Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 8325596" data-attributes="member: 82106">I think we do have to care when people distort this history, or selectively interpret it, in order to support racist agendas and such, yes. I don't see your example here being something that D&amp;D is doing in a NEGATIVE direction, but interestingly it seems to me that elves are a stereotyped examplar of racial PERFECTION as imagined by European whites. Certainly they come off that way. JRRT's elves are fair skinned, often golden-haired, tall, super intelligent, physically immortal, and otherwise possessed of various highly positive traits. They are also associated with the West, put in opposition to orcs, which he explicitly calls out as a proxy for 'mongolians', etc.So, the origin of the idea of elves could well be something we want to explore, and something we want to understand and not allow to be co-opted. Lest anyone consider this kind of co-opting unlikely, you merely need to look at the myths about the Roman Empire which have been built up in Europe over the past 4 centuries which drastically distort its racial identity, attitudes, literature, etc. and have been used to buttress a lot of racial/cultural superiority ideology and justify a lot of colonialism. We should be careful to understand the cultural origins of our ideas.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 8325596, member: 82106"] I think we do have to care when people distort this history, or selectively interpret it, in order to support racist agendas and such, yes. I don't see your example here being something that D&D is doing in a NEGATIVE direction, but interestingly it seems to me that elves are a stereotyped examplar of racial PERFECTION as imagined by European whites. Certainly they come off that way. JRRT's elves are fair skinned, often golden-haired, tall, super intelligent, physically immortal, and otherwise possessed of various highly positive traits. They are also associated with the West, put in opposition to orcs, which he explicitly calls out as a proxy for 'mongolians', etc. So, the origin of the idea of elves could well be something we want to explore, and something we want to understand and not allow to be co-opted. Lest anyone consider this kind of co-opting unlikely, you merely need to look at the myths about the Roman Empire which have been built up in Europe over the past 4 centuries which drastically distort its racial identity, attitudes, literature, etc. and have been used to buttress a lot of racial/cultural superiority ideology and justify a lot of colonialism. We should be careful to understand the cultural origins of our ideas. [/QUOTE]

Verification