Politics of the Mob

Conscience is quelled by the approval of the masses.

Wickedness is made invisible by the complacence of peers.

Guilt is discarded by the indifference of leaders.

Righteousness is forgotten when self-interest is held sacrosanct.

This is how the banality of evil can come to wreck nations long before the bloodshed begins amidst the flames of revolt.  Becoming used to some new idea does not make the idea right.  Either it was right to begin with, or not... familiarity or comfort with it does not make it otherwise.

It rarely comes all at once, but by one compromise, after another.  Those compromises become more and more common when actual Truth is discarded in favor of "my truth".  There may be little practical difference between the ubiquitous human proclivity for justifying excuses for wickedness, but stepping over the line of excusing objective evil to the point that evil is a politically negotiable fiction does velocitize the avalanche cascading down the slope.

Whether we can agree to call these facts or not, history is rife with the repetition of these propositions in societies and civilizations.  The plain truth, is that each new generation must relearn them, or suffer their horrors, and to learn at all means for the previous generation not to be lax in teaching.

I may write more about the increase of social consciousness in game design, and the ways in which I differ with them... but these principles are where I can agree with the notion that games can have be more than mere entertainment or distraction.  If in playing out the role of a nation and it's interests, no matter what those interests are, and playing aggressively in that role, is it not possible that in addition to the entertainment of playing the game well, that the fiction may speak truth about us in fact?

That is what I want to try to get my head around in designing my political game.