My previous post generated considerable debate (chiefly about, of all things, Daddy Pig). But it raises wider, and more important, questions that I think it would be worth devoting a post to addressing.
There is a tendency I have often noticed among nerdish men of a certain age to get defensive about particular hobbies - video games, heavy metal, horror films, comics, D&D, and so on. Having been told that these pastimes are variously stupid, evil, corrupting, a waste of time, sinful, and so on in their youths, such men have adopted a position at the opposite extreme, which is that it does not matter what media one consumes. One can listen to as much Cannibal Corpse as one likes, watch Driller Killer five times a day, and spend the rest of one's time murdering disabled children and puppies on Call of Duty: Ed Gein Edition, and it has no effect on one's psyche at all. Nobody is corrupted by any of this; nobody in the real world is affected; one can consume whatever media one desires and still be perfectly well-adjusted.
It is understandable why some people think like this, but it is difficult to imagine a position which could be less accurate. To demonstrate its foolishness, one simply has to ask a couple of straightforward questions. First, do you think it would be appropriate for a six-year-old to be given unrestricted access to pornhub? Second, do you think it is impossible to be moved by a work of great art? And, third, do you think it is impossible for characters in fiction of any kind to be inspirational, or to reinforce a negative stereotype? Well, I'm afraid that if your answer to any of those questions was 'no', then that means that you concede that the media one consumes matters in respect of its impact on the psyche, soul, mind, or whatever word you prefer. All reasonable people can do is argue about the extent to which it matters, in what context, and to whom - and what to do about it.
(A closely related argument concerns the question of 'copycat' behaviour, as when that shy young man Jimmy McJimmy who kept himself to himself and was polite to his neighbours one day commits a vile murder and it is discovered that he had spent the last three days locked in his basement watching The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or whatever. Clearly, the chain of causation is not clear and nobody has ever been able to identify a situation in which a crazed killer has had his brain borked simply by watching a video nasty. But, equally clearly, it's pretty unlikely that watching such stuff has no effect at the margins. No media savvy person alive in the 21st century can possibly deny that young people in particular are prone to copy behaviours and attitudes which they pick up from watching YouTube, TikTok, etc.; is it really such a stretch to imagine that what one watches as entertainment has an accumulated effect on the way one thinks?)
In short, of course cultural products matter, and of course they influence how people think and therefore how they behave. How could they not? Acknowledging this doesn't, and shouldn't, mean that our culture needs policing or that anything in particular needs banning. It simply means that it is foolish to go through life thinking that what one consumes by way of culture has no effect on how one sees the world, or how one acts in it.
This raises the interesting question, to my eye, as to whether what goes on at a D&D table matters. And here I don't mean to suggest that when a bunch of D&D players imagine their PCs massacring a tribe or orcs that it is going to turn them all into genocidaires or desensitise them to violence. Rather, I mean to ask whether the choices which one makes when thinking as a PC - the decisions which one makes when 'role playing' broadly understood - can have an impact on how one approaches choice-making in real life. To boil the inquiry down to its essence, is it possible to use a PC in an RPG auto-didactically as a way to experiment with what it would mean to behave more honourably, more decisively, more compassionately, etc., and to then reflect on how that could be implemented in one's actual life?
I think the key phrase here is that media can have real-life effects "at the margins," as you put it. I have always believed that a more-or-less psychologically normal adult is not going to take a cue from a video game, comic book, TTRPG, or what have you and go on a killing spree. Impressionable kids may copy what they see on TikTok, unaware of the consequences. A crazy person might point to media (Call of Duty, the Beatles' song "Helter Skelter") as the inspiration for their crimes. For most of us, I don't think it's too difficult to separate the worlds of fiction and reality. Particularly with regards to TTRPGs, I think players' behavior in game is more about what they bring to the table beforehand than the particulars of the game. I think that guy who wants to rape all the tavern wenches was probably just like that all along, and you didn't notice.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it's not too hard to separate fiction and reality for most of us - although it's hard to know how we could in fact know that for sure; we might just not be realising the extent of our delusion! But that doesn't mean there isn't a gradual, accumulated desensitising or even dehumanising effect from all the violence, profantiy, and overall nastiness that we are very often exposed to in the media we consume. With all of that said, though, I am genuinely more interested in the question as to whether one can consciously adopt fiction as a model for reality.
DeleteI have been reading your blog regularly for about a year and have not felt compelled to comment before now. That being said, hope I can add something constructive here.Let us start with the basics of separating fact from fiction. I propose the idea that a vast majority of people cannot separate fact from fiction, that the basis of most social cohesion is in truth based upon shared fictions. As for the detrimental effects of accumulated exposure to violence, hyper sexuality, rude and churlish behaviors? Absolutely, without even a moment’s hesitation. I have been watching my own societies cohesion disintegrating year over year for decades. Media influence is obvious from my perspective.
DeleteI sometimes use Gabe Zicherman's TED Talk about gamification in my TESOL classes. One of the things he claims is that video games (and by extension, I presume other forms of media) won't make you a violent person. But if you are a violent person already, games can make you better at it. I tend to agree with his line of thinking.
ReplyDeleteYeah, perhaps, but it is very hard to know how you would measure the much more diffuse, low-level impact of gradual desensitisation associated with consuming lots of violent media.
DeleteObviously everybody has a different take on all of... this. My ontological leanings can't help but find some expression at the table. I'm curious to see what other people have to say on this. However, some initial thoughts:
ReplyDeleteWe play Pendragon on Sundays and there is a pointed mytho-poetic dimension to what occurs. In short, this is the strangely moving experience of the beautiful and hopeful arising from the despairing and the brutal.
Myths are events which are not 'real', but are 'true'. Taking part in Pendragon is an exercise in interacting directly with the myth...of interacting with the actuality of the Arthurian vision in *exactly* the time/space that it resides and has always resided, eg. within the imaginal. This experience has been, like it or not, unavoidably didactic.
This is part of what draws me to Pendragon and I’d really love to play it.
DeleteWell said, I find the same thing playing Runequest. Through the characters we are exploring how the barbarian gift economy differs from the Imperial coin economy. As players we enjoy that Chaosium will sell us such crazy volumes of lore, but also we get to create our own little society where we pay our debts by honoring our commitment to show up on time and everyone's contributions are appreciated. That does feel didactic, like a lesson in how humans are meant to live.
DeleteGreat comments. Your ideas are all intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your respective newsletters.
DeleteI got these ideas from your newsletter! Walking in the countryside thinking about D&D parallels the experience of playing D&D and thinking about walking in the countryside. They partake of the same thing, and the overlap lets you visualize the fantasy more realistically but also see the real world more perceptively. This is the same thing, but for society. Pretending to be a group of characters committed to shared fantasy goals parallels the experience of being a player committed to participating in a roleplaying group. Playing Runequest brought that overlap into focus because, like Traveller, characters start in debt. Questions about "what do we owe one another" and "what does it mean to give your word" are thus part of RQ play from the start, which helps perceive how a successful gaming group is defined by accepting some mutual obligation and how different this is from how we do it in the rest of the modern world.
DeleteHa! Nice way of putting it.
DeleteThis is a debate which generates insanity on both extremes: from “I can watch/read/play whatever I want, no matter how sick, and it doesn’t affect who I am in real life” to “fiction is just training for real life, so what you watch/read/play should entirely be morally pure and aspirational.” I see much much more of the latter type of insanity nowadays, so I’m inclined to vigorously defend the idea that fantasy life and external life can be separated, and the idea of fiction-as-fiction. - Jason Bradley Thompson
ReplyDeleteA few years back I posted on RPGNet about my favourite D&D experience as a kid, which was when (age 13) I GMed Isle of Dread 1-1 for my friend, and his magic user led a tribe of Neanderthals against the natives in the south of the island, using the mass combat rules in the companion set. It was great fun but of course to the good folk of RPGNet it was a colonialist fantasy. That said, a lot of what’s okay in RPGs comes down to group social dynamics - I wouldn’t want to play with the guy who says he’s going to rape the tavern wench. That’s not so much a question of morals or ethics as just simple yuck factor.
DeleteI've come to believe that it very much depends upon the individual, which makes a broad conclusion difficult to reach. I think some people have a very clear distinction between fantasy and reality, and others have a far more permeable barrier in that regard, or find it difficult to make a distinction. Which means that the sensible or responsible stance can't be universal, it's specific to the person in question. Rather like alcohol intake, where it's about knowing yourself -- do you tend toward irresponsibility or even addiction; if so, best to refrain.
DeleteA person who doesn't have a clear distinction between reality and fantasy may seem annoyingly puritanical in their positions, but one might argue that they're just being responsible, whereas another person might be quite happy immersing in art that would shock or disturb others, because they don't relate it to their sense of reality or ethics -- it has no bearing on their actual intentions or conduct. The problems arise when we try to fit larger groups of disparate people under one "jurisdiction" of what's appropriate -- and, as Anonymous the Second has touched upon, that's tricky when we're talking about inherently group-based activities. If you know the people it's probably relatively easy, but it's harder if your gaming group is distinct from other social circles.
It is interesting to consider that we've all to some extent accepted certain "fictional world rules" as integral to most roleplay game and others not so much; a lot of people would be put off by "I (my character) rape the tavern wench", to use the given example, but almost no-one would object to "I kill the annoying tavern wench with my axe" (I mean, they might if it interferes with plot or verisimilitude, or represents character derailment, but they wouldn't be innately disturbed by it); murder and killing, casual or otherwise, are default accepted as "part of the game" whereas sexual assault is not. In reality, if you suddenly murdered the waiter everyone would be at least as horrified and alarmed, probably more, as if you suddenly raped them, so it's not about real-world standards... yet if not, some might ask, why do some real-life standards carry over to a game and some don't? Does that reveal things about our cultural and social attitudes, which would presumably open us up to further moralising and judgement? Where would it end? If someone gets worked up over something, somebody else might get worked up over the fact that they're worked up -- why this and not that, or any number of other bugbears -- and always it could at least potentially be approached as reflecting on reality. It seems that in order to enjoy an experience of fantasy we all have to -- to some extent -- suspend our reality, not just in terms of physics and biology but in terms of conduct. Just as how in this world there are dragons, so there is casual violence and killing, but also, just as how there aren't space aliens with ray guns, there isn't some other category of behaviour.
It's much akin to the use of language. "Hell, that's retarded" is casual conversation to people from some backgrounds and will cause others to retreat to their fainting couch over two-thirds of the sentence. Which probably sounds disparaging on my part, but that's the point -- people have different ideas on what is silly, what is ethically inappropriate, and what is a shock to the system.
Yeah— of course the DM or scenario writer also makes players’ fantasies more or less acceptable by how they have the world react to them. The barmaid might be delighted by a sudden smooch. The natives might go Kipling and say “Gosh, we have been looking for a new king, and you seem really cool.” The supposedly LG NPC paladin might shrug and not do anything when the player character murders the prisoner in front of them. Or the DM could push back against any one of these particular power fantasies. But almost any RPG *does* have some element of power fantasy and “getting away with stuff you can’t do in real life.” I guess I don’t know where I’m going with this, beyond the obvious “everything is negotiable depending on what the DM and players like”. - Jason Bradley Thompson
DeleteJason, for the most part I agree strongly with your first comment and in general I tend to lament the fact that we seem to have lost the notion that fiction can just be fiction and doesn't have to speak to real-world issues. But I also am very interested in the idea that we can use fiction as a way to think about how to improve ourselves.
DeleteI'm not so sure the effect of violence in media is limited to "the margins." The problem with gun violence in the US isn't the legality and availability of firearms, it is the saturation of media in which guns are used to "solve" narrative problems, most often by using a firearm inappropriately. Just consider how many movie posters feature one or more actors brandishing a gun (even gun control advocates like Liam Neeson).
ReplyDeleteThat the vast majority of gun violence in the US is gang-related, rather than lone-wolf psychopaths and "gun nuts," also suggests that the popularity of gangsta rap—which glorifies gun violence and murder—may be a major contributor to the willingness to use guns to settle disagreements. The latest shooting in Kansas City—the result of an argument between teens—is a perfect example of that behavior.
No one ever suggests banning rap music or the depiction of firearms in movies and TV shows as a solution, though. They did for cigarette smoking, however, which saw a dramatic reduction in rates of smoking among the general population. It seems fairly clear to me that media has a profound effect on the social-psychology of human beings.
D&D is absolutely an outlet for violent fantasies—that's why combat is the core mechanic—but it also promotes teamwork, decision-making, and strategic planning, which are all healthy behaviors. I've never had the urge to stab someone with a sword in real-life, but I have definitely responded to risky situations, social dilemmas, and job-related issues using lessons I've experienced as a player character.
You know they have media that depicts violence in countries outside of the US right? So if people all over the world consume violent media, what is unique about the USA that could contribute to the high level of gun violence?
DeleteThe availability of guns?
DeleteThe availability of guns.
DeleteBut guns have always been available. What's different now?
DeleteI know the 'guns' issue is obviously a big culture war thing in the US but to offer a British perspective, it is definitely the case that knife crime (which is nowadays stratospheric in certain parts of the country) has skyrocketed in recent years and this can definitely I think be attributed to a culture of glorification of violence and nihilistic, amoral attitudes. Knives have always been available, but it's amazing how much more likely teenagers nowadays are to stick them into each other.
DeleteTo build on what Noisms is saying...despite the "availability" argument, the rate of gun ownership in this country has remained at a steady 30–40% since the early 70s. What has changed in that time is the amount of graphic violence we are bombarded with in nearly every form of media (and I'm a fan!) Even kid's cartoon shows and anime are a non-stop orgy of gunplay—even if its only laser blasts.
DeleteThe "War on Drugs," the related rise of gang culture, more-permissive courts, loss of discipline in schools, and a host of other issues also weigh in, so I don't pretend it's just one thing...but it's undeniable that our entire culture has shifted to normalize extreme violence. Just try to find anything rated PG-13 or above that *doesn't* feature someone pulling a gun...it's really difficult.
You can also peruse the gun violence/crime statistics on FBI.gov. They're eye-opening.
Gladwain-
DeleteUp until the 2020s, gun violence had been on a sharp decline and was at a rate comparable to the early 60. I wonder if there are some economic and other material reasons that could contribute to the alienation and desperation that might lead someone in the US to resort to using a gun?
Couldn’t kids see violence glorified in movies/tv since the advent of those technologies?
Also if you truly believe that access to media that glorifies violence to be the main driver of this and actually care about changing it, how do we legislate culture?
-Noel (the 1st Anonymous in this thread)
I don't think American gun violence statistics are as wack as people say they are. Especially if you consider getting killed by a bullet no worse than getting killed by other means, that maybe our economy and mental health setup and general social situation isn't as cushy as cushy European countries, stuff like that.
DeleteNoel- The apogee of gun violence in the US was the mid-90s (https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/tpfv9318.pdf). Even with a slight uptick in the 20-teens, we're not close to that high-water mark. And again, MOST gun violence is either suicides (which other countries do not include in their statistics) or gang-related activity (these are easy stats to investigate for yourself on the FBI website). Few gun homicides (relative to the total number) are committed by legal gun owners. In addition, guns are used to prevent crime anywhere from 300,000 to over a million times a year depending on whose stats you care to use.
DeleteIf our Constitutional rights are on the table, then it is just as easy to curtail free speech and right to assembly as it is to restrict gun ownership. I would rather constrain those who glorify violence and/or gather together with criminal intent than restrict a citizen's ability to protect themselves (an ability I have used three times—with no shots fired, thankfully—in my 38 years of gun ownership).
In the past, we have limited free speech when it comes to content for minors (movie/music ratings, comics code, cigarette advertising) and we have implemented laws to punish criminal conspiracies (RICO), so I'm not sure what's different in this case.
We definitely have a problem in this country (and around the world), but it's with the idea that violence is an acceptable means to resolve issues (personal, mental, legal, whatever), it's not with the tools (guns, knives, vehicles, whatever) used to perpetrate it. It's the IDEA that needs to change, and we won't accomplish that by going after the wrong thing.
Gladwain-
DeleteIs there any evidence that the comics code/Hays Code have had any meaningful effect on violence in America?
I’m w you in that I don’t want to be giving up rights all willy-nilly (police disarm first and then we can talk), but I think you have to reckon w the fact that the US is unique in its position. You don’t have the same level of gun violence in Japan/France/whatever developed country bc they just simply aren’t readily available.
Also does drill music, John Wick, Jujutsu Kaisen, Skibidi Toilet, whatever violent stuff kids are into actively glorify suicide by gun? Or are there other socioeconomic factors at play that might negatively affect someone’s headspace? Working to alleviate the material conditions that lead people to despair wouldn’t cost your guns or your speech.
- Noel
I don't agree with Gladwain that the problem is the glorification of violence (it seems much more evident that it is to do with family breakdown) but I will point out again that while gun violence in Britain is very low in comparison to the USA, violent crime is high - teenage hoodlums just stab each other rather than shooting each other. Attributing the problem of *violence* to the prevalence of guns seems to me to be wrong, although obviously the problem of high levels of *homicide* is a different matter (it being easier to kill somebody with a gun than a knife).
DeleteWorks of fiction are society's dreams. They shape the public imagination and the perceptions of the masses, but in a subtle way. Rather than directly shaping behavior, media shapes attitudes and emotions (often at the subconscious level) which in turn can affect behavior.
ReplyDeleteAny group, ideological or otherwise, that has succeeded at influencing culture and the social subconscious has recognized the immense power of media to shape the human mind. The Gen-Xer/Millennial advocates of 'extreme content' fail to realize that the arguments and objections that they continue to trot out about "moralfags" and Christian-soccermom-cryptofascists trying to sensor their porn and violent videogames are the regurgitated sophistries of a class of ideologues who employed them as useful idiots to undermine the old moral order. Having gotten the James Raggis of the world to assist in demolishing the moral edifice of the previous age, a new moral edifice governing what is and is not acceptable in both media and society has promptly been erected in its place ("wokeism", for lack of a more precise term) while the extreme content vanguard of the 90s have been left scratching their heads.
"But I thought we were fighting censorship! I thought we were creating a world of free expression where people could create and consume whatever content they wanted!".
This was and always will be ridiculous. And many of the advocates of this ideal never actually believed it anyway. The simple fact is that whoever has power and influence will always exercise it in order to reinforce their values, and media is one of the most important and effective means of doing exactly that. There will always be censorship, and media content will always be pressured to conform to the values of the powerful; the only question is who gets to enjoy the privilege.
Quite.
DeleteThen by this logic, the 'new right' and the new generation of supposed cryptofascist and Christian values revivalist are entirely in their right to use the dissilusioned left and center to push 'ironic' memes about returning to tradition and order and masculunity, because that is what goes against 'The Edifice'. The new counter culture is to be Conservative.
DeleteBy this logic these people are entirely in their moral right to subvert the subversion and turn it back on its head because then doesn't mean the only thing that matter in society is who controls the media and culture to achieve its goal and nothing else? Doesn't that mean the only 'right' answer in society is whatever is perceived as beneficial to the ideology? Doesn't that line of thinking then reinforce and calls correct the reactionary pointy of view because only power and victory matters?
If you believe that there is an objective and transcendent set of values and moral principles, and if you furthermore believe that it is possible to know what these principles are, then is it not self evident that you would believe it to be a moral good to promote those values? Would anyone advocating an alternative and contradictory set of values not be an enemy to be confronted and discredited, and would it not be a moral good to do so? To paraphrase a certain philosopher, "friend good, enemy bad."
DeleteIt's got nothing to do with how people 'should' behave. It's quite simply the reality of how they do behave. You either play the game or you're a piece on the board.
This is precisely why I've never allowed evil PCs at my table except as a one off. Likewise, as a player, I refuse to play with evil PCs.
ReplyDeleteSame here.
DeleteGood post, it is fun to be able to use our lived experience to test the ideas of the day. All that matters is what happens to people in the real world. Yes, content makes a difference. Most people would not enjoy spending an evening sitting around a table pretending to do what one does in Call of Duty. But the context of cultural production also differs. One can imagine a shire in which people enjoy cooperating to take care of everyone's needs all day and then do basically the same thing playing D&D all night. At the table is as close as I get to such a world, and I gravitate to the OSR because paying too much attention to commercial products takes away from the egalitarian collaboration I like. If our scene was as interested in aggression and competition as CoD, no doubt our table talk would skew similarly toxic. But I think the peculiar mix of brand identification and death-threats-to-devs entitlement seen among online gamers has something to do with the extreme commercialization. The shire produces no AAA games; the CoD experience is inseparable from being at the business end of an enterprise devoted to maximizing shareholder revenue by making a lot of people do real world things that don't seem fun, like crunching deadlines and marketing tie-ins and extracting fossil fuels to run server banks.
ReplyDeleteYou may be right about this - would have to think about it a bit more, though.
DeleteThere is a vast difference between media designed to stimulate a visceral experience in the viewer and media designed as light-hearted entertainment. Exposing a small child to a graphic horror film (for example) can lead to nightmares for YEARS as the immature mind struggles to comprehend the stimulation to which it's been exposed.
ReplyDeleteWith regard to table games (like D&D or any game with "mature themes" such as the violence inherent in a war game): the level of sensory stimulation is far, far less. Without that sensory stimulation, the only thing the mind is left with is the imagination...and the imagination is governed LARGELY by past sensory experience. We must connect dots in our minds...mental gymnastics, if you will...to find analogous examples from which to form our visual images. If we have never seen an orc, it is helpful to view an illustration. If we have never experienced the horror of war...even in a cinematic venue...it is difficult to imagine the scope of pain and terror and blood and suffering.
For the average CHILD player of D&D, the goriest details fail to register as anything monstrous because it is outside their scope of understanding. Intellectually, they understand concepts like murder, killing, death and they can equate combats with illustrations or cinematic action films they may have seen. But it doesn't have the dramatic impact on the psyche that, say, a film full of exploding bodies and sudden splattered entrails has in shocking the mind.
With regard to your final question of experimentation with behavior in-game affecting behavior outside the game in a POSITIVE fashion: what is brought to the table tends to be that which is already inside the person. Games that require certain behavioral considerations (acting honorably or with compassion as part of a game SYSTEM...I'm thinking of Vampire the Masquerade here) can change behavioral patterns at the table, but probably NOT how a person acts after leaving the game...people don't become cut-throat landlords after a few games of playing Monopoly.
I'd also add that I suspect games that encourage specific behavioral patterns antithetical to the normal behavior of the individual will simply fail to appeal to the player (to the point that they will walk away shortly after, if they deign to play at all). THIS I have observed on many occasions...and in myself as well. People who enjoy role-playing in a system that encourages and rewards honorable behavior (for example) are likely to be people who believe in honorable behavior and relish the notion of exploring a world where such thing has real and tangible (from a gameplay aspect) impact.
[those who have NO opinion on the subject may find the game to their taste, or may not, but other factors could certainly influence whether or not it elicits enjoyment. But even so, they are unlikely to take that "out into the world," as they understand they are "just playing a game"]
You're no doubt in large part right at the end. The chain of causation will very often flow the other way round, so to speeak.
DeleteI think it’s important to recognize that people who play TTRPGs vary a lot in how intimately they engage with the in-game fiction. For some, their character is a close avatar of themselves. For others, it’s a game piece.
DeleteThis goes for fiction as well. The wry, detached fantasies of Jack Vance do not appeal to readers who want to climb inside a characters’ skin and engage in immersive wish fulfilment. In literary parlance, the latter is called “close” or “hot” POV.
I expect you’d find fans of Vance approach TTRPGs in a more wry, detached manner as well. Rather than championing moral ideals, they might instead laugh at the absurd, ironic situations that characters get themselves into. And I’d suggest people who prefer that approach in fiction and TTRPGs aren’t any less likely to get good citizens, spouses, parents, etc.
Yes, this is true, and generally I actually prefer the 'Vancian' approach (I have written about this a few times over the years). PCs in my games die a *lot* and the fiction is mostly engaged with very archly. What I am suggesting here is a different way of doing things that I am not sure I would even implement.
DeleteDifferent Anon responding to Anon #1, for clarity:
DeleteIsn't it, on the contrary, the case that those who engage in fiction and games in the "Vancian Mode" are precisely those with a greater grasp of the difference between fiction and reality, a less permeable barrier? Whereas those who immerse themselves, make close-but-idealized avatars, read wish fulfilment are those less able to distance themselves and for whom fiction molds reality to some extent?
If so, I think the "Vancians" are *more* likely if anything to make good citizens, although perhaps somewhat worse spouses.
Ha! Indeed.
DeleteI am thinking by extension that we might as well ask ourselves if what we think about matters? Do our fancies of imagination have any meaning to us, and if we share them with others, are we spreading an idea?
ReplyDeleteI think the answer is, "yes".
Yes, exactly.
DeleteThe in the end noism, it means you actually agree with the fun police: you just think people should thought police and think in ways that benefits you, no?
DeleteNot that benefits 'me', no. In ways that I think benefit soociety, qualifiedly yes. But don't misunderstand me: I'm not interested in 'fun policing' if by that you mean censoring or banning things. Rather, I'm interested in having a more honest and intelligent discussion about the meaning of what happens in our private imaginary worlds.
DeleteThat's always how IT start, doesn't it? Well next time a bunch of Christians or Muslims or Jewish or any more socially conservative and/or religious group bitch at you because D&D is Satanic remember that from THEIR point of view, they are doing what they quantify as 'benefitting society'.
DeleteWhat goes around comes around.
Absolutely nobody has ever bitched at me because D&D is Satanic. But even if they had...why would it matter? I mean, do you seriously think it is likely that social conservative people are going to ban people from playing D&D?
Delete"Having been told that these pastimes are variously stupid, evil, corrupting, a waste of time, sinful, and so on in their youths, such men have adopted a position at the opposite extreme"
ReplyDeleteIf so many people can decide to be the antithesis of what they are told, then they can also be the antithesis of what they are shown, or even what they pretend to be. I'm going to say that allowing exploration of both sides of good and evil and whatever is healthy. I offer the theory that if you have the mental/spiritual framework to process something then it can't harm that framework. If you just subconsciously accept things without questioning them that's not going to end well. If you process it at all, you're probably going to end up wiser for that. So this is important to culture and society after all.
The worst thing you can do with a piece of media is "just turn your brain off" or otherwise engage with it on the level of pornography, to experience it only on a visceral level and neglect any higher levels of thought. Splatter flicks and heavy metal can be like that but you can easily have a gory, evil movie or book that makes you think. What I absolutely do not want in anything marketed to adults is "safety" "correctness" or even a moral high ground. If the point is to teach people to be good they need to learn to tell what is right and wrong without being told. People should be made comfortable with doing things that are hard and learning things that are challenging. People need self determination and not a caste of philosopher kings keeping them "in the right."
Since you're talking about Call of Duty, that game is US Military propaganda with (I shit you not) DoD funding. The storyline in those games (although multiplayer is more popular) is pushing a "heroic" narrative. Compare that to Red Dead Redemption 2, a mediocre game with outrageous production values but its message is that you should never do crime, associate with crazy people, or live in a commune. That you should just earn an honest living and start a family instead. It's a pretty violent game full of shooting galleries but it uses them to demonstrate how outlaw gunslingers like Arthur Morgan are psychotic, self-righteous losers fated to die alone.
Don't get me wrong - I don't want to suggest fiction should be didactic. Didactic fiction always sucks. And I agree with most of what you have written here. What I am mooting here is that an individual person, preceisely as an exercise in self-improvement or self-knowledge, could use an RPG as a way to experiment with different and better ways of thinking/deciding.
DeleteI think we probably have the same mindset but I'm looking at things from the south end. To sum up my points, a D&D game where "in this world slavery is morally neutral" is trash even if the players don't participate. But if you acknowledge that evil things are Evil, I don't think there's much difference between the DM acting out the villains or the other players acting out villains. It's not for every table but exploring ways to game that well shouldn't be written off.
DeleteI don't think media impacts people's behavior directly so much as it shapes their idea of what is common and normal. Our own personal experiences tell us about a tiny slice of the world and for the rest we rely on what other people tell us and there isn't always a sharp divide between what we're told by fictional and non-fictional sources.
ReplyDeleteFor example, when it comes to history most of what people "know" about it comes from games and movies and the same applies to a lesser extent to the real world.
For example I don't think many people realize that (in the US at least) murder is down by around half since the early 90's, many would say it's hitting record highs. "It bleeds it leads" plays a role in that especially how local news that used to stay local gets shared all around on social media, but so do true crime podcasts, various other media etc. They don't influence people's behavior directly but making people think that murderers are behind every corner certainly does.
Same goes for a lot of other things. One of the most chilling posts I've seen in social media is one guy saying that he woke up every single day to a newsreel full of shared videos of Group X that he hated screaming stupid shit. He intentionally started every single day with an unrepresentative sample of the one in a thousand worst examples of Group X yelling every single day. That so completely warped his idea of what actual people of Group X are like in the real world that he turned himself into an unhinged self-parody.
People rely on media of all kinds to tell them what the world outside their own experience is like and if their own experience is sitting at a computer then hooooo boy.
The vast majority of things people 'know' and consider to be basic truism of reality are all inherently warped by the medias and a completely lackluster (likely on purpose, some would say) education system which completely strip things of nuance to make it a digestible narrative of good vs evil so people can feel good about themselves and know they're the good guys of history.
DeleteYet even a cursory examination of history with any sort of skepticism will reveal giant holes in this carefully woven collective delusion. Take the commonly accepted truism of race relations in the US versus reality, where historical records will tell you that slaves were bought from other African tribes and Muslims. That there were Native American or even Black slaveowners and that in reality most abolitionists were White and Christian. That's not even a 'conspiracy theory', its just an examination of facts but because it run against the commonly accepted narrative even stating this will make people scream.
Bosh - this is a valid concern (I think what you are identifying is a variant of the whole 'echochamber' effect). I would quibble about the violence statistics, though. It may be true that violence is 'down' since date X, but it obviously depends where in time you start the analysis. I don't know about the US, but here in Britain there's a similar pattern of a recent uptick which is still a bit below the level of the 90s....but if you go back to the 40s or 50s, or the start of the 20th century, we are still stratospherically high by comparison.
DeleteViolence and violent crime have many MANY complex social, economic and more factors its just people like to find an easy scapegoat as opposed to pointing out that said scapegoats are symptoms of a damaged/sick society. Its easy to just frame one thing as the boogeyman of all reasons why people go violent. It ignores a ton of factors, like sociopathy/psycopathy, abusive childhood, bad medication or more.
DeleteI'm no expert but I know I can safely say that I *DON'T* know the exact answer and that's fine, as opposed to pointing to a scapegoat.
Sure, but one shouldn't just jump from there to the unjustifiable conclusion that since we can't identify all the relevant variables (which is always true of everything), that we can't identify *any*!
DeleteThe facts stated above about U.S. slavery are cherrypicked to create a counternarrative - in the exact way Bosh is complaining about the Group X cherrypicking narrative. Putting them in context reveals the full picture - I don't expect everyone to dedicate all their time to putting every little thing in context, but with the way politics are at the moment it's hard to not assume bad intentions.
DeleteOf course its a 'counter narrative' because we've only ever been fed a one sided plot of good versus evil on the matter.
DeleteNo one is going to outline the facts that help paint slavery purely in this good versus evil narrative because its already the mainstream opinion. By stating the opposite, that there were non-whites in favor of/benefitting from slavery and that in turn there were whites against it, THAT is the counter narrative needed to showcase the full picture: that it wasn't a clear cut, good versus evil black and white (heh) case where the sides were clearly defined which is what pop culture and failed education defines it as today. Hell just to show how complicated this is: a sizeable portion of Afro-Americans descend from slave owners as much as they descend from slaves yet people continue to arbitrarily pile upon people the supposed 'sins of the father'.
Most abolitionists were white?
DeleteThink about that statement for a second. If that were true, that would mean that the majority of slaves were against abolition. Is that what you are saying?
Or, i suppose you could be saying that the majority of the country, white and black, were abolitionists, it’s just that there were so many more whites than blacks.
But if that were the case, why did slavery persist so long when it was universally popular across the board?
(A quick google search shows that abolitionists made up about ~2% of the white population, and blacks 14-22% of the total population depending on hear)