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

[Bedrockgames]

Why would anyone push back on charges that a book makes someone uncomfortable? Maybe they shouldn’t do that.

I think if someone merely asserted a book made them uncomfortable, you would not see much push back. I am talking more about situations where these assertions are followed by a therefore X must be done. Or and therefore you should share my assessment. So if you said Van richtens guide to Vampires made you uncomfortable, and therefore WOTC must remove it from drive through: people are going to take a harder look at why you find discomforting. Whereas, someone saying “It causes harm” has an inflated sense of urgency by comparison, and makes people more reluctant to question the assertion

 

[Bedrockgames]

Maybe it feels icky for a reason.

Like all the ickiness of badgering someone who has already been made uncomfortable.

Or people worry their intentions are going to be misunderstood because a charged term has been put in play.

 

[CleverNickName]

Or people worry their intentions are going to be misunderstood because a charged term has been put in play.

"Harmful" is not a charged term.

 

[Malmuria]

I would argue it’s use is a kind of semantic argument. “This causes harm” is a common refrain of online critiques of RPGs and, I believe, it has a lot more potency than it otherwise would because if the physical and serious connotations it has. If someone clarified, or doesn’t use That kind of phrasing, I tend to be less critical. But I do think “X causes harm” carries a moral weight that “x is upsetting doesn’t” for instance and that ability to capture the intensity if something like physical harm or significant harm and applying to less severe concerns, is why I think it isn’t the best vise of language. My problem with it is it tends to be a conversation stopper. It makes people feel more icky to push back on charges that a book causes harm than to push back on charges a book makes someone uncomfortable

Harm can be something that builds up slowly over time, perhaps from multiple and not always very visible sources. So, yes, there is the kind of easy-to-identify intense violence that marginalized people sometimes face. But there is also the slow, pervasive violence of everyday and structural discrimination. Art and the media landscape is a part of that. I think critique can be useful especially in identifying these not-as-visible, not-as-immediate forms, not because each one is so intensely harmful or violent necessarily, but because they form a language that on the whole works to marginalize some.

If I am a GM in a game, I often think of it as akin to hosting a dinner party (often because, in the beforetimes, I was literally inviting people over to my house). Now if my players are my friends, and I'm inviting them to my house, of course I don't want them to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome; that's the opposite of what I want. And in that context, something that happens at the table that is 'merely' upsetting to one person can turn into something very harmful, for example if the people at the table--their friends--don't take the fact and the reason they are upset seriously.

 

[Scribe]

"Harmful" is not a charged term.

"Orc's being described as savage causes me real harm."

That isnt charged?

 

[Bedrockgames]

Harm can be something that builds up slowly over time, perhaps from multiple and not always very visible sources. So, yes, there is the kind of easy-to-identify intense violence that marginalized people sometimes face. But there is also the slow, pervasive violence of everyday and structural discrimination. Art and the media landscape is a part of that. I think critique can be useful especially in identifying these not-as-visible, not-as-immediate forms, not because each one is so intensely harmful or violent necessarily, but because they form a language that on the whole works to marginalize some.

but this is a distortion of what violence means. I am much more concerned about real world violence that the second type you describe. I am not saying that isn’t also a thing, just that it isn’t violence. And when you expand a word like violence to include vague, cultural things, like art tropes, you make it much more easy for people to dismiss real violence because you are watering down the term (and things like racial violence or violence against vulnerable people are something I care a lot about).

 

[CleverNickName]

"Orc's being described as savage causes me real harm."

That isnt charged?

If someone is preparing to argue with that person who says they are being harmed? Probably. Otherwise, not at all.

 

[Scribe]

If someone is preparing to argue with that person who says they are being harmed? Probably. Otherwise, not at all.

If someone is being harmed, I would hope to help, as that is a statement that absolutely is emotionally charged. "X is causing me harm." is charged with emotional meaning.

I'm really not sure how this is debatable.

 

[Malmuria]

but this is a distortion of what violence means. I am much more concerned about real world violence that the second type you describe. I am not saying that isn’t also a thing, just that it isn’t violence. And when you expand a word like violence to include vague, cultural things, like art tropes, you make it much more easy for people to dismiss real violence because you are watering down the term (and things like racial violence or violence against vulnerable people are something I care a lot about).

I think violence can absolutely be psychological, emotional, and cultural. Representations can be mocking, dehumanizing, and humiliating (blackface vaudeville performances, for example). Representations can also work toward animating violence, which is why wars are typically accompanied by efforts to stereotype and dehumanize an enemy (consider this British WWI poster, as a common example). ("Slow" violence, btw, is not just psychological in this way. It can also refer to the harm caused by environmental pollution or poverty, for example.)

The semantics around the term violence are not so interesting to me; if people want to use another term there, that's fine. But there is a tendency to think of things that are physical as more measurable and more real, and to downplay things that are psychological and harder to categorize and measure. I think that's a mistake, and so somewhat the opposite of your concern that using the term "violence" lends certain phenomena an unnecessary sense of urgency or priority. For me it's more often the case that additive psychological/emotional effect of aggression that seems "micro" is often overlooked and downplayed, at great cost to the well being of particular individuals in the long term.

 

[CleverNickName]

If someone is being harmed, I would hope to help, as that is a statement that absolutely is emotionally charged. "X is causing me harm." is charged with emotional meaning.

I'm really not sure how this is debatable.

That's my fault for being vague; I'm using the word "charged" differently. Here you are using it to mean "having emotional meaning," but I was using it to mean "controversial."