Posts made by Kestrel

Instead of arguing this nonsense I'm just going to drop my problematic fave Sam Harris on the table because he adequately explains how I feel about this topic. Or you could read his book.

But my short answer is: fuck no, religious sensibilities don't entitle you to mutilate a baby's genitals. 'God/tradition made me do it' is in no way a valid argument stacked up against a mountain of evidence. And believe me, coming from a Jewish family, I have had this argument to the death.

& @Ghost: I 100% do not separate art from artist in the context of paedophilia. And I have been pretty vocal about it.

@Autumn

I don't feel totally comfortable answering these questions because I'm not staff.

Personally, I do actually believe it's possible to have a setting that's more faithful to the original history without being yourself a bad, though I also wouldn't attempt it if I was making a game for a wide public audience.

If this was my game? And I knew you personally and I trusted your ability to tell a faithful historical story that didn't make me feel personally grossed at as a descendant of Holocaust survivors? I'd let you play whatever you want, hell, even a Nazi. A friend of mine actually got mixed up in controversy for playing a fascist on another game (funnily enough, not a historically accurate fascist, but a magic fascist in a similar flavour to Savage Skies' Drachenordnung) and I felt very frustrated on their behalf because I knew their intentions were never anything other than to ridicule and criticise this ideology.

Generally speaking, I think it depends on why you do it and how you approach it. I doubt that anyone would argue that it was wrong for Tarantino to have Nazi characters in Inglourious Basterds, or for Christian Waltz to play one. Are you wanting to examine and criticise the way political war machines brainwash us into dangerous ideologies? Do you want to tell a story of a character's escape from that? That sounds cool.

But as far as this game's concerned, that's up to staff. And I think a more important question to ask on that front isn't just what your intentions would be for the character, but if they opened the door for other people to play such characters, what might theirs be? If the answer is 'potentially really bad', my assumption would be no, you can't play this character, no one can, because it's not worth the risk of one person using it to be an ass. Even if you, personally, have only the best intentions.

Publicly accessible games have limits that a smaller cadre of close-knit friends might not.

@Autumn said in The Savage Skies - Discussion Thread:

<Hypothetical are pro-Stalin characters bad if they don't know he's bad?>
Does whether or not that character continues to profess adherence to Communist principles make a difference?

You can be a Communist and not a Stalinist, you know.

I am. ‍️

@bear_necessities said in The Savage Skies - Discussion Thread:

It's super extreme under any circumstances to suggest that administrators are racist, or that the game has "wrong racial feels" or whatever just because they don't outright ban or alt-history every single bad thing that anyone ever did in that time period. Like, I wouldn't go around thinking @Seraphim73 or @GirlCalledBlu were racist even if they DID allow Nazis, or racism, or sexism, because omg you can explore these themes on a game without being racist, sexist, and/or a Nazi yourself.

Can, but ... based on experience, usually don't.

There's honestly way too much Nazi sympathy out there in the world these days and I'm glad @Seraphim73 & @GirlCalledBlu chose to simplify things with some hard lines in the sand.

I don't think playing a fascist makes you a fascist but I think a game with fascism as a theme where you can play a fascist will almost definitely attract some people who are here to live out their fascist dreams.

Also to be really fair to @marsmrsmars, that's not what they said.

I don't want to go into details but since already one person on this game managed to annoy me with something that felt uncomfortably close to Holocaust denial, though it's entirely possible I misread, misinterpreted, or am naturally inclined to overreact and be on extra high alert because it's an emotive topic — I'm just really glad this person wasn't actually playing a Nazi, and is unable to, or I might not have reacted as calmly and as I did. But like I said, staff handled it well.

I'm keen to defend this game too but also, can we please not dogpile @marsmrsmars who's raising concerns. A kneejerk reaction to allegations of racism, even if you don't agree with those allegations, is never a good look.

@Rinel said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Derp said in Separating Art From Artist:

Despite may vocal voices to the contrary, there is not an objectively wrong belief or practice. For every argument against, there is almost always an equally valid argument for.

Ew. No. Good lord, no. Just because people disagree on morality doesn't make it subjective. Yech. This is how we get FGM apologia.

Yeah I wasn't going to touch that one but I'm glad you did.

There is no equally valid argument for genocide and other atrocious nonsense.

I wouldn't be playing this game if I didn't have complete and absolute confidence in the staff's genuine interest in creating an inclusive game environment where minority players don't need to deal with or be exposed to the kind of stigma they either live with day-to-day or have a personal family history of tied to the era.

I did go check that song link and agree that it's pretty yikes. But I will second giving staff the benefit of the doubt.

For what my opinion counts on this topic, I'm vouching for them and the game in general. It's a nice place. People are very welcoming and I'm enjoying myself. The one time something even close to annoying me on a channel (specifically to do with reasons one might be wary to play a game set in this era), staff shut it down and handled it admirably.

@GreenFlashlight said in Separating Art From Artist:

Oh, and as a random aside because I only just figured out why this has been bothering me: you ever notice how "Oh, he's just a product of his time, you can't blame him for his beliefs" only ever applies to white people? Black people in the 1930s were not confused about whether they were subhuman, nor were Jewish people. It's not the time an artist is a product of; it's a culture, and the culture is not a monolith.

I wonder if that's why people say "a product of his time." It feels like a deliberate attempt to uphold the power structures that existed and still exist.

I think "product of his time" is a valid point but it depends on the context.

I felt annoyed by the notion that Lovecraft was a product of his time, because he just wasn't. He was so much worse. In his case it's not so much that it's not an excuse, it's also untrue, and I feel calling him that serves to minimise his racism. It's the kind of thing that happens a lot these days when people talk about other events that took place during that exact same era, which he endorsed. And I have a personal axe to grind with that.

But then, what about Tolkien? Was he a misogynist? There aren't a lot of female characters in his books, and most of them are all described in the same dreary, ornamental way, willowy figures with long blonde/black hair (I guess he didn't like redheads or brunettes) who prance about looking pretty. Diehard fans even get annoyed when new female roles are created in his works' adaptations (Tauriel), or when existing female roles are expanded (Arwen).

But I think it is fair to say that he was a product of his time, because women really didn't exist in combat roles back then, were almost never educated, and his experiences were shaped by war/academia. This is different from how Lovecraft lived in a progressively multicultural world and had a bone to pick with it. Wildly different.

Tolkien also furthered antisemitic tropes through his gold-grubbing dwarves, but I'm personally able to forgive him for that because I don't believe his intentions were sincerely malicious. I don't speak for all Jews, obviously, but I also don't actually know any who dislike Tolkien on grounds of antisemitism, and I grew up in Israel, where his books are wildly popular, and his books had my family's and all my friends' families' stamps of approval. YMMV. I arrived at my conclusion about his intentions based on reading letters he wrote to people about Jews and his dwarves, and it seems to me he meant to honour a people he respected, albeit poorly understood and had scarcely met; he just did it in a way that was very clumsy. But there is a difference between ignorance and wilful ignorance. For my part, I do value intent.

Lovecraft's letters detailing his intense hatred of the Jews paint a very, very different picture.

@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:

I'm not going to divorce your empathy-seeking sentiments here from the fact that you practice Cancel Culture and would happily see authors that you politically disagree with censored if anyone could get away with it. You're either being facetious, disingenuous, or dishonest here, and I'm not for it. Unlike @Tinuviel, I don't find your opinions stupid, I find them disagreeable and yet alarmingly popular.

I'm being none of these things, and don't practice cancel culture, you're using hyperbole and/or preconceptions about me or people you think are like me to get across your point. I don't think convincing you of my intent would be a productive use of my time, so let's move on.

I agree with everything @mietze said. I think whitewashing (or biaswashing, to borrow a term) can take on many forms. There's a difference between simply celebrating a racist work of art "on its own merit" and studying it in the proper context.

I've never watched Birth of a Nation, but I wouldn't personally be opposed to it. I also once told someone (to the raise of an eyebrow) that I wanted to read Mein Kampf. The difference is I'd be doing this from the perspective of someone wanting to understand the roots of racism in our culture without absolving or worse, celebrating it. This is pretty different from disseminating problematic media, especially to minors, simply as a normal aspect of our culture to be enjoyed.

If you were to visit my home today, you'd find Karl Marx, Petyr Kropotkin, Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman all sitting together on the same bookshelf. Different context, I also have Sigmund Freud, and honestly fuck that guy. I do not in any way hold these authors each to the same regard, but I am certainly glad I read them all.

@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:

ETA: Like, I added that preface to the sentence because I thought to myself, "Self, someone is going to make the nonsensical accusation that I am saying OP can single-handedly rain down book-burnings and op-ed bannings, better make sure to close up that loophole." I am a failure.

Like it's not even about "can" though, it's also about "would", because that's 100% not what I said.

Concerning Lovecraft, I also said this:

@Kestrel said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

I know sweet, kind, intensely good, non-racist people who enjoy his works. I do not judge them for being able to find their own interpretations and charitable meanings in his work. I understand that many of the themes of alienation and nihilism resonate with people, and think that everyone is entitled to, even owed, the right to find art that resonates with them on some level and brings them comfort. I'm not interested in robbing people of the connection they feel with these works. Art, music and beauty are the most human things we have. It's tangible empathy.

I just don't personally connect with these particular works. It's not for me. I'm not his target audience, I'm the horror that kept him up at night while he was writing them. As long as you don't view me that way, we're kosher. I'm OK with you finding your own interpretation in his works, not that you should need my permission to like the things you like.

EDIT: lmao did I just get twitter-cancelled on my own thread

@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:

@GreenFlashlight said in Separating Art From Artist:

I really hope I'm misinterpreting you here

You are, and that's okay. People who understand the words I typed get it.

Oh, no, in that example you're just being stupid. I agree with the general idea that people shouldn't seek to ban or otherwise prohibit works, but the quote you offered doesn't attempt to do that.

Your opinion is noted.

There's a difference between "It's not a name I intend to pass on to future generations" and "Nobody should ever at all ever mention this person again ever." The former is fine, if stupid. The latter is bad.

Censorship begins with someone's personal views on a work or body of works. Like I said though, your opinion is noted. We're not in the Hog Pit, I'm not going to derail the conversation getting into why arguing with someone calling everyone's opinions stupid is not a great use of my time.

I happen to think Margaret Atwood is an overrated writer, and I like the show adaptation better than the literary original version of the Handmaid's Tale. I share her political views, I just find her prose and plot unengaging.

Do you think this personal opinion is cause for concern that I might want to censor her?

I also think Twilight and EL James are overrated writers, for entirely different reasons. I think their works are misogynistic.

I didn't like the new Ghostbusters, not because it was feminist, but because it was a bad film.

I'm not trying to censor any of these things. I don't enjoy them, each for entirely different reasons. Some out of disgust, some out of boredom, some because I have a different sense of humour.

Sounds to me like the one trying to censor people is you. No one's allowed to have opinions if those opinions are political?

OK, Boomer.

@Pandora said in Separating Art From Artist:

The point, and this is where I roll my eyes because I don't respect the idea at all, is to promote the idea that these works should be erased from the future. Not lauded, not awarded, not recommended. Thus, the future is bias-washed and only works by clean, wholesome, stamp-of-approval artists are available for sale and promotion.

Huh?

I like consuming and recommending media that I find inspiring and uplifting, for myself and other people. Because people deserve thought-provoking works of art that might motivate them to live their best life.

I'm not going to laud or recommend any works that are racist, misogynistic, etc. Why would I? What's the value in these works? Why would I want to propagate their message further?

If I'm gonna recommend someone read American Gods, a book that honours a history of immigration, human diversity and multiculturalism, over any book that promotes phobia and segregation, because it's not in line with my values — sorry, is that bad? I really don't think it is. I'm an idealist, I'd like to see people enriched rather than building themselves cages full of ugliness.

@Ganymede said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Kestrel said in Separating Art From Artist:

We should hold racists accountable for their racisms and I don't think minimising the occurrences of it has a civil place in a discussion about separating art from artists.

Some of the most beloved authors were demonstrably racist. Dr. Seuss comes to mind. Yet there is an undeniable charm in many of his not-racist works.

He is dead and is mostly known as a successful, inspiring children's author. And I am willing to let people ignore his racist side because that part of him, to me, is more important.

No matter who said it, a noble spirit embiggens even the smallest person.

And I accept this view and think it's valid.

You can like Dr Seuss, his work was charming.

But if the topic of Dr Seuss' alleged racism comes up — and this is the first time I'm hearing about it, so I don't know the details — let's just not dismiss it for anything but what it was. No excuses, especially if those excuses so happen to also be demonstrably untrue, and minimise the issue of harm committed.

@Tinuviel said in Separating Art From Artist:

@Kestrel said in Separating Art From Artist:

I think it's reductive to call Lovecraft's works products of their time.

I think it's reductive to try and boil down the entire sphere of literary criticism to talking about one dude and his shitty stories.

Not the point. We should hold racists accountable for their racisms and I don't think minimising the occurrences of it has a civil place in a discussion about separating art from artists. You can advocate doing so without denying the issue, which I find disrespectful to victims of racism and antisemitism who were impacted by the influence of people who held such views, both at the time to this and day.

@surreality said in Separating Art From Artist:

People are saying that about creators who came from very different times from our own, and it's very common. It is also culturally dangerous on several levels, not the least of which is removing 'this is an example of how the views of the time, which were damaging to people, were echoed in the creative works produced at that time, and you can better understand the hardships people faced by viewing/reading/etc. the work in question'.

I'm just going to be a stickler for this point. I think it's reductive to call Lovecraft's works products of their time. They were not. Even at that time the average American had significantly better sensibilities than did Lovecraft. He was hateful far beyond the norm for his time. He was a literal American Nazi who named his black cat a slur so grotesque I can't type it, who railed against the more progressive, cosmopolitan norms of his time, and caricaturised people of colour in his works as monsters — not even through metaphor at times, he literally described these ordinary human characters as possessed of "sin-spitting faces". He was documented to become filled with rage each time he passed people of colour in the street, and wrote letters decrying the problem of a Jewish stranglehold in New York and endorsing their genocide.

Were the times very different from our own? Hmm. I'm gonna turn on the news and get back to you on that.

I RP as an exercise in creative writing and self-improvement.

I explore characters I'm interested in exploring largely because they represent something about myself or about the world that I want to spend some time critically examining. People who've RPed with me in the past can probably attest that my characters are all very, very different; they're not self-inserts, so this might not seem obvious. But they each either have a different slice of me, or a slice of something about the world that I want to lampoon or am currently trying to come to grips with. If I make a wealthy magpie of a woman obsessed with shoes and handbags, it's because consumerism is on my mind; I did this shortly after the most recent UK general election because I had a critical axe to grind and I wanted to make fun of this type of careless human being. Sometimes my characters are more personal and contain facets of trauma I want to process.

I'll make no bones about the fact that I made my current anarcho-communist Savage Skies character because I just want to let off some smash-the-fash steam. It's cathartic.

I take many of the lessons I learn this way IRL, and feel that RP has genuinely helped me become a better, smarter human. I've been in tense job interviews or nerve-wracking first dates where to fight off anxiety, I asked myself, 'What would character name do?' And then I just turn up the confidence or sex-appeal and cruise right through.

It improves my writing, and contrary to the "RP isn't writing" logic, RP has absolutely given me the tools to better myself as a writer. I lived abroad for a good few years during my childhood in a non-English speaking country, but discovering Achaea in my adolescence gave me the tools to significantly improve my English to the point where when I moved back, although my pronunciation was rubbish and my conversational style awkward, I was writing at a much higher level than the average, native English student. (When you learn English from books and medieval fantasy RP, and your favourite book is The Hobbit, you end up speaking really weird.)

Oh. And it helps that I enjoy it.

For the people interested in the derail topic on Lovecraft and cancel culture etc., here's a new thread.

It seems clear to me that a lot of people on the other thread would rather not continue discussing the derail, and I appreciate that some people don't like having things they love ruined for them. But at least some people do want to continue discussing it, so here's a new thread. This follows from a discussion on "cancel culture", JK Rowling, Lovecraft etc.

@Caggles said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

@GreenFlashlight

Do you think this separation is more difficult with writing than eg. with music?

If I enjoy a Wagner symphony, am I tacitly expressing a fondness for fascism? As music is a more abstract form, does it become easier to split artist from art, whereas with writing there are assumptions from the artist which form a baseline for everything written?

To further muddy it, is this different for fiction vs non-fiction? Does a paper on covalent bonds lose validity if written by a TERF? How about different disciplines? Social sciences vs physics?

Am interested in the debate - not sure which side I fall on the argument. Keep talking, this interests me.

I think that when art contains elements of the author's "problematic" intentions, it becomes a significantly more complicated issue regardless of the genre.

We can't separate the views of a racist from his "scientific" publications on eugenics, nor the views of a sexist from his psychological "research" on female hysteria.

I personally happen to enjoy Shostakovich in part because his music was so often an underhanded act of political rebellion, and I find beauty in his cheeky notes. I'll admit to not knowing much about Wagner, but if his music can be demonstrated to be a celebration of the Aryan race or whatever, that would probably affect my enjoyment of it.

Separating Lovecraft's work from his racism is a lie. It's a nice, white (heh) lie, but a total one. He wasn't just a horror writer who happened to be a racist; he was a racist writer who wrote about racism. His works are littered with racist tropes and are entirely about his fears that people of other ethnicities are alien species who would breed with, replace, encroach upon and overwhelm the pure white race. His works furthered a political agenda that continues to represent a serious issue in society today.

@surreality said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

@GreenFlashlight When talking about people from the past? Bluntly, it's sometimes necessary, particularly in light of the trend of damning absolutely everyone and their cousin Frank from 1700 for not having had the levels of social enlightenment we have today.

To be clear, this is a false equivalence. Lovecraft wasn't simply a man of his time; he was bad even for a man of his time, being an American who in the 1930s openly expressed his fondness for Hitler and support for his political regime in Germany.

Here's a thought exercise: let's pretend for a moment that Lovecraft wasn't a racist, but instead, was black. Do you think he would have enjoyed the same success he continues to enjoy today? I doubt it.

Do we need to keep crowning old shitty writers with laurels and laying wreaths at their statues to continue their legacy? I don't think so. There are plenty of other good authors and artists out there who are far more deserving.

I don't judge people who grew up on Lovecraft not knowing all these things about him who enjoy his works and I wouldn't dare take it away from them. I know, though, it's not a name I intend to pass on to future generations. I'd rather they read good ideas.

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Well, this sums up why I RP:

@Kestrel One point on Lovecraft and other long dead writers: They're dead. With a living author -- like Rowlings -- you can ask yourself, do I want to give money to this asshole? With an author who's long dead, though, the point is moot. The only person who suffers from 'canceling' them is, well, anyone with an interest.

As a hobby historian I'm very wary of attempts to clean up history. Kipling wrote beautiful India stories -- doesn't change the fact he was an imperialistic git. Lovecraft was a horrible racist but his universe is still fascinating. The writings of long dead writers tell two stories -- that which they intended to tell, and on the meta level, the story of the writer and the ethics of the period they lived in.

For modern writers it's a little different. I'm inclined to say that Rowlings being a horrible person doesn't make her books horrible (though I'll admit they never appealed to me much, but they didn't before she was outed either). It's okay to love them. The question to ask oneself is whether one wants to financially support this person -- and for some the answer will be, yes, because I love the books more than I care about the author's views. I'm inclined to say that either take is alright because where one draws the line is always a very personal thing, and mob mentality rarely leads to good places. Personally I'd never buy a thing she wrote, but I'm not going to condemn others for doing so.

Lovecraft is a whole bucket of crazy I would love to dissect but I'm not too keen to rederail this thread.

I'll reiterate I don't think anyone who likes, enjoys, reads, purchases Lovecraft novels, is a bad person for doing so.

Honestly, I don't even judge people who continue to enjoy Rowling's universe. I wouldn't even call her a horrible person; I find that to be hyperbole. I find her to be a mediocre person — at best, and at worst. As mediocre as just about anyone, morally speaking, and my cynicism inclines me to believe that's even better than average. She's just a privileged person who doesn't care about, accept, nor understand the existence of underprivileged people who exist beyond her notice; what else is new in the world? I don't feel any rage towards her, but as a cis person I also know it's not my place to exonerate her. I just nothing her. I avoid things to do with her now because I can no longer consume Rowling-adjacent products in any capacity without being reminded of the harm her bigotry inflicts on the transpeople in my life I love and care about who deserve better heroes in the public eye. I wouldn't even say I'm boycotting her, I just think I've outgrown her.

As for Lovecraft, I think evidence of his abominable racism and xenophobia isn't just present in his works; it's the entire foundation his works were built on. I don't avoid his works because I'm making it a conscious point to boycott them; I avoid them because they disgust me. I'm just not interested in reading the sad, pathetic ravings of a depraved and lonely lunatic writing about how scary foreigners are through the thinly veiled metaphor of incomprehensible alien creatures replacing and overtaking humanity or whatever.

I know sweet, kind, intensely good, non-racist people who enjoy his works. I do not judge them for being able to find their own interpretations and charitable meanings in his work. I understand that many of the themes of alienation and nihilism resonate with people, and think that everyone is entitled to, even owed, the right to find art that resonates with them on some level and brings them comfort. I'm not interested in robbing people of the connection they feel with these works. Art, music and beauty are the most human things we have. It's tangible empathy.

I just don't personally connect with these particular works. It's not for me. I'm not his target audience, I'm the horror that kept him up at night while he was writing them. As long as you don't view me that way, we're kosher. I'm OK with you finding your own interpretation in his works, not that you should need my permission to like the things you like.

When you dangle a character flaw out there up for grabs and someone totally calls you out on it and takes a bite.

Yes. Give me all the consequences, please.

@Sunny said in Gap between RP fantasy and RP reality:

ETA: I do wish they would discover the joys of OTT with the others of their kind and stop trying to play with us plebs. Literally everyone would be happier.

Recap for the plebs in the back: other than "over the top", what's OTT?

@Pandora

Philip Pullman is an atheist who literally wrote an anti-establishment book series for children about killing God and challenging religious dogma and oppression. Before it was cool.

If you think he gives a toss whether some internet people are throwing rocks at him, you're misinformed.

He actively enjoys it and baits Christians to take more shots at him.

"I've been surprised by how little criticism I've got. Harry Potter's been taking all the flak. I'm a great fan of J.K. Rowling, but the people - mainly from America's Bible Belt - who complain that Harry Potter promotes Satanism or witchcraft obviously haven't got enough in their lives. Meanwhile, I've been flying under the radar, saying things that are far more subversive than anything poor old Harry has said. My books are about killing God." — Phillip Pullman, 2003

Now there's a man who understands — and welcomes — repercussions for his opinions. If taking a stand was easy, everyone would do it.

Addendum: This has 0 to do with RPers being treated like OOC villains for being IC villains, but I was annoyed enough by his inclusion in that group that I felt the need to mention.