or the other) in exterminating the Aliens were we find them. The fact that they think they are justified in torturing, eating, and killing (in that order!) other sentient species is interesting, but not really relevant.
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.
And again, you fail to understand my point at all. I'm not suggesting that the 'Aliens' are one-dimensional baddies. In fact, I'm suggesting that they are sentient species that feel emotions and are capable of reasoning and even have some of the basic biological drives as we do. In fact, that was some of the point of 'Aliens', in as much as the Alien Queen and Ripley were meant to be parallel forces driven by the need, understandable to each other, to protect their offspring/children from harm. That each was capable of empathizing with the other did not make the inevitable conflict less real.
I totally disagree with you that this is 'philosophically troubling' in the sense you seem to mean (ei, that it is unethical to think about it or to state it), but if you find it 'philosophically troubling' in the sense that we might not want to think about it, then I agree and that is in fact the point.
You want to say that it is 'more interesting' to suggest that orcs are basically alot like humans. And I'm saying, no, its more interesting if some things are basically alot like humans, and some things are basically not alot like humans, and in between there is a vast spectrum of complicated things more and less alike. It's not at all interesting to say, 'We can't imagine orcs unless we also imagine them basically alot like us', because for one thing it precludes thinking about anything truly 'Alien'.
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
Is there? I find your reasoning amazingly circular. You criticize authors for saying, "I have this race that's fundamentally not like humans." Then, once you assert against the evidence that they are fundamentally like humans, you criticize those same authors for creating a race "a human-like race just to be the baddies". You are insisting on your definitions, even when the definition in question is of an invented thing. As I said before, I find orcs, goblins and trolls to be analogous to .... orcs, goblins, and trolls. If you want to insist that they are fundamentally analogous to something human, you are criticizing something on your definitions and in your terms, not in the terms the author used.
I know what Orientalism is, or rather, I know what it is said to be. And as I said before, if this thread is going to deginerate into one side calling the other side racist, it won't last long. If you are going to keep throwing around that 'Orientalism' crap, the thread is over, and I'm going to be unhappy about it and tempted not to forgive you.
Edward Said has alot of problems with his theory, not the least of which is that he accuses
all Westerners of having the identical interaction of treating all things Oriental as being fundamentally indentical without there being the slightest bit of irony on his part. Generally speaking, I don't hold much truck with any branch of 'critical theory', as they all seem to be expounded on by people with no sense of irony and self-reflection (and ironically, what they most object to they say is the lack, of self-reflection in others). I consider Kipling far less a racist than Edward Said.
The latter to my mind reflects both a degree of authorial laziness, and a somewhat troublesome philosophical perspective.
I disagree. And, for my money, Edward Said offered a terribly lazy and troublesome philosophical perspective filled with internal contridiction.
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'
I agree, and have said so in this thread.
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.
And I protest that there is nothing that prevents orcs from having both a realistic source of conflict with humanity AND them being inherently evil for the same reasons that they are evil in D&D. I protest that orcs don't think, feel, walk, talk, or sing like us and I'm not sure who said that they must. And I equally protest that the question of whether they feel, walk, talk, or sing like us is independent of the question of inherent evil. One could not feel, walk, talk, or sing like us and not be inherently evil, and on the other hand one could and could.
