Emily Care Boss, is a professional in forestry, and a trail blazer in indie game design. She has done something that nobody before her has really done well; that is to make not one but, three rpgs about love and relationships with the Romance Trilogy. To be clear, there have been attempts all the way back to the hoary days of 1980's D&D to gamify sex, with tables to randomly define brothels, types of prostitutes, tables for physical assets, and chances of as well as effects of pregnancy on characters. Other games have dealt with it in their own systems, and whole manuals have been made to bring every deviant and perverse activity to your simulationist gaming table. Boss, has (I like to think) burned all of them down by actually making love and relationships the thing the mechanics are about and making the gamified porn irrelevant.
Why does this matter? Aside from the fact that it is a really innovative piece of creative art in gaming by demonstrating clever ways to solve a problem (what to do when you don't want to murder-hobo), she demonstrates that another problem (why aren't there more women in gaming?) might be solved by appealing to other realms of human experience.
I really love the kind of output by the indie game community, because, while I was on a gaming hiatus during the years of the Forge, I nonetheless was on my lonesome trying to puzzle out other ways of telling stories through games, and asking questions; how could I get past the grind of die rolling in a fight to get to what the meaning of the fight was narratively? How could I get to the grit of risk without having to deal with pages (and many procedural minutes) of consulting tables? How could I make the psychological, social, and spiritual harm of a life of murder-hoboing have real meaning in the game? How could I make the flaws of a character something that the player did not compete against, but relish to season a story? My questions have multiplied since my fairly recent resurgence into gaming, and the questions and stories are more interesting than ever.
But the flip side of the indie community is the repellent and overwhelming commitment by so many of the designers that I really respect creatively, to the leftist political dogmas of "social justice". In fact, it is so common that, I have often felt (*gasp!*) marginalized, or triggered by the unquestioning rhetoric and invective that flies just because I don't agree with the intellectual premises upon which those views rest. That merely questioning them has made one of the most prominent indie designers go from calling me "my friend" to a fascist "nincompoop", and a civil question to another whose games I really love leading to a near hysterical screed about ignorance and hate on my part demonstrates, and yet a third from one of my favorite games continuously demonstrating the very definition of prejudice, racism, and sexism while virtue signalling and demanding that racism, sexism, and prejudice stop makes it clear to me that the indie community is far from being the tolerant safe space that it insists it is.
It really came as a wake up call when while regularly participating in a G+ community, I saw someone who clumsily but not hatefully questioned how realistic it was for a wheelchair bound individual to be the chief engineer on a submarine in a game setting that included lots of dangerous physical risk. It was a question that seemed to me to be mostly a matter of not injecting a little creative story crafting on the part of player and GM, and I really had nothing to say to it. It however quickly invited a dog-pile on the person who asked as a hateful, intolerant, and privileged jerk. Two... only two people bothered to actually address the question intelligently and thoughtfully. One to simply ask why people couldn't just let the fiction allow for that, and just let everybody have the fun they wanted. The other was a woman and an engineer who proceeded to discuss how it might be achieved from a technical perspective. She did not resort to name calling or accusations. The questioner (a very active and regular poster of many amiable discussions) ended up being banned from the community, and the record of the thread deleted entirely. This is exactly the sort of revisionism and heavy handed, echo chamber dogma that the game community does not need.
This dogma is rooted the fashionably left handed theory of intersectionality which some know about and many do not. One wonders... if you are "woke" but don't know it... are you just really dreaming? And if you are aware of the issues as described but question their analysis or demonstrate problems in their assumptions that the advocates deny, are you actually more woke than them? If they demand that you endorse an issue even when the facts are against them, is this actually just an effort to socially put you to sleep so that you can become part of their nightmare? And if questioning, no matter how civil, is prejudicially assumed to be an assault worthy of summary exile, can we even really call it tolerance anymore?
But I digress...
I think it is great that Emily Care Boss has created new ways to play stories. What I question is the assumption that she is a shining figure against the oppression of privilege under the dreadful history of (numerically majority) white males in the hobby of gaming. Was the very cool Mike Pondsmith of Cyberpunk 2020 fame oppressed because he was not a white guy back in 1988 (or before that with his earlier games)? I think not. I think that the truth might be found in a different narrative...
D&D came out of miniatures war gaming. This was a hobby with a long tradition in drawing rooms throughout western Europe (not to be too obvious, but racially mostly white) in the century following the Napoleonic era. War has been, until very recently in the age of increasingly remote warfare, largely conducted by males. As such, miniatures war gaming in the west is probably most likely to have been a practice of white males. I suspect that it was of significantly less interest to non-white non-males because it was not so immediately connected to the activity that those other people might be conceivably doing (fighting wars). As such, culturally I daresay that Gary Gygax (a white guy by no choice of his own) living in mid-west America (demographically mostly white) just happened to be interested in zooming in on the stories of individuals on those miniature war game battlefields. Did his race matter? I doubt it... but maybe his social awkwardness that made him prefer indoor war gaming to outdoor team sports did. Had he been from a very wealthy family, perhaps we would not have had D&D because he might have taken up yachting, or collecting Feraris instead. But as a middle class, middle American nerd, he and his friends invented D&D, and other nerds like Greg Stafford brought us other worlds. Numerically, there have always been more white people, so the odds are that there would be more chances of a white person inventing D&D. The fore mentioned Mike Pondsmith, obviously puts paid to the notion that gaming was for white people and took his interest in Japanese anime as well as science fiction, and made a game that has gone on to this day. I don't see him whining about being oppressed.
What I see is a hobby that has begun to refine into an art form, that is barely over four decades old in human history. Leftist thinking is long on empathy, but short on depth in time...
Why has it escaped the left handed thinkers of the indie game community that it is in fact girls who have been role playing as a hobby since time immemorial? The men who took their boyhood imagination with them as adults like Gygax and Stafford, did so perhaps because they were the vestigial ends of a tradition of human warfare, who had less social or athletic prowess than intellectual and imaginative. That many other kinds of people followed that creativity just is. So why have there been fewer girls joining the gaming community in the past or designing games? Maybe because they already were... in different ways. Maybe it took three decades to show us the ends of one way of story telling to raise the question of how to really start asking different questions about how to make games. I believe that Emily Care Boss was one of the original leaders in the Forge, and has a fair bit of status as a designer having been critical in the development of indie thinking. Is she more oppressed, or more privileged? Or is that a stupid question? If one happens not to care for playing an rpg about falling in love, does that make them an oppressive person? Or is it only oppressive to not want to play that game if you happen to be of a particular race or sex, and exercising free agency if you are the other race or sex?
Does Emily Care Boss make interesting, cool, and fun games? That is, I would argue, a better question. I don't care that Emily Care Boss is a female any more than I care that Mike Pondsmith is not white if what I want to do is play a game about love or one about street samurai.
Games should be judged on the merit of the design, not on the color of the designer's skin. Social justice (double-speak by any other name) does not help that.
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label politics. Show all posts
24 January, 2018
23 January, 2018
More on the Stability of Societies
In thinking about how to attack a stable society, both for serious policy discussion as well as within a game, here are some articles related to the issue.
HERE is the grand old primer on ruthlessness, The Prince. The summary is HERE.
HERE is one of the most poisonous primers for giving a society hell on earth. The summary of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals is HERE.
HERE is a discussion of how identity politics undermines social unity.
And HERE is a discussion about how we got to this point.
As I noted previously, I have tried to find ways to turn complicated issues into models in order to better be able to understand and articulate them. It has concurred with my game design thinking which, I suppose makes the unpalatable reality less awful to swallow.
But looking at the factors of unity and the things that assault those unifying factors, I have to also think that the more I see calls for growing gaming by being more diverse and more inclusive, the more it occurs to me that the intersectional philosophy of so many talented designers is bad for this as it is bad for the societies that suffer from intersectional division. Not that diversity or inclusion are bad per se. They can be either good or bad depending on what diverse idea you include, and that is the rub... there seems to be a high ideal with a really shoddy understanding of the words that shape the ideas that shape the behavior. But I suppose that begins to deviate toward another discussion, so I will leave this today with the links above.
Those and this thought: we don't need more intersectionalism to bring justice to societies (or games)... we need more fidelity toward objective Truth and it's source, and more love toward all persons. The ruthless division should be reserved for the ideas that we discard.
HERE is the grand old primer on ruthlessness, The Prince. The summary is HERE.
HERE is one of the most poisonous primers for giving a society hell on earth. The summary of Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals is HERE.
HERE is a discussion of how identity politics undermines social unity.
And HERE is a discussion about how we got to this point.
As I noted previously, I have tried to find ways to turn complicated issues into models in order to better be able to understand and articulate them. It has concurred with my game design thinking which, I suppose makes the unpalatable reality less awful to swallow.
But looking at the factors of unity and the things that assault those unifying factors, I have to also think that the more I see calls for growing gaming by being more diverse and more inclusive, the more it occurs to me that the intersectional philosophy of so many talented designers is bad for this as it is bad for the societies that suffer from intersectional division. Not that diversity or inclusion are bad per se. They can be either good or bad depending on what diverse idea you include, and that is the rub... there seems to be a high ideal with a really shoddy understanding of the words that shape the ideas that shape the behavior. But I suppose that begins to deviate toward another discussion, so I will leave this today with the links above.
Those and this thought: we don't need more intersectionalism to bring justice to societies (or games)... we need more fidelity toward objective Truth and it's source, and more love toward all persons. The ruthless division should be reserved for the ideas that we discard.
19 January, 2018
Essential Elements for Stable Civilizations
My single longest game design project has been political.
That is to say, that since 1993, morphing through three different game systems, and seeking inspiration from many others, I have been seeking to make a game about civilizations and politics in order to make it possible to more easily wrap my head around why people (as groups) do what they do. Certainly, all the standard adventure, mystery, and horror stories that have informed my gaming across those years has held my interest. Hero stories are, I believe, essential to inspire living a rich and full life. But heroes do not exist in a vacuum. They live connected to societies, and though they may end up not quite belonging because of their experiences, they are heroes because of what they have sacrificed for their societies. The cowboy, the ronin, the knight errant... these are the essential characters that societies can neither live without, nor allow to live within them. But I am also interested in the drama of humanity, and it is the interplay between societies that has in many ways fueled academic and personal study of history, geography, and culture.
Most of my political reading is poured after the fact into the stew of my game design brain. I am really just trying to make thought models to understand and communicate ideas like serious political scientists, anthropologists, and historians... I just want to have fun with it too.
That said, one of the issues that has simmered over time, is the foundational question:
What is essential to make a group of people draw together and become a cohesive society?
Having revised and revised this list, and pared down continuously over time, I think that the following has sufficiently held up as a rubric in my brain to warrant a formal list (bum, buuumm!).
1) Language
2) Race
3) Religion (or Worldview)
4) Culture
5) Social Structure
6) Strong Government
These are all elements that draw groups of people together, and they go from the most cohesive element to the least. They feed or draw from the other elements up and down the chain, and for every element missing, the society is weaker. From a game design standpoint, they might be viewed as the thing that holds the place of hit points for a society, as they make the society resilient.
Language
This one is the foundation for the rest, since a society that cannot broadly and effectively communicate with itself will fall apart in confusion. Those who have resources (material or immaterial) and know how to speak the language will be able to get things done while those who cannot speak the language will at best be isolated and left to whatever comforts their resources can provide. Thus it is essential that a society be able to speak together from bottom to top and across any functional divisions.
Race
This is the most paradoxical element, being both extremely superficial and at the same time a critically instinctual marker that identifies who is part of the group from who is not. In very basic biological terms, the human animal is distinguished by physical traits of size, shape, and coloration that in simple terms are what we call "race". Those traits provide an easy marker for who is related and who is not, and therefore who is safe and who might not be. As such, this is an element that on it's own, is perhaps the most ingrained to the human animal for bringing together a society. However, as human interaction between races blurs lines, other elements make this potentially a very superficial element if there are explicit mitigating factors to make it so. But lacking those other elements, race is an extremely powerful force for pulling societies into distinct, cohesive groups.
Religion (or Worldview)
This is a powerful element because given the fundamental ability to communicate, the worldview of the society provides the basic thought framework for the beliefs and values the society holds. What they believe to be true and good informs behavior of the individual and the social pressure to reinforce it. The most basic type of worldview is now and has been Religion in one form or another, and this has been the most durable, since religion not only answers where we come from and where we are going also what it all means. Non-religious worldviews have also existed (e.g. communism/Communism) and held together states even when they have not done so as durably as ancient and still extant religions. However, unlike language or race, worldviews may cross groups and provide a unifying force where the others are lacking. I would suggest that lacking the language to communicate however, two groups with a like worldview are more likely to separate for more practical reasons, namely the inability to work out basic things like how to conduct trade among persons, or when one can go to the well.
Culture
This covers the day to day practices that are not necessarily explicitly and exclusively covered under the purview of another element and includes, at least, such things as the clothing, the food, the music, the art, the traditions, and the holidays that a society holds. There is clearly overlap with Religion here, but many things (like chord structure in music) are not addressed in moral or theistic terms, but nonetheless matter to identifying a culture. and culture is very much influenced by it's geography (Polynesians lack the iron culture that the ancient Persians had, but were consummate navigators). I suggest however, that culture is primarily about the hundred comfortable, familiar things that are shared by groups in common which act as a unifying force. Without them, a society has to work harder to come together.
Social Structure
This is about the organization of roles within a society that make it run smoothly as a unit. Who has authority and responsibility over the activity, procedures, and production required to make a large group function over time. It is concerned first with horizontal social relationships, and second with vertical relationships in the society. This element, like race, is a two sided issue and can be either unifying or divisive since it has built into it who has material and social resources. Furthermore, it also overlaps with religion and culture, with those potentially informing roles and responsibilities. If this element is not strong, and the society members feel it is an unfair social structure, then it becomes a liability. Note that a broad range of social structures is possible, and can well include everything from a very egalitarian society in which everyone has some authority in social decisions and shares similar wealth levels, all the way to extremely stratified societies in which a single ruler possesses 90% of the wealth and legal authority over the masses of the rest. If the individuals of the society perceive that their needs are being met, social structure can be highly diverse. Conversely, human nature can corrupt the most idealistic social structure if the people give in to their baser instincts.
Strong Government
A fair bit of overlap exists between the government and the social structure, but this is distinguished by a narrower function. While social structure is primarily horizontal, this is mostly vertical, and has little necessary relationship with the other elements. It is unlikely to be sufficient alone to maintain a lasting society, but may act where a vacuum exists in another area. It is about defined authority from the top, not about assumed or understood social contracts, and is enforced by the sword tacitly or directly. In concert with the other elements of society where they are strong, this is a far less necessary element, but where they are weak, this can act as a unifying force even if it is a unity woven of fear, desperation, and defeat.
Using this set as a touchstone, I have been able to see how the pursuit of or eschewing of each of these elements has strengthened or weakened societies that I have studied in history or observe in today's news. While not a perfect, or all encompassing model, it is nonetheless a model I have found to be consistently accurate in the broad strokes.
Seeing that, I am working on how to use it to create verisimilitude for the political game I have been looking for for decades.
HERE is my current thinking in action.
That is to say, that since 1993, morphing through three different game systems, and seeking inspiration from many others, I have been seeking to make a game about civilizations and politics in order to make it possible to more easily wrap my head around why people (as groups) do what they do. Certainly, all the standard adventure, mystery, and horror stories that have informed my gaming across those years has held my interest. Hero stories are, I believe, essential to inspire living a rich and full life. But heroes do not exist in a vacuum. They live connected to societies, and though they may end up not quite belonging because of their experiences, they are heroes because of what they have sacrificed for their societies. The cowboy, the ronin, the knight errant... these are the essential characters that societies can neither live without, nor allow to live within them. But I am also interested in the drama of humanity, and it is the interplay between societies that has in many ways fueled academic and personal study of history, geography, and culture.
Most of my political reading is poured after the fact into the stew of my game design brain. I am really just trying to make thought models to understand and communicate ideas like serious political scientists, anthropologists, and historians... I just want to have fun with it too.
That said, one of the issues that has simmered over time, is the foundational question:
What is essential to make a group of people draw together and become a cohesive society?
Having revised and revised this list, and pared down continuously over time, I think that the following has sufficiently held up as a rubric in my brain to warrant a formal list (bum, buuumm!).
1) Language
2) Race
3) Religion (or Worldview)
4) Culture
5) Social Structure
6) Strong Government
These are all elements that draw groups of people together, and they go from the most cohesive element to the least. They feed or draw from the other elements up and down the chain, and for every element missing, the society is weaker. From a game design standpoint, they might be viewed as the thing that holds the place of hit points for a society, as they make the society resilient.
Language
This one is the foundation for the rest, since a society that cannot broadly and effectively communicate with itself will fall apart in confusion. Those who have resources (material or immaterial) and know how to speak the language will be able to get things done while those who cannot speak the language will at best be isolated and left to whatever comforts their resources can provide. Thus it is essential that a society be able to speak together from bottom to top and across any functional divisions.
Race
This is the most paradoxical element, being both extremely superficial and at the same time a critically instinctual marker that identifies who is part of the group from who is not. In very basic biological terms, the human animal is distinguished by physical traits of size, shape, and coloration that in simple terms are what we call "race". Those traits provide an easy marker for who is related and who is not, and therefore who is safe and who might not be. As such, this is an element that on it's own, is perhaps the most ingrained to the human animal for bringing together a society. However, as human interaction between races blurs lines, other elements make this potentially a very superficial element if there are explicit mitigating factors to make it so. But lacking those other elements, race is an extremely powerful force for pulling societies into distinct, cohesive groups.
Religion (or Worldview)
This is a powerful element because given the fundamental ability to communicate, the worldview of the society provides the basic thought framework for the beliefs and values the society holds. What they believe to be true and good informs behavior of the individual and the social pressure to reinforce it. The most basic type of worldview is now and has been Religion in one form or another, and this has been the most durable, since religion not only answers where we come from and where we are going also what it all means. Non-religious worldviews have also existed (e.g. communism/Communism) and held together states even when they have not done so as durably as ancient and still extant religions. However, unlike language or race, worldviews may cross groups and provide a unifying force where the others are lacking. I would suggest that lacking the language to communicate however, two groups with a like worldview are more likely to separate for more practical reasons, namely the inability to work out basic things like how to conduct trade among persons, or when one can go to the well.
Culture
This covers the day to day practices that are not necessarily explicitly and exclusively covered under the purview of another element and includes, at least, such things as the clothing, the food, the music, the art, the traditions, and the holidays that a society holds. There is clearly overlap with Religion here, but many things (like chord structure in music) are not addressed in moral or theistic terms, but nonetheless matter to identifying a culture. and culture is very much influenced by it's geography (Polynesians lack the iron culture that the ancient Persians had, but were consummate navigators). I suggest however, that culture is primarily about the hundred comfortable, familiar things that are shared by groups in common which act as a unifying force. Without them, a society has to work harder to come together.
Social Structure
This is about the organization of roles within a society that make it run smoothly as a unit. Who has authority and responsibility over the activity, procedures, and production required to make a large group function over time. It is concerned first with horizontal social relationships, and second with vertical relationships in the society. This element, like race, is a two sided issue and can be either unifying or divisive since it has built into it who has material and social resources. Furthermore, it also overlaps with religion and culture, with those potentially informing roles and responsibilities. If this element is not strong, and the society members feel it is an unfair social structure, then it becomes a liability. Note that a broad range of social structures is possible, and can well include everything from a very egalitarian society in which everyone has some authority in social decisions and shares similar wealth levels, all the way to extremely stratified societies in which a single ruler possesses 90% of the wealth and legal authority over the masses of the rest. If the individuals of the society perceive that their needs are being met, social structure can be highly diverse. Conversely, human nature can corrupt the most idealistic social structure if the people give in to their baser instincts.
Strong Government
A fair bit of overlap exists between the government and the social structure, but this is distinguished by a narrower function. While social structure is primarily horizontal, this is mostly vertical, and has little necessary relationship with the other elements. It is unlikely to be sufficient alone to maintain a lasting society, but may act where a vacuum exists in another area. It is about defined authority from the top, not about assumed or understood social contracts, and is enforced by the sword tacitly or directly. In concert with the other elements of society where they are strong, this is a far less necessary element, but where they are weak, this can act as a unifying force even if it is a unity woven of fear, desperation, and defeat.
Using this set as a touchstone, I have been able to see how the pursuit of or eschewing of each of these elements has strengthened or weakened societies that I have studied in history or observe in today's news. While not a perfect, or all encompassing model, it is nonetheless a model I have found to be consistently accurate in the broad strokes.
Seeing that, I am working on how to use it to create verisimilitude for the political game I have been looking for for decades.
HERE is my current thinking in action.
16 December, 2017
Revisiting Wisdom
I posted these thoughts from two imperfect but wise men just over a year ago. I was posting more regularly prior to that. It seems that while I really love some of the creative work done by the indie game community, so much of what comes out on their social media feeds is trite, tiresome, and discouraging. I am not part of the echo chamber that informs the worldview of so many of the designers who make games I really like. And I have found that civil discourse respecting the person but questioning or, heaven forbid disputing their worldviews and politics is tantamount to sin. If gaming is such a hotbed of oppression and privilege as claimed by so many in the community, then it is largely because they create dispute and dissension with many who just want to play games.
* * *
“ Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but followed by a sense of futility.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
It is unfortunate that so many who are otherwise thoughtful and creative can be so blatantly closed-minded, intolerant, and malicious toward anyone who does not agree with them, and feed them the warm hate they want. Ironic, when so many of these are the ones who claim righteousness against the very things they practice, but somehow find themselves excused of...
Some timeless thoughts from G.K. Chesterton:
"What embitters the world is not an excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism."
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."
"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
* * *
“ Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. Hence, rioting is not revolutionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but followed by a sense of futility.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
It is unfortunate that so many who are otherwise thoughtful and creative can be so blatantly closed-minded, intolerant, and malicious toward anyone who does not agree with them, and feed them the warm hate they want. Ironic, when so many of these are the ones who claim righteousness against the very things they practice, but somehow find themselves excused of...
Some timeless thoughts from G.K. Chesterton:
"What embitters the world is not an excess of criticism, but an absence of self-criticism."
"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions."
"Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable."
"To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it."
05 October, 2016
When Consensus Is Wrong...
There are times that a wave of consensus demands that you comply with the latest invented ideology of the day... and in those times it is necessary to refuse to comply.
Truth is not a thing defined by particular men in particular times and places... Truth is that which does not change with time, and defined by something higher than mortal men. Stand with that.
25 September, 2016
Is An Unexamined Thought Worth Endorsing?
I have a very conflicted view on the value of social media for a number of reasons, but one is that so much of human communication is only apprehended through non-verbal means making about 70% of the message lost when received by text alone. Another, is that there is so much more of it, that such communication becomes careless either by the sender or the receiver, or both. The quantity of data consumed by social media users had further become as much about sifting signal from noise, and thus actually thinking critically about a message is often lost on knee-jerk reactions, categorizing the message, and thus for expedience also all further messages from that sender, and then the sender themselves as noise. We discard thought and people for convenience. So while I see the value of not embracing Ludite conservatism, I also am continuously reminded of how poor so much social media communication can be.
Case in point... I discovered recently the page of a game designer who makes some of the coolest games in my collection. I love his stuff. But I made the mistake of commenting on one of his posts that had nothing to do with his games and was instead about an issue that he felt very sincere about, with which I happened to disagree. Being neither rude or aggressive, I merely questioned his assumptions in a polite and reasoned fashion, asking what his criteria were for his point of view. I was rebuffed instead with the statement that that was not an issue he wished to address.
The next post on his page was about this exchange with what I think he believes to be adequate evidence to prove his point. Here is what he said (italic) and my thoughts on his follow-up:
Today someone told me that they didn't believe in privilege.
What I actually did was question his assumptions about what it means vis a vis an assertion of offense he made about a game design. "Privilage" as it was used by him is a term with particular meaning in intersectional social/political theory. I know very well what intersectionalism states to be true, I have studied the philosophy underlying it, I frequently read intersectional media for insight, and I still happen to think that it is philosophically flawed at the very foundation. More on this below...
He continues:
Today, on a day when an unarmed black man waiting by his broken-down car was gunned down, murdered by police who were supposed to help him, to protect him.
This is a statement of some of the facts, and a misstatement of others in the Terence Crutcher shooting in Tulsa. Before addressing them in turn, the first big problem is that this poster quickly judged the situation without all the facts or context, and demonstrated a prejudicial preference that privileges the intersectional narrative over all others. Further facts not mentioned are these:
1) Officer Betty Shelby was en route responding to a domestic violence call when she happened upon Crutcher, not in his vehicle which was stopped in the middle of the two lane road.
2) There were some number of 911 calls just before that by people reporting Crutcher's erratic behavior, shouting that among other things his SUV was going to explode.
3) His behavior was assessed by officer Shelby as being consistent with the erratic behavior of someone on PCP (she did not know a the time but a vial was found in the SUV).
4) Crutcher was non-compliant with the demands of the officer, who then called in backup.
5) When Crutcher approached his SUV while refusing to comply with several officers, Shelby claimed she shot because he was attempting to reach inside the vehicle after having been reaching in his pockets before.
6) Video footage appears to show that at least the driver's window was closed, and possibly the rear window as well.
So without prejudiced conclusions, we can judge in light of the facts that the officer did have reason to be more suspicious of the motorist based on his behavior than usual, prompting a reasonable amount of caution which merely continued to escalate, based still on his behavior. We can also conclude that there was insufficient evidence to warrant deadly force, especially in light of the fact that one of the other officers had drawn a taser rather than a firearm, which she could have also done.
The poster also failed to note that the officer has been suspended from duty, and charged with the felony of first degree manslaughter. He also did not note that this was in the same town that a deputy that was allegedly insufficiently trained for the job was also convicted with felony manslaughter for the shooting of Eric Harris. These facts suggest if anything, that the overall tone of law enforcement in Tulsa is not institutionally racially biased against black men in Tulsa, is not protecting wicked officers, but is actually pro justice in their actions. We may speculate that there are some training issues that need addressed. The poster used the term murder rather than manslaughter, I suspect in haste. It does not prove that he is willfully deceptive, but suggests at least a moment of lazy research in his attempt to offer support for the intersectional view that he feels passionately about; but it is not excusable if his goal really is justice rather than self serving political outrage. More on this below...
Today, the day after the Republican candidate's son tweeted out a white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-refugee meme.
This has nothing to do with Tulsa, or with police issues in general and the questionable intersectional assertion that there is an institutional oppressive bias by police (especially white police) against black men in America. It does not bring any actual salient facts on the Tulsa issue he used as an example, it ignores or is oblivious to such facts as the research that shows statistically, white police are far less likely to shoot black suspects than Hispanic or black officers are.
But if we assume this is an attempt to provide another piece of anecdotal evidence to bolster the assertion of validity of his intersectional view, I would have to point out that the meme in question is the Skittles meme, which mostly does not support what the poster asserts it does. The meme text states, "If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That's our Syrian refugee problem." The poster asserts that this is white supremacist. There is no evidence of this. While the color of the Skittles in the bowl invite a snarky response, there is in fact no assertion in the meme of a preference of any kind to any race. The poster further asserts that the meme is anti-immigrant. Again, there is no statement whatsoever about immigrants in the meme, and if we reasonably assume that it is supposed to follow Trump's stated policy view on immigration, he has generally stated that he supports immigration from anywhere as long as the immigrants are vetted for security, and do so legally. Trump does say a lot of other wacky things (oh, so many!), some of which he has changed his mind on, but this is a pretty consistent policy position in a pretty sparse field of stated policy positions. The poster finally states that this is anti-refugee. To some degree it is. However, in context with everything else Trump has actually said, he has further noted that he wants all refugees to be vetted before being allowed to come onto our soil. This position is predicated on the fact that:
1) there are a good many documented posts by terrorist organizations that they are actively seeking to insert agents onto American soil under guise of refugees from Syria, and
2) it is well known that there are multiple terrorist organizations who actively seek to harm Americans, and American interests that have received support from incompetent administration channels operating in Syria.
There is a credible threat from Syria to America, even if the choice of metaphor by Trump Jr. was grossly clumsy (and it was). But a clumsy meme does not actually prove any institutional oppression or privilege vis a vis intersectional theory... only that the analysis was clumsy, or that it was dumbed down into a straw man argument, and that some people took it seriously anyway.
I read articles like this one and I think, "How can anyone living today be paying the least bit of attention to the world and believe that privilege is imaginary?"
Because articles cited as such are very poor evidence of the validity of intersectional theory. One can believe that prejudice does occur in America (I certainly do), that oppression happens among humans (it most definitely does), and privilege exists in human societies (without doubt). One can well believe these things and still not believe that intersectional theory accurately understands any of them (I assert it does not) even if I am actually willing to respect the people who hold the views as I challenge the idea to be discussed. I just happen to find that my invitations, no matter how humble or polite, are dismissed. My experience has been either that the supporters of intersectional thinking actually want to avoid genuine discussion in favor of incredulity or outrage that fits their view, or (sadly) unproductive agreement that intersectionalism is just liberal whining, which may or may not be true, but is ultimately ad hominem and not helpful.
Football players taking a knee during the playing of a song are raked through the coals, vilified and lambasted, while police murder black men and routinely get away with it. That's privilege at work.
In the first case, while I might think Kaepernik is a twit for doing what he is (I do) I and his critics
1) also have a right to freedom of expression every bit as much as he does, and
2) predicate the opinion on the proposition that he is applying his expression with poorly thought out assumptions, and
3) am not advocating that he and members of his organization or race should be killed.
Furthermore, the poster seems to again be lazy in
1) his understanding or his use of the assertion of murder (vs. manslaughter), and
2) his misunderstanding or prevarication of the fact that officers who actually did commit a criminal breach of trust and authority have been punished.
It's time to start fixing our broken country, friends. And we can't do it with our eyes closed.
I respectfully agree with the poster on this. I likewise respectfully disagree with his diagnosis of the problem, because I question who actually has their eyes more open to the situation. Furthermore, while I am fully persuaded that he is sincere in his feelings that something is wrong, I am disturbed by what appears to be a disinterest in admitting that perhaps, just maybe, he might possibly have not grasped the situation as fully as he seems to assume, nor does he seem to feel that anyone with a challenging opinion could possibly have anything legitimate to offer to the discussion. He suggests that he has his eyes open, and that those who challenge his view do not. Where is his evidence though? I see a pretty thin thread to hang his assertion on, which I to date, have found overwhelmingly typical of intersectional doctrine...
Edit: this subject is important to me, and I take it very seriously. If you want to chime in with a clever, pithy remark, consider that doing so isn't helpful. I will delete such comments. If you want to tell me how privilege isn't real and that all this social justice malarkey is overblown, know that I consider such remarks to be actively harmful and I do not feel an obligation to give you a space to say such things. I will delete these comments too.
...and there you go, my friends. Not only does he not want to critically examine the evidence he offers, but he does not want to examine any evidence anyone else offers that does not fit his view. He is so committed to the view, that any discussion is by default assumed to be harmful and will be summarily censored. I get the principle of not feeding trolls, but I was not trolling. I did bring up the question on his public space, which I could have predicted to end thus, but gave benefit of the doubt because he is otherwise an intelligent and creative fellow from the small window I've seen through his game design discussions. Politics make people often commit to lazy thinking and bad ideas though...
It does bother me that the intersectional assumption automatically demands that I either agree, or else prove myself actively committed to oppression, racism, sexism, bigotry, and phobia; that I cannot possibly take the issues of policing, or community violence seriously or reasonably; that I can summarily be judged to be wicked because I differ on the analysis of the problem. This is bothersome further because it seems to be a view held by so many of the designers that I think are really cool and creative, who I'd love to have thoughtful creative discussions with. But I suspect, based on a pattern of behavior from some of the most forward who adhere to that view, I likely won't be allowed the opportunity because I am in the "other" camp... that group that the intersectional community is quick to accuse of the sin of "othering" others based on biases and unreasonable prejudice, yet hypocritically is so quick to condemn without bothering to even listen.
The very framework, the foundation, the skeleton of intersectional thinking, is at the end of the day, nothing more than one big, often narcissistic genetic fallacy. It serves to exacerbate grievance against others, but offers little of value to critically examine a problem, bridge the gap, and certainly not offer forgiveness and reconciliation. Considering the godless roots, it is not surprising. The cause is always more valuable than people there. Facts and respect for persons are of little consequence under this worldview. How much is lost because of that?
Privilege in the dictionary sense obviously exists in the world. It is practiced in every way possible by every human on the planet. Privilege, oppression, phobia, bigot... all of these have actual meanings, and the actual meanings are at every turn ignored and twisted by intersectional theory. The problem we have is in determining the rational criteria by which we decide that a thing is actually fair or unfair, cruel and excessive, illogically pathologically fearful, or unfairly hateful. Asking this question is flipping on the light switch at threats of the bogey man... committed intersectionalists in my experience almost always prefer the bogey man, and all too often rejoin with ad hominem attacks on the person questioning without first understanding the questioner's assumptions. This does nothing productive to solving real problems of fairness or equality toward persons.
I have a problem with that too.
Case in point... I discovered recently the page of a game designer who makes some of the coolest games in my collection. I love his stuff. But I made the mistake of commenting on one of his posts that had nothing to do with his games and was instead about an issue that he felt very sincere about, with which I happened to disagree. Being neither rude or aggressive, I merely questioned his assumptions in a polite and reasoned fashion, asking what his criteria were for his point of view. I was rebuffed instead with the statement that that was not an issue he wished to address.
The next post on his page was about this exchange with what I think he believes to be adequate evidence to prove his point. Here is what he said (italic) and my thoughts on his follow-up:
Today someone told me that they didn't believe in privilege.
What I actually did was question his assumptions about what it means vis a vis an assertion of offense he made about a game design. "Privilage" as it was used by him is a term with particular meaning in intersectional social/political theory. I know very well what intersectionalism states to be true, I have studied the philosophy underlying it, I frequently read intersectional media for insight, and I still happen to think that it is philosophically flawed at the very foundation. More on this below...
He continues:
Today, on a day when an unarmed black man waiting by his broken-down car was gunned down, murdered by police who were supposed to help him, to protect him.
This is a statement of some of the facts, and a misstatement of others in the Terence Crutcher shooting in Tulsa. Before addressing them in turn, the first big problem is that this poster quickly judged the situation without all the facts or context, and demonstrated a prejudicial preference that privileges the intersectional narrative over all others. Further facts not mentioned are these:
1) Officer Betty Shelby was en route responding to a domestic violence call when she happened upon Crutcher, not in his vehicle which was stopped in the middle of the two lane road.
2) There were some number of 911 calls just before that by people reporting Crutcher's erratic behavior, shouting that among other things his SUV was going to explode.
3) His behavior was assessed by officer Shelby as being consistent with the erratic behavior of someone on PCP (she did not know a the time but a vial was found in the SUV).
4) Crutcher was non-compliant with the demands of the officer, who then called in backup.
5) When Crutcher approached his SUV while refusing to comply with several officers, Shelby claimed she shot because he was attempting to reach inside the vehicle after having been reaching in his pockets before.
6) Video footage appears to show that at least the driver's window was closed, and possibly the rear window as well.
So without prejudiced conclusions, we can judge in light of the facts that the officer did have reason to be more suspicious of the motorist based on his behavior than usual, prompting a reasonable amount of caution which merely continued to escalate, based still on his behavior. We can also conclude that there was insufficient evidence to warrant deadly force, especially in light of the fact that one of the other officers had drawn a taser rather than a firearm, which she could have also done.
The poster also failed to note that the officer has been suspended from duty, and charged with the felony of first degree manslaughter. He also did not note that this was in the same town that a deputy that was allegedly insufficiently trained for the job was also convicted with felony manslaughter for the shooting of Eric Harris. These facts suggest if anything, that the overall tone of law enforcement in Tulsa is not institutionally racially biased against black men in Tulsa, is not protecting wicked officers, but is actually pro justice in their actions. We may speculate that there are some training issues that need addressed. The poster used the term murder rather than manslaughter, I suspect in haste. It does not prove that he is willfully deceptive, but suggests at least a moment of lazy research in his attempt to offer support for the intersectional view that he feels passionately about; but it is not excusable if his goal really is justice rather than self serving political outrage. More on this below...
Today, the day after the Republican candidate's son tweeted out a white supremacist, anti-immigrant, anti-refugee meme.
This has nothing to do with Tulsa, or with police issues in general and the questionable intersectional assertion that there is an institutional oppressive bias by police (especially white police) against black men in America. It does not bring any actual salient facts on the Tulsa issue he used as an example, it ignores or is oblivious to such facts as the research that shows statistically, white police are far less likely to shoot black suspects than Hispanic or black officers are.
But if we assume this is an attempt to provide another piece of anecdotal evidence to bolster the assertion of validity of his intersectional view, I would have to point out that the meme in question is the Skittles meme, which mostly does not support what the poster asserts it does. The meme text states, "If I had a bowl of skittles and I told you just three would kill you. Would you take a handful? That's our Syrian refugee problem." The poster asserts that this is white supremacist. There is no evidence of this. While the color of the Skittles in the bowl invite a snarky response, there is in fact no assertion in the meme of a preference of any kind to any race. The poster further asserts that the meme is anti-immigrant. Again, there is no statement whatsoever about immigrants in the meme, and if we reasonably assume that it is supposed to follow Trump's stated policy view on immigration, he has generally stated that he supports immigration from anywhere as long as the immigrants are vetted for security, and do so legally. Trump does say a lot of other wacky things (oh, so many!), some of which he has changed his mind on, but this is a pretty consistent policy position in a pretty sparse field of stated policy positions. The poster finally states that this is anti-refugee. To some degree it is. However, in context with everything else Trump has actually said, he has further noted that he wants all refugees to be vetted before being allowed to come onto our soil. This position is predicated on the fact that:
1) there are a good many documented posts by terrorist organizations that they are actively seeking to insert agents onto American soil under guise of refugees from Syria, and
2) it is well known that there are multiple terrorist organizations who actively seek to harm Americans, and American interests that have received support from incompetent administration channels operating in Syria.
There is a credible threat from Syria to America, even if the choice of metaphor by Trump Jr. was grossly clumsy (and it was). But a clumsy meme does not actually prove any institutional oppression or privilege vis a vis intersectional theory... only that the analysis was clumsy, or that it was dumbed down into a straw man argument, and that some people took it seriously anyway.
I read articles like this one and I think, "How can anyone living today be paying the least bit of attention to the world and believe that privilege is imaginary?"
Because articles cited as such are very poor evidence of the validity of intersectional theory. One can believe that prejudice does occur in America (I certainly do), that oppression happens among humans (it most definitely does), and privilege exists in human societies (without doubt). One can well believe these things and still not believe that intersectional theory accurately understands any of them (I assert it does not) even if I am actually willing to respect the people who hold the views as I challenge the idea to be discussed. I just happen to find that my invitations, no matter how humble or polite, are dismissed. My experience has been either that the supporters of intersectional thinking actually want to avoid genuine discussion in favor of incredulity or outrage that fits their view, or (sadly) unproductive agreement that intersectionalism is just liberal whining, which may or may not be true, but is ultimately ad hominem and not helpful.
Football players taking a knee during the playing of a song are raked through the coals, vilified and lambasted, while police murder black men and routinely get away with it. That's privilege at work.
In the first case, while I might think Kaepernik is a twit for doing what he is (I do) I and his critics
1) also have a right to freedom of expression every bit as much as he does, and
2) predicate the opinion on the proposition that he is applying his expression with poorly thought out assumptions, and
3) am not advocating that he and members of his organization or race should be killed.
Furthermore, the poster seems to again be lazy in
1) his understanding or his use of the assertion of murder (vs. manslaughter), and
2) his misunderstanding or prevarication of the fact that officers who actually did commit a criminal breach of trust and authority have been punished.
It's time to start fixing our broken country, friends. And we can't do it with our eyes closed.
I respectfully agree with the poster on this. I likewise respectfully disagree with his diagnosis of the problem, because I question who actually has their eyes more open to the situation. Furthermore, while I am fully persuaded that he is sincere in his feelings that something is wrong, I am disturbed by what appears to be a disinterest in admitting that perhaps, just maybe, he might possibly have not grasped the situation as fully as he seems to assume, nor does he seem to feel that anyone with a challenging opinion could possibly have anything legitimate to offer to the discussion. He suggests that he has his eyes open, and that those who challenge his view do not. Where is his evidence though? I see a pretty thin thread to hang his assertion on, which I to date, have found overwhelmingly typical of intersectional doctrine...
Edit: this subject is important to me, and I take it very seriously. If you want to chime in with a clever, pithy remark, consider that doing so isn't helpful. I will delete such comments. If you want to tell me how privilege isn't real and that all this social justice malarkey is overblown, know that I consider such remarks to be actively harmful and I do not feel an obligation to give you a space to say such things. I will delete these comments too.
...and there you go, my friends. Not only does he not want to critically examine the evidence he offers, but he does not want to examine any evidence anyone else offers that does not fit his view. He is so committed to the view, that any discussion is by default assumed to be harmful and will be summarily censored. I get the principle of not feeding trolls, but I was not trolling. I did bring up the question on his public space, which I could have predicted to end thus, but gave benefit of the doubt because he is otherwise an intelligent and creative fellow from the small window I've seen through his game design discussions. Politics make people often commit to lazy thinking and bad ideas though...
It does bother me that the intersectional assumption automatically demands that I either agree, or else prove myself actively committed to oppression, racism, sexism, bigotry, and phobia; that I cannot possibly take the issues of policing, or community violence seriously or reasonably; that I can summarily be judged to be wicked because I differ on the analysis of the problem. This is bothersome further because it seems to be a view held by so many of the designers that I think are really cool and creative, who I'd love to have thoughtful creative discussions with. But I suspect, based on a pattern of behavior from some of the most forward who adhere to that view, I likely won't be allowed the opportunity because I am in the "other" camp... that group that the intersectional community is quick to accuse of the sin of "othering" others based on biases and unreasonable prejudice, yet hypocritically is so quick to condemn without bothering to even listen.
The very framework, the foundation, the skeleton of intersectional thinking, is at the end of the day, nothing more than one big, often narcissistic genetic fallacy. It serves to exacerbate grievance against others, but offers little of value to critically examine a problem, bridge the gap, and certainly not offer forgiveness and reconciliation. Considering the godless roots, it is not surprising. The cause is always more valuable than people there. Facts and respect for persons are of little consequence under this worldview. How much is lost because of that?
Privilege in the dictionary sense obviously exists in the world. It is practiced in every way possible by every human on the planet. Privilege, oppression, phobia, bigot... all of these have actual meanings, and the actual meanings are at every turn ignored and twisted by intersectional theory. The problem we have is in determining the rational criteria by which we decide that a thing is actually fair or unfair, cruel and excessive, illogically pathologically fearful, or unfairly hateful. Asking this question is flipping on the light switch at threats of the bogey man... committed intersectionalists in my experience almost always prefer the bogey man, and all too often rejoin with ad hominem attacks on the person questioning without first understanding the questioner's assumptions. This does nothing productive to solving real problems of fairness or equality toward persons.
I have a problem with that too.
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