D&D General The Art and the Artist: Discussing Problematic Issues in D&D

[HammerMan]

Okay I am sure this will not go well... but I'm already here so...

I am not a huge potter fan, but my niece is. I don't care what kind of trash person the writer is or isn't.
I kinda like Lovecraft stuff (more of modern retakes on it then the original) and I don't care what kind of trash person the writer was or wasn't

long dead and multi millionaire trash people are more than welcome to my small amount of $... because I care about what I get out of the transaction more than what they do.

I also don't care if you 100% support my exact political and social standing... if your story is bad I wont keep buying more of it.
I WILL buy a friend's bad story to support the friend... but even then I have my limits. If you write a boring 32 novel series and you are my bestie... I will buy a bunch of them to support you, if you are a friend I will at least buy the first one.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I didn't realize I was being sold minor updates of something old as a new thing here. Is this necro-cloning?

There appears to be some tweaking here and there.

I guess I should be flattered* that people have memorized my posts!

But I've wanted to return to that post for a while, because I had worked on it for a very long time, but I posted it late in the evening on a Friday, and it was shut down right after it was posted (it was believed to be a contentious topic that would require moderation, and it was late at night on a Friday.).

So I spent a several hours today editing and expanding the post from 16 months ago in order to update it, work out some additional issues, and try to make sure it provided a good thread for reasonable discussion and not for moderation. We'll see.


*Or worried. Concerned?

 

[payn]

I guess I should be flattered* that people have memorized my posts!

But I've wanted to return to that post for a while, because I had worked on it for a very long time, but I posted it late in the evening on a Friday, and it was shut down right after it was posted (it was believed to be a contentious topic that would require moderation, and it was late at night on a Friday.).

So I spent a several hours today editing and expanding the post from 16 months ago in order to update it, work out some additional issues, and try to make sure it provided a good thread for reasonable discussion and not for moderation. We'll see.


*Or worried. Concerned?

Normally you point this kind of thing out in your OP. I'm disappointed.

 

[jmartkdr2]

One variable: does the, erm, "issue with the author" appear in the work - has a weird little nuance in that you might not notice until you know about the issue.

You can watch a lot of Mel Gibson movies and not see any anti-Semitism. Indeed, I'd say a few lack any anti-Semitic elements. But if you know Mr. Gibson holds these views to some degree, it makes you look at his treatment of certain subjects and characters differently. Things you ight have brushed off before, you now can't because you know more about the author's intent.

It's a factor. Intent isn't everything, but it isn't nothing, and all these things happen by degrees.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Normally you point this kind of thing out in your OP. I'm disappointed.

I appreciate the one person encouraging me to add stuff to my posts!

 

[Deset Gled]

*Or worried. Concerned?

My memory is computer assisted. The previous thread is the top result in the "Similar Threads" feature at the bottom of the page. It is on mine, at least. I don't know if the algorithm is personalized.

 

[Scribe]

One variable: does the, erm, "issue with the author" appear in the work - has a weird little nuance in that you might not notice until you know about the issue.

You can watch a lot of Mel Gibson movies and not see any anti-Semitism. Indeed, I'd say a few lack any anti-Semitic elements. But if you know Mr. Gibson holds these views to some degree, it makes you look at his treatment of certain subjects and characters differently. Things you ight have brushed off before, you now can't because you know more about the author's intent.

It's a factor. Intent isn't everything, but it isn't nothing, and all these things happen by degrees.

This is a good point. Something that I believe was brought up recently with Buffy -> Whedon. If you now look at Whedon differently, and then go back and watch Buffy, its very likely you see things differently, beyond just the scope of time, shifting cultural norms, and so on.

On the other side, I can still look at the Cthulhu Mythos, look at it not as a racist work, but as one which speaks to the insignificance of humanity, the absurdity of our existence, and it has nothing to do with Lovecraft's racist views and era.

Ultimately, its a judgment call each and every time.

 

[Gradine]

So, a little known aspect of the concept of "The Death of the Author" is that the only thing that matters is the text... but the text exists both within and without the work. "The Death of the Author" doesn't mean that we ignore the artist and only focus on the work; nor does it mean that we only take the author's word for gospel as to the meaning of the work. It means that what the author says is only a part of the text itself.

A minor quibble to point out, but Lovecraft was considered extraordinarily xenophobic even by his fairly-racist-in-their-own-right contemporaries. I'm not a huge fan of "product of their time" arguments in general. For any given "time" there were plenty of voices calling out racism/sexism/etc. At my most charitable, I would say that nobody born in a time during or after the works of Stephen Douglas or W.E.B. DuBois has any excuse for racism. Especially if they're literate.

Not that I don't understand the appeal. I imagine many of us would wish for the same generosity from future generations. But I don't imagine that actually does us any good. Or them. It's okay to be critical of the people of the past. That's part of how we learn, and grow.

Going back to the point re: The Good Place. Yes, there is no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism. Everything under the sun that we can consume contributes in some way to some form of human misery somewhere in the world. That's depressing but it's also somewhat freeing. There are of course ways we can minimize harm through our consumption, but at a certain point, it's not really about individual responsibility. We can only do so much, research so much, go so far out of our own way without contributing to our own misery.

My point is that we, as human beings, should be able to enjoy things. We deserve nice things. But as hard as it is to avoid causing any sort of harm, there are still things we can and should do. Contributing to the financial and social capital of someone who uses that capital directly to cause harm to innocent people is an easy thing to avoid.

As it relates to TTRPGs, there are easy ways to do this. There are plenty of easily identifiable bad actors within the tabletop scene. Don't purchase their work, don't give them a platform, etc. Legacy content is another thing entirely. Old modules with one of two moments that haven't aged well should probably be fine with a disclaimer (a specific disclaimer; content warnings are meaningless if they don't describe the type of content). I don't, however, think that a company should continue to profit from the sales of a product that is fundamentally harmful (racist orc jokes, *riental adventures, etc.). Again, not because I don't think such things don't have value or should be locked in a vault. but it is sketchy to actively profit from stuff like that.

It's not censorship, it's ethical business, as much of an oxymoron as that it is. Besides, it's not like we're talking about the greatest works of human fiction here; these aren't exactly Hamlet or Citizen Kane or Bluey

 

[Bill Zebub]

It's interesting to me that you have tolerance for people of the past, whose perspective is very much a product of their time, but not people of the present. Aren't people writing on forums now products of their time as well?

And what's interesting here is that in many of these debates the concern with the works being discussed is that they promote/encourage/normalize...perhaps unintentionally...intolerance. So there's some amusing irony in displays of intolerance of intolerance for intolerance.

 

[payn]

On the other side, I can still look at the Cthulhu Mythos, look at it not as a racist work, but as one which speaks to the insignificance of humanity, the absurdity of our existence, and it has nothing to do with Lovecraft's racist views and era.

It's really too bad that the Lovecraft name is so associated with cosmic horror.