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

[AnotherGuy]

The problem is that you being stupid usually means that someone else has to be tough.

We are not isolated individuals. We live in very large communities. Our failures in judgement impact others.

And it becomes complicated when both sides consider the opposing side stupid.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Nobody is hating anything. We are critiquing, not hating.

This is an attitude it's very hard to deal with, and you find it all over the place, even among people who absolutely have no excuse given their educational background. I do think it's more common with people who, in school, rarely had to deal with much honestly-meant critique - i.e. people who just got good/great grades, and where their errors tended to be technical rather than errors of thinking. Especially if they went to university and then studied a technical/science subject, or if an arts one, one you could get by on by simply learning a lot of other people's opinions and being able to explain them. So you get someone who has got into their 20s, and barely anyone has seriously critiqued them, and thus the first time someone actually does, they're horribly offended.

Or maybe that's all a pile of nonsense I've built lol.

But I do notice that nerdy people are way more into "critique = hate" than arty people, with the exception of people who have come into art with little formal training (if we look at authors, every author I've ever seen take a "critique = hate" attitude has an educational background that isn't creative writing or the like).

I am not going to respond to your points when they a framed in an insulting way (i.e. ‘facepalm’, ‘sad’, ‘you won’t even reason out without resorting to the language of religion’). I am happy to continue having a productive conversation, but will bow out if this persists.

That's fine, but equally if you want to discuss this productively, please stop framing it in religious terms when responding to me at least. It's unhelpful.

 

[Umbran]

Not just for some. She literally is transphobic.

Mod Note:
She is also not an author working for WotC, or on any other RPG product. So, how about we bring it around to something relevant, please and thanks.

 

[Charlaquin]

This is an attitude it's very hard to deal with, and you find it all over the place, even among people who absolutely have no excuse given their educational background. I do think it's more common with people who, in school, rarely had to deal with much honestly-meant critique - i.e. people who just got good/great grades, and where their errors tended to be technical rather than errors of thinking. Especially if they went to university and then studied a technical/science subject, or if an arts one, one you could get by on by simply learning a lot of other people's opinions and being able to explain them. So you get someone who has got into their 20s, and barely anyone has seriously critiqued them, and thus the first time someone actually does, they're horribly offended.

Or maybe that's all a pile of nonsense I've built lol.

But I do notice that nerdy people are way more into "critique = hate" than arty people, with the exception of people who have come into art with little formal training (if we look at authors, every author I've ever seen take a "critique = hate" attitude has an educational background that isn't creative writing or the like).

I think some of those observations are more specific than I would want to get onboard with, without some more rigorous study behind it. But, I do think the general point that critical analysis, especially critical analysis of media, is a blind spot in many people’s education. It can also just be hard to accept critique of something one is emotionally invested in.

 

[Umbran]

I think this is an intellectual dishonest approach, sorry dude.

Mod Note:
Mere minutes after I warn the thread about how this discussion is going, you start a post by, in effect, accusing someone of lying. Great stuff!

The only reason you have not been removed from the discussion is that your post likely took considerable time to write, and you may not have seen the warning. Not that you shouldn't already have known that this is not a good way to have a reasoned conversation, mind you. You're far too smart to not know that this opening will engage the ego and emotions, not rational thought.

Knowing better, but doing it anyway, is the problem. Please stop being part of the problem. Thanks.

 

[Krachek]

The people who call her that are being ironic intentionally.

Which is a huge part of why fans feel so betrayed by her taking an anti-trans stance.

No, it hasn’t. Lots of people who are critical of J.K. Rowling still enjoy the work. How could we not, it was hugely influential throughout our childhoods and young adulthoods. But, many of us also now advocate against supporting the author (with varying opinions on what constitutes support), despite how we feel about her work.

Not just for some. She literally is transphobic.

Phobia is considered a form of mental illness, so we should show empathy toward her.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Phobia is considered a form of mental illness, so we should show empathy toward her.

Ooooh, that's an interesting angle to take and potentially opens up a world of fascinating tangent discussions which sadly won't be permitted.

 

[Krachek]

Ooooh, that's an interesting angle to take and potentially opens up a world of fascinating tangent discussions which sadly won't be permitted.

Indeed just stating « Phobicphobic », can make the thread shut down like a magic formula.

 

[Umbran]

Phobia is considered a form of mental illness, so we should show empathy toward her.

Mod Note:
The "-phobia" in the term is a colloquial use, not an actual mental health diagnosis.

Also, as already noted, while she is an example of a problematic author, she is not an author of RPG materials. Please bring things around to gaming-relevance, please.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And this is exactly my problem, looking at the past with the specific goal of making it look bad. Never with a more balanced and less judgemental view, noting that there are bad things, but also some good things along with the bad. And for certain, never look at good things in particular, because it would invalidate the whole "crusade".



Not what I wrote, learn to read and quote properly, and not to put words in other people's mouth.



Once more, not what I said, at all.



It's not "valid", it just shows your biases and therefore totally invalidates whatever point you are trying to make, just as the way you try to steer a discussion by putting words in my mouth.

While critisizm of the past is certainly valid, I do think our study of it lately has veered too far into the negative end of the spectrum, as if those parts of history are the only things people want to talk about.

I also detect (sometimes) an undercurrent of smug superiority in these discussions, as in, "Thank goodness we're so much better people than those monsters from before we all became enlightened", as if our views weren't shaped by our experiences and environment as much as theirs were.

Its valid to point out things that can be improved. But everything we love came of what came before just as much as everything of which we're ashamed. Do we exclusively have to focus on the negative stuff?