TSR Giantlands

[darjr]

What nonsense. He’s not an actor playing a part in a movie. He’s espousing horrible crap and furthering a horrible agenda.

This is the “it’s what my character would do” defense and it’s bull. Mistwell stop carrying his water, he’s laughing at you.

 

[Thaumaturge]

I am not defending his schtick - it's incredibly annoying, and wrong, and I tell that to him directly on a regular basis and refute the nonsense he posts under tha persona very often.

Okay. Good. We can agree that he’s wrong and that you’re not defending him. Good.

Pundits flaws stand on their own without the need to pretend they are something they're not.

Agreed.

Which of course takes work, and includes (if you're going to be persuasive) acknowledging the humanity of the person you're refuting.

This is where I both agree and put a huge caveat. Dehumanizing people is always bad. Dehumanizing people only ever takes us to a bad place. The difficulty is when one side agrees with what I just said, and the other side doesn’t. The side that disagrees, shouldn’t be dehumanized, but they don’t mind dehumanizing others. That tension is really, really difficult to hold.

“I won’t dehumanize this person who is exactly dehumanizing me in this moment.” Well, that’s a difficult sentence. And it gets more difficult each, and every, time one is dehumanized. Every time. What ends up happening, eventually, is the people who aren’t dehumanizing are doing all of the work, and the people who are dehumanizing are the sole benefactors.

That’s tough. You can see how tough that is, right?

That's, at best, lazy. At worst, it becomes a witch hunt based on new orthodoxy where anyone tainted by exposure to bad beliefs must be purged.

I, too, have concerns about a “new orthodoxy”. Orthodoxy, as a concept, concerns me. We can’t all have the right beliefs. Orthopraxy (right action) is much more my jam.

Thaumaturge.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

And, I think it is important to note that they are not argued out of their beliefs. They are talked out of them.

The basic technique, as I understand it, can be outlined (and oversimplified) thusly - you talk with the person until you actually understand a lot of where they are coming from. Then you carefully bring them into a state of cognitive dissonance, in which their bigoted beliefs are in conflict with something they actually care about and cannot discard out of hand. Then, if you are really skilled, you guide them to resolution of that dissonance by discarding the beliefs, rather than the thing they actually care about.

And note that "bring them into a state" is not "tell them flatly" - because then they just decide you are playing tricks on them, and they discard you as the source of the dissonance. It is more talking to them about things until they realize on their own that they have an internal conflict. Hopefully, in this process, you build enough trust with them that they then ask you to help them resolve it.

Any hint of confrontation or insincerity from you, and the effort is ruined. So, unless you are a world-best actor, you usually have to care about them, as a person, to pull this off. Bringing people to epiphany is hard.

The two I’m most familiar with are Daryl Davis (personally convinced 200 klansmen +/- to quit the group) and a Rabbi (whose name I forget) who convinced a NeoNazi Skinhead who was harassing him and his family to abandon the ideology. In the latter case, the Rabbi even took the man (and his Latina girlfriend!) in when he was ill.

It‘s an extraordinary ability. In a different context, some might call that “saintly.”

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Fun fact: Pundit has other youtube channels under entirely different schtick which have nothing to do with RPGs. No, I will not out those other channels because that's his business. But yeah, he's TRYING to be controversial for that persona, akin to Wally George. I am not defending his schtick - it's incredibly annoying, and wrong, and I tell that to him directly on a regular basis and refute the nonsense he posts under tha persona very often.

But the claim was made (and I think it was a very lazy level of claim) that he's the equivalent of David Duke or HP Lovecraft. That's not true. It's an extreme exaggeration in a situation which doesn't call for exaggeration. Pundits flaws stand on their own without the need to pretend they are something they're not.

And the reason I think people exaggerate like that is so they can raise the "It's OK to be intolerant of the intolerant" Popper's Paradox justification for their dehumanizing someone else. But you can only use that paradox to justify your own authoritarian behavior in the extreme cases - Popper himself said, even in the footnote where the paradox is stated, that most of the time the right and ethical thing to do is to simply carefully and persuasively refute the positions which we disagree with. Which of course takes work, and includes (if you're going to be persuasive) acknowledging the humanity of the person you're refuting.

By exaggerating Pundit to extreme levels, I think people think it's OK to behave in an authoritarian manner towards him. To extend that authoritarian attitude to even anyone who comes in contact with him.

That's, at best, lazy. At worst, it becomes a witch hunt based on new orthodoxy where anyone tainted by exposure to bad beliefs must be purged.

Wherever it lands on that spectrum, I think it shouldn't be done. Pundit's not David Duke or HP Lovecraft, so just refute the things he says which are wrong. It's not that hard - I do it all the time. I've had success with that. Others would too if they took the effort. And if you think his views are not worth the effort that's fine - but then don't say anyone who does an interview with him is somehow tainted by his views when you're not even willing to discuss and refute those views yourself without being incredibly dismissive and hand waving the entire issue as "bad man."

Nah, calling out bigots and questioning the character of thier associates isn’t authoritarian behavior, and the ridiculous hyperbole you’re spouting here is directly and meaningfully deleterious to discussion.

You seem to have an interest in defending him, it sounds like you either know him directly, or are a fan of soemthing he does/makes, or run in the same circles.

Here’s the thing. The fact that it’s “shtick” doesn’t matter. He gets clicks by saying bigoted crap. That’s it. That makes him a bigot, even if he doesn’t believe in the stuff he is saying.

 

[Gradine]

Bigots GTFO our hobby.

And the same goes for their enablers and defenders

 

[Azzy]

Silly names for Game Masters is always the cringiest thing I encounter in games.

The most non-silly names I've seen for Game Master (including Game Master itself) is Referee.

 

[Azzy]

Bigots GTFO our hobby.

And the same goes for their enablers and defenders

Exactly. We have to let them know that they are not welcome in our hobbies and in our lives.

 

[Bolares]

Fun fact: Pundit has other youtube channels under entirely different schtick which have nothing to do with RPGs. No, I will not out those other channels because that's his business. But yeah, he's TRYING to be controversial for that persona, akin to Wally George. I am not defending his schtick - it's incredibly annoying, and wrong, and I tell that to him directly on a regular basis and refute the nonsense he posts under tha persona very often.

If you use a bigot "persona" to profit.... you are a bigot.

 

[Gradine]

Also, quibbling over degrees of bigotry is insulting. That way lies Godwin's Law.

Pundit is a bigot with a platform that he uses to spread bigotry. Full stop. He is a significant problem within our community, as are all those who enable him

 

[Remathilis]

Fun fact: Pundit has other youtube channels under entirely different schtick which have nothing to do with RPGs. No, I will not out those other channels because that's his business. But yeah, he's TRYING to be controversial for that persona, akin to Wally George. I am not defending his schtick - it's incredibly annoying, and wrong, and I tell that to him directly on a regular basis and refute the nonsense he posts under tha persona very often.

"Bob's a great guy if you ignore the six people he murdered..."