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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bedrockgames" data-source="post: 7743639" data-attributes="member: 85555">This is a pretty big assumption. I don't know what you have in mind here, and I don't want to get into a real world political discussion here, but on the list of things that trouble me about today's world, 'people believe that all preferences are equal' is so far down on the list of what worries me. If we are literally just talking about things like movie and book preferences, I'd say it isn't a problem. Again, I never said it couldn't be an issue. The specific context is going to matter. But I think you are engaging in a lot of projection and mind reading and you are assuming things about the people who enjoy this stuff that just isn't true. Something can look dark, troubling, sinister, wicked, sexually indulgent, but be enjoyed for all kinds of reasons. I think when you get into the business of policing this stuff, especially when you claim to have the secret cypher for understanding what it all really means, you are treading on dangerous ground. All I know is I've encountered this my whole life, where you enjoy something another person finds questionable and they think it speaks volumes about you. Then everything they claim it means, turns out to have no connection to why you enjoy the stuff. I learned that from the kinds of music I liked growing up, the kinds of movies I watched, the games I played etc. If you don't like it, I say fine. I am just not into this idea that because you have a bad feeling about a piece of art or entertainment, that means people who make or enjoy it are morally bad.When it comes to borrowing real world culture, it really comes down to the specifics. I've read things where the evil hordes are clearly stand-ins for groups the author doesn't like, and as a reader that is going to bother me. I've also read things where the author clearly just liked the look of a culture for his or her bad guys. It is very difficult to make cultures from scratch. If a setting has evil cultures, it is likely the person making it is going to have to borrow features from somewhere in the real world (they might take disparate elements of a variety of cultures or take a bunch from a single culture). I think it is done for different reasons and different purposes though. And saying it is always bad is enormously reductive and simplistic.</blockquote>

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