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M.A.R. Barker, author of Tekumel, also author of Neo-Nazi book?
- Thread starter Ancalagon
- Start date
Willie the Duck
Hero
Trolling in general I have never really understood, but I really never understood blatant trolling -- take the most-obvious and least-effort but also least-respected route to having the least amount of influence (mild annoyance) over others, and making everyone who has viewed the thing assume that's the only capacity you have to effect the larger world, diminishing yourself in their estimation. Like, what's the point? You didn't totally pull one over one anyone. You didn't ruin anyone's day. You just made total strangers think you never grew up, what does that get you?
overgeeked
B/X Known World
A lot of people seem to think drive-by nonsense like this is “owning” people and that somehow means winning everything forever and destroying your enemies irrevocably.
G
Guest 7034872
Guest
Dude first joined EN World way back in 2008: I don't think this latest bit was a trolling effort, especially after reading through some of his earliest posts. I think he wrote what he believes.
Sacrosanct
Legend
Well, that's weird. True courage is defending the indefensible because everyone else is clearly against it? What an odd position to take.
"No man, trying to ban lead paint isn't special. It takes real courage to keep using it."
Although, insisting on using lead paint would explain a few things...
"No man, trying to ban lead paint isn't special. It takes real courage to keep using it."
Although, insisting on using lead paint would explain a few things...
Levistus's_Leviathan
5e Freelancer
As the link that @Mannahnin provided says, he's a crazy millionaire televangelist that believes/spouts a whole bunch of nonsense.
My apologies for the drive-by posting.
I stumbled on this thread and was appalled to learn that one of my favorite game designers / world-builders may be a Nazi. As a Jew this offended me greatly. But, then I decided to engage in some critical thinking.
1. MAR Barker spent his life fantasizing and writing about a science-fantasy world, much more advanced than ours, of 'non-white' people. This doesn't sound like a person who subscribes to white supremacy ideology.
2. Barker converted from Christianity (a primarily 'white' religion) to Islam (a primarily 'non-white' religion).
3. Writing about Nazis does not make someone a nazi. Are the writers of 'The Man in the Castle' aired on Amazon Prime nazi sympathizers since they envision a world where the nazis won?
The irony of this thread is that the nazis power base was based on group think and toeing the party line regardless of what critical thinking would otherwise indicate. You guys can do better.
I'll immediately remove my account. But, please consider my words before posthumously destroying someone without evidence.
I stumbled on this thread and was appalled to learn that one of my favorite game designers / world-builders may be a Nazi. As a Jew this offended me greatly. But, then I decided to engage in some critical thinking.
1. MAR Barker spent his life fantasizing and writing about a science-fantasy world, much more advanced than ours, of 'non-white' people. This doesn't sound like a person who subscribes to white supremacy ideology.
2. Barker converted from Christianity (a primarily 'white' religion) to Islam (a primarily 'non-white' religion).
3. Writing about Nazis does not make someone a nazi. Are the writers of 'The Man in the Castle' aired on Amazon Prime nazi sympathizers since they envision a world where the nazis won?
The irony of this thread is that the nazis power base was based on group think and toeing the party line regardless of what critical thinking would otherwise indicate. You guys can do better.
I'll immediately remove my account. But, please consider my words before posthumously destroying someone without evidence.
Ruin Explorer
Legend
I guess you may have deleted, but this isn't critical thinking on your part, brah, this is naivete and a sad lack of genuinely critical thinking.
There are plenty of fascists, even actual Nazis or Nazi-adjacent people who are non-white and follow "non-white" religions. The Nazi leadership tended to oppose/conflict with Christianity, remember.
For example, the RSS in India were directly inspired by and very keen on the Nazis (albeit even more keen on Mussolini's fascists):
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh - Wikipedia
It's a common modern fallacy to believe that the Nazis hated people solely based on skin colour or the like. They had a deeply bizarre and almost incomprehensible racial ideology when it came down to (which wasn't fixed, either), which included several non-white groups as "Aryans" (including the Nepalese), and included the usually-regarded-as-white-today "Slavs" as "subhuman".
So the fact that Barker fantasized about a non-white world doesn't mean much. Nor does the fact that he was a Muslim. Islamofascism is as old as fascism, almost:
Islamofascism - Wikipedia
Nor is being a Muslim incompatible with antisemitism, which is rife in Serpent's Walk. So not only do we know that he wrote Serpent's Walk, which is unabashedly pro-Nazi book, none of your reasoning that he "couldn't be" a Nazi holds up to the slightest analysis.
In fact we also know he was on the editorial board of the Journal of Historical Review, which was dedicated to holocaust denial and revisionist psuedohistory.
MAR Barker was absolutely keen on Nazis.
Baron Opal II
Hero
The problem is, there is evidence. However, there is a spectrum as to his character. At best, he was a complex person who had a superiority complex and liked embarassing and humiliating people he didn't like. At worst, he took after his father more than he admitted, and possibly liked. And I say this as a fan of his Tekumel work.
