Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

[Agemegos]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

You know what? All you overly sensitive whack-jobs are right... the presence of evil races... the migdilar' date=' or the orcs... have made me a racist. I'm absolutely sure that I will be utterly vile and prejudicial to the next orc or migdilar I ever encounter.[/quote']

 

What about the next straw man?

[badger3k]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Easy. Heavyweight title bouts are real, and therefore people can't distinguish between them a reality. But experiments have shown that even children can tell fiction from reality. So obviously violence and hateful attitudes lauded in fiction are harmless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[That's ironic, godammit!]

 

Actually, no it isn't. Watch a fight, or an action movie, or a football game. For most people, if they are interested in it, they will experience an increase in adrenaline and all that - their emotions get stirred up. Why do people get into fights at sporting events?

 

There's a difference between watching a fight and reading about a fight. Or playing one in a role-playing game. I don't know about you, but I get more excited by playing Vice City on my playstation than saying "roll to hit, you hit, roll for location..." - even if I enhance it to "Your blade swings out and slices into the side of your foe. Blood sprays in a fountain....". It's a lot easier to get into a game when there are visual cues.

 

Take Lord of the Rings - Boromir's death sequence. Which moved you more (ie, which caused a greater emotional - physiological is probably a better term - reaction) - reading the passage in the book, or watching it happen on the tv/movie screen? Odds are in most people, they would have a bigger reaction (and one more easily noticeable through standard medical or psychological tests) from the visual account. Human reactions are based on all aspects (visual, aural, mental, etc), but visual will top mental as a major effector in most people's cases.

 

That's the biggest difference between a boxing match and games. If games had a similar effect, we'd see more incidence of criminal behavior from the countless gaming groups world-wide ("Hey, I had to stab him - he touched my dice!")

 

edited to hopefully make a few passages easier to understand.

[badger3k]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Well' date=' this may be why we arrive at different conclusions. I believe that we are responsible for [i']all[/i] the predictable consequences of our actions, not just their effects on ourselves and our children. If a demagogue incites a mob to riot, is he not responsible for that? If an official orders an atrocity, is he not responsibile for the actions of his subordinates? If a preacher preaches bigotry, is he not responsible for religious hatred insofar as it results from his sermons?

 

Besides which, if you cast your mind back over the matter of this thread, you will recall that I have been arguing on the basis that playing genocidal characters may make ourselves, not others, more at risk of becoming racist.

 

I understand the widespread skepticism. But experience of cognitive-behavioural techniques has astonished me with the extent to which people are able to change their characters by use of mental drills. And there is ample evidence from experiments in social psychology that demonstrates that prejudices which we usually keep well under control by self-monitoring can leak around the edges of our guards when we are concentrating on other issues. Best, in my opinion, not to form the prejudices. And safest, therefore, not to rehearse making moral judgements on the basis of birth, even in play.

 

During all these "cognitive-bahavioral techniques" that you have seen, where they all done by people trying to change? Or did they involve people who had no idea what was going on? If you have any web sources, can you cite something (or give a link) - it would be interesting to read that.

 

My point is that unless the tests were done on those who had no idea of what was supposed to happen, then you also have to include the aspect that the participants were actively (even subconsciously) trying to achieve the changes. Big difference than the more subliminal shifts you posit.

 

The other point is where to draw the line. Say I write a book, with the intent to make money. No message, no plan to influence people. But someone reads that one character in there comitted suicide (it moved the plot along, after all), and sees his life is like that. So he kills himself and blames my book. Am I responsible? Apparently so - according to the view posted above.

 

The limits that others use has more to do with intent and expected reactions/influences. By using the same logic above with racism, we can say that by having warriors in the game, we are encouraging people to use violence to solve their problems. Or, as was posted, since we have spell casters, we must be teaching people that magic is possible and therefore must be real. Same thing with multiple gods - the games really do promote polytheism! BADD must be right.

 

Now, let's see - I am more of a pantheist than anything else (although the term henotheistic might be applicable) - so let's call that half right. I don't believe in magic, so that's a negative on that. And while I light martial arts and sparring, I'd rather talk my way out of a fight if I can since that's better than getting into a useless fight. Makes that a negative. That's 2.5 to .5, No to Yes. So, since I've been gaming since 78 (I think, although I think I really started back in the bicentennial of 76), I don't seem to have been affected in those ways. Why is this supposed racism different from the same charges made years ago?

 

It seems to me that only the names have changed, but the argument is still the same.

[Agemegos]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

During all these "cognitive-bahavioral techniques" that you have seen' date=' where they all done by people trying to change? Or did they involve people who had no idea what was going on?[/quote']

 

They all involved people who were trying to change.

 

If you have any web sources, can you cite something (or give a link) - it would be interesting to read that.

 

Sorry, but I'm working from paper sources and personal experience.

 

My point is that unless the tests were done on those who had no idea of what was supposed to happen, then you also have to include the aspect that the participants were actively (even subconsciously) trying to achieve the changes. Big difference than the more subliminal shifts you posit.

 

Indeed. CBT achieves remarkable relief of (say) depression by retraining inappropriate habits of thought. This is done deliberately, and by the informed effort of the patient. There is nothing subliminal or involuntary about it. On the other hand, the aetiology of straighforward depression (not bipolar disorder) seems to consist entirely of dwelling on inappropriate thoughts: it is a mental habit formed by rehearsal. And yet no-one sets out to become depressed. It seems clear that mental habits can form character even without an intention to personal change. From my personal experience something similar seems to be true of anger, and some psychologists seem (according to their writings) to agree. There is, however, no well-conducted study of the treatment of anger with CBT, at least that I know of.

 

The other point is where to draw the line. Say I write a book, with the intent to make money. No message, no plan to influence people. But someone reads that one character in there comitted suicide (it moved the plot along, after all), and sees his life is like that. So he kills himself and blames my book. Am I responsible? Apparently so - according to the view posted above.

 

If it is reasonably foreseeable that what you write will lead to people killing themselves (or others) who would not otherwise have done so, then I urge you to think carefully before deciding to publish. Where to draw the line? I can only leave that to your own conscience.

 

Why is this supposed racism different from the same charges made years ago?

 

The charges made years ago included an assertion that D&D games actually consist of satanic worship, and that players whose characters reach third level are taught to cast real-life magic spells. They were driven by malice and paranoid delusion.

 

The possible dangers that I am discussing are admittedly speculative. But my apprehensions are informed by an actual knowledge of what goes on in a role-playing game and some empirical findings from cognitive psychology, not on a belief in magic. Also, I am not hostile towards role-playing games, and only urge that we should hold the content of our games to the same standard that we hold our other activities.

[proditor]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Badger3k, thank you thank you thank you for touching on something I had completely forgotten. By Agemegos reasoning, I should be more violent and likely to lash out when I am actively taking martial arts classes. I'm currently not and my aggresion level is profoundly higher than when I am. I'm looking at getting back into it over the next month (Assuming the finances pan out) and also looking forward to the decrease in my aggresiveness. I can base this off the following: Due to the time/money conundrum (I usually have one but not the other) my attendance at classes is spotty at best. When I'm training regularly, sparring regularly, have my adrenalin much higher than normal for longer periods...I'm less aggressive. I've been on and off classes 5 times in the last 15 years and this formula always holds true. Many of my fellow students state the same thing. When they take classes and spar regularly, they are less physically aggressive in day to day situations.

 

As for killing orcs might make me a racist....

 

Just no.

 

Feel free to cite whatever sources you want, whatever reports and treatsies you can find. I'm not buying it. If anything, gaming in general has made me more accepting as I met people from other cultures who were in my gaming groups. Strangely, none of them started to call me a cracker after a long orc killing session either. The face to face dynamic of gaming enhances the chances that you won't turn into a racist IMHO, and the MASSIVE benefit gained from talking to someone from a different background than yours far outweighs the very very very minor possibility that killing orcs on sight might make you view things differently in RL.

 

If you are predisposed for whatever reason to dislike/hate/fear a given ethnicity, then claiming that killing orcs in D&D made you do it is right up there with "no one told me dumping hot coffee in my lap would hurt".

 

I'm normally not this blunt, but seriously, if killing orcs on sight becomes the reason you think you are racist or are becoming more racist, you have much deeper issues.

[proditor]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

If it is reasonably foreseeable that what you write will lead to people killing themselves (or others) who would not otherwise have done so' date=' then I urge you to think carefully before deciding to publish. Where to draw the line? I can only leave that to your own conscience.[/quote'] Okay, I'm not buying this one at all. By this logic, some of the great but depressing masterpieces of literature should not have been written because someone who needs treatment might go off the deep end????

 

No, no and again no. THEY need to get help for themselves. Personal responsibility. If you can see that someone is in pain and suggest help for them, great, more power to you. But if someone reads Nabakov and takes their own life in depression, I'm sorry, trying to blame the writer here is at best criminally irresponsible.

 

We often hear some of our more pessimistic pundits say (Roughly) "Life is short, ugly and it ends in pain". I prefer to think it's what you make of it. If you make it a hell, it will be. It took me a long time and professional help to NOT make my own life a hell and I have little to no sympathy for those who blame everyone beyond themselves for the misery they feel when they could do something about it.

[Agemegos]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Okay' date=' I'm not buying this one at all. By this logic, some of the great but depressing masterpieces of literature should not have been written because someone who needs treatment might go off the deep end????[/quote']

 

That depends. Did they do good as well? Did the good they did outweigh the bad? If so then careful thought would have encouraged the publication. But if a work does net harm to Mankind, I don't think that its publication is justified for Art's sake. Art is for people.

 

It took me a long time and professional help to NOT make my own life a hell and I have little to no sympathy for those who blame everyone beyond themselves for the misery they feel when they could do something about it.

 

Fair enough. But I'm not blaming other people for my problems (which are minimal anyway). Nor am I encouraging others to do so. I am encouraging people to take command of their destinies by taking command of the habits they cultivate.

[Agemegos]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Badger3k' date=' thank you thank you thank you for touching on something I had completely forgotten. By Agemegos reasoning, I should be more violent and likely to lash out when I am actively taking martial arts classes.[/quote']

 

Why? Do you rehearse angry thoughts and unprovoked lashing out in your martial arts classes? Or do you rehearse calm self-control and defensive use of force?

[Agemegos]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

As for killing orcs might make me a racist....

 

Just no.

 

Feel free to cite whatever sources you want, whatever reports and treatsies you can find. I'm not buying it. If anything, gaming in general has made me more accepting as I met people from other cultures who were in my gaming groups. Strangely, none of them started to call me a cracker after a long orc killing session either. The face to face dynamic of gaming enhances the chances that you won't turn into a racist IMHO, and the MASSIVE benefit gained from talking to someone from a different background than yours far outweighs the very very very minor possibility that killing orcs on sight might make you view things differently in RL.

 

Fair enough. Judging people by their race is not the only thing that you rehearsed in gaming, and the net effect may well be positive. Perhaps there is no effect. Perhaps you have resisted an effect. Perhaps you are more tolerant and accepting than you would have been if you hadn't gamed, but less so than if you had played games without irremediably evil races in them. It is not possible to tell from a sample of one, even if your self-knowledge were perfectly reliable.

 

You will note that neither Cyst 13 nor I has advocated giving up RPGs, nor have we given up playing ourselves. You may conclude that we do not think that RP gaming is itself a dangerous activity.

 

In short, I agree that RP (especially the less superficial adventures, and most especially in gaming groups with diverse backgrounds) is on balance wholesome, even beneficial. That doesn't exclude the possibility that some games are not as good as others.

[Chiba Bob]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Dangit man' date=' you keep posting as I write something! Anyways, I do believe that the ACT of denying people their First Amendment rights should be prevented[/quote']

 

 

Did you know that the RPGs are censored regardless of the First Amendment. I can think of one Champions product that did not make it to the shelves.

[ghost-angel]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

We should remember ... that just because WE can't prove something or that something hasn't been proven does not outlaw its possible existance.

 

Do RPGs, in general, and especially racially focused RPGs foster rascism, bigotry and violence?

 

No, not at all.

 

Is it possible that an RPG featuring the above items might adversly affect someone heading in that direction already, or who has the psychological makeup to head in that direction but hadn't yet come to that particular conclusion?

 

probably.

 

Should we, as a group, keep an eye out in order to curb the tendencies of the person in line item two and make sure they don't slip into a negative role in real life?

 

Yes, if you care about these kinds of things. If you're asocial (or antisocial) and don't care then that's obviously your choice.

 

Does psycholigical drilling (repetative psychological tasks in order to enforce certain behaviors) work on humans?

 

yes, it does. Very effectively.

 

READ: "On Killing" it maps out, in part, the psychological effect of combat and war on a human being and how we use modern psychological training (the study goes up through training used through the Vietnam war) in order to increase our kill-ratio and "intent-to-kill fire ratio" from less than 20% in WW1 to over 95% in Vietnam.

 

Does America have an extremely bad habit of taking an item from a fringe element of unstable mind, or a small fact, and turning it into an "epidemic" such as the following: "RPGs cause rascism and violence in America's teens!"

 

oh so very much it does.

 

READ: "The Culture Of Fear"

 

A few things are pointed out in that book, like if we added up all the people who died from various forms of cancer, hoof-in-mouth, e-bola, salmonela poisoning and heart disease as provided by several "reliable" sources the United States would have reached a population of zero approximately five years ago.....

 

(tangent aside on the disease thing...)

 

Is it likely that playing in a game that features various forms of rascism, violence, hatred, prostitution, politics, theft and the wearing of silly outfits to cause anyone to do any of the above?

 

not likely unless they were 1) already doing them or 2) had a perpensity (sp?) towards such acts already or 3) just plain stupid.

 

Unforetunately a very large portion of our population can be classified under 3) and I'm not just being mean -- we have a A LOT of stupid people on this planet who just don't get it.

 

Fortunately many stupid people lack the imagination required to actually play an RPG for any length of time greater than an afternoon. Therefore the threat of an RPG turning someone into a violent rascist person is minimal at best - but not entirely impossible.

 

Of course, I can't prove anything with good hard numbers..

 

But we can't prove a lot of things, and we don't discount them - I point to the majority of the population that believes in a God or Gods of some form. Can't prove it, doesn't mean it's not out there and no one believes it. Doesn't mean we should discredit someone for such a belief in an item.

 

What Cyst brought up was the questions (I say he brought it up because he started the thread, he didn't actually bring up every single point involved, but made us think about it)

 

is it possible? - sure

is it likely? - not really

should we keep an eye out anyway? - recommended suggestion

can any of this be proven through imperical evidence? - no

does that mean we can ignore it? - if you want, but why take the chance

should we censor the product because of this vague possibility? - no

so why the heck are we talking about it? - to make us think and not stagnate our brains

 

 

I Am The Voices In Your Head

[edit - because I can't spell after 0100hrs]

[Guest Worldmaker]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

What about the next straw man?

 

 

Okay, hot-shot... let's look at your argument for a moment.

 

You equate creating out of the ether an non-human species of being whose psychological makeup is overwhelmingly (and exaggeratedly) based on ruthless, amoral, and cruel behavior with prejudice and discrimination against real people.

 

You dismiss the fact that no actual, living breathing human beings are actually being discriminated against in favor of the argument that a very small number of people, who are already predisposed toward such behavior anyway, might through obsessive overexposure and by the smallest of chances, have their tendency toward such behavior increased microscopically, despite no evidence showing that this will, or even can, happen.

 

And you insist that the rest of us, the overwhelming majority for whom having an evil species in a fictional setting has no effect, must change our behavior on that miniscule chance that a pre-existing bigot might perhaps become infinitessimally more prejudiced against a real group of people based on the unproven "prejudice" that the mere existence of a phantasmal species in a fictional setting is supposedly creating.

 

Where I come from, this is what we call a disassociation from reality. I mean it. The fact that other people are actually taking this load of nonsense seriously makes me weep for my species.

[Beetle]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

We should remember ... that just because WE can't prove something or that something hasn't been proven does not outlaw its possible existance.

True, it just means it's not worth being concerned with until it is proven (or at least shown to be likely). Right now, the main assertion of this thread is on the same level as a claim that an invisible, intangible and inaudible dragon lives in my garage.

 

There has not been a shred of evidence to support the idea that the use of ficitional, non-human monsters as stock villains in fantasy games has any relation whatsoever to real-world racism. As Worldmaker said earlier, the only logical result of anti-orc games would be anti-orc racism, but orcs don't really exist. There's been no evidence presented that a person having a fantasy character that fights made-up creatures results in increased real-world racism, sexism or anti-semitism.

 

A friend of mine with a psychology degree once told me that domestic violence figures spike on the nights when a heavyweight title bout is televised. Explain that Mr. What-We-Watch-Doesn't-Affect-Us-In-Any-Way.

I’d ask him to support his assertion with facts. Good luck to him' date=' because it hasn't been proven yet. See snopes.

[cyst13]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

As a point: You don't typically prove something before developing a hypothesis. You first have to decide whether this is a possible aspect of reality. If you decide it is, THEN you can attempt to falsify it by experiment. Unfortunately, since I'm not a social scientist, it would be restrictively difficult for me to test this hypothesis. Ergo, I'm going by intuition.

[cyst13]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

I've never met anyone who has posted to this thread, but I am willing to accept that none of us are racists. Is anyone will to admit to an incident in your real life in which you were aggressively confronted by a person of a different race and this caused you to form a brief judgement about all people of that race? Even if you quickly repudiated that judgement, did you have it in your head for a moment? If so, you understand how easy it is to slip into the thought pattern of judging people by group rather than individually.

 

Yes, you were able to quickly repudiate that thought and you probably never acted on it. Good. But what if it were not a one-time experience? What if you were a cop or a soldier or lived in a very violent society and you were exposed to aggression from people of different races on a daily basis? What psychological resources would you fall back upon to restrain yourself from allowing those brief anger-induced moments of racism to grow into a more long-term outlook? Is it possible for good people to adopt hateful attitudes under certain circumstances? Are any of us immune to this?

[badger3k]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

They all involved people who were trying to change.

 

Sorry, but I'm working from paper sources and personal experience.

 

Indeed. CBT achieves remarkable relief of (say) depression by retraining inappropriate habits of thought. This is done deliberately, and by the informed effort of the patient. There is nothing subliminal or involuntary about it. On the other hand, the aetiology of straighforward depression (not bipolar disorder) seems to consist entirely of dwelling on inappropriate thoughts: it is a mental habit formed by rehearsal. And yet no-one sets out to become depressed. It seems clear that mental habits can form character even without an intention to personal change. From my personal experience something similar seems to be true of anger, and some psychologists seem (according to their writings) to agree. There is, however, no well-conducted study of the treatment of anger with CBT, at least that I know of.

 

While I might agree in general, I disagree with the particulars. But thanks for the info. Are you a psychiatrist, psychologist, or just have an interest in the field? Just curious.

 

Now here's the bigger issue to me - the personal responsibility issue:

 

If it is reasonably foreseeable that what you write will lead to people killing themselves (or others) who would not otherwise have done so, then I urge you to think carefully before deciding to publish. Where to draw the line? I can only leave that to your own conscience.

 

If we have to try to judge the authors of works by these "standards", where does that leave the reader? Doesn't the reader have a responsibility to themselves and others? Let's turn it to gaming. There are a few games dealing with a feudal Japanese-style setting. Seppeku is common (well, more so than a European-style game). Should I remove this facet of the game because I think someone might play the game and kill himself? It might be different if I was writing a book on how to kill yourself, or encouraged others to do so. There would be a direct link from my work to the action. Not in a game, though. Like I said - the difference is in the intent and the effort. I would have no problem if somebody who played my game killed himself (unless I knew them, that is). My questions would be along the lines of "Where were his family and friends? Did anyone notice the warning signs (if any, that is)? etc" If the individual was an adult, he made his choice - it was his own responsibility - but surely his compatriots bear some of that.

 

If someone used my game to try to promote racism (since the Asian cultures were very unflattering about gaijin and to us were racist), then I would want to say something against the misuse of my work. Would I publish some comment or disclaimer in my work regarding such things? Possibly - they are becoming more common these days precisely because of thinking like this.

 

The charges made years ago included an assertion that D&D games actually consist of satanic worship, and that players whose characters reach third level are taught to cast real-life magic spells. They were driven by malice and paranoid delusion.

 

Unfortunately while some have left this world, there are others still active today who teach these things to people (some teach them to law enforcement personnel). How well accepted this is, I am unsure of, but the fact that they keep doing it and making money is scary. I did find one link that seems to be comprehensive on the subject :http://www.rpgstudies.net/stackpole/pulling_report.html. For Mrs Pulling I think guilt also was a motivating factor, but the belief in these things has spread beyond the original group.

 

The possible dangers that I am discussing are admittedly speculative. But my apprehensions are informed by an actual knowledge of what goes on in a role-playing game and some empirical findings from cognitive psychology, not on a belief in magic. Also, I am not hostile towards role-playing games, and only urge that we should hold the content of our games to the same standard that we hold our other activities.

 

I got on this argument to add my beliefs and its an interesting topic. I think we do hold gaming to the same standard as our other activites. I think that your standard for games is artificially low. My original question still stands (ok, maybe not original one, but it's in there somewhere) - why should we hold the "racist" elements to a different standard than the violence, magic, gods, slavery, etc?

 

As I said before (unless I didn't post it) the whole concept of races in games is racist. Elves are generally longer-lived (or immortal), better looking than humans, etc - sure sounds superior to me. The Tolkien-style war between dwarves and elves is a race war. What else can it be? I think for games such as these, the term "racism" may need to be redefined or otherwise reworked. If not, then fantasy gaming (and many others) are all inherently racist, from what I can see.

[Agemegos]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Okay' date=' hot-shot... let's look at your argument for a moment.[/quote']

 

Good idea.

 

You equate creating out of the ether an non-human species of being whose psychological makeup is overwhelmingly (and exaggeratedly) based on ruthless, amoral, and cruel behavior with prejudice and discrimination against real people.

 

No I don't. I argue that rehearsing the act of making moral judgements on the basis of race may reduce out resistance to making moral judgements on the basis of race.

 

You dismiss the fact that no actual, living breathing human beings are actually being discriminated against ...

 

No actual, living, breathing casualties are actually evacuated in a disaster drill either. We still learn from the drill. No actual enemies are out-manoeuvres ina field exercise: we still learn from the exercise.

 

And you insist that the rest of us, the overwhelming majority for whom having an evil species in a fictional setting has no effect

 

Psychological studies that detect racist attitudes in people's subconscious behaviour (by the time it takes them to make decisions and the time it takes them to recognise words) indicate that in populations studied (Californian and Arizonan undergraduates for the most part) the majority harbour racist attitudes. Of course most of them are able to suppress these when dealing with them in tasks occupying central attention, but they tend to leak through in tasks deal with peripherally. And income studies and employment studies and studiesof jury verdicts and sentencing and even the identifications of eyewitnesses all indicate that members of racial groups connected with negative stereotypes all suffer from significant disadvantages in normal life because of tacit racist attitudes.

 

It may be hard for you to imagine (not having any racist attitudes yourself), but the majority of people in modern western societies seem actually to be afflicted with subconscious racist prejudices. For example, I have them myself.

 

You confidently assert that even if the effect I fear is shown to exist the vast majority of people are in no danger of reinforcing their racist prejudices by rehearsing in RPGs acting on such prejudices. That seems unjustified. I concede your point that rehearsal may not produce the psychological changes I apprehend. But I cannot agree that the majority (vast or otherwise) stand in no danger of forming subconsicious racist attitudes: they already have them.

 

must change our behavior on that miniscule chance that a pre-existing bigot might perhaps become infinitessimally more prejudiced against a real group of people based on the unproven "prejudice" that the mere existence of a phantasmal species in a fictional setting is supposedly creating.

 

You will search my posts in vin for any insistence that anyone must. Besides which your use of 'miniscule' and 'infinitesimally' assume what you are trying to prove.

 

Where I come from, this is what we call a disassociation from reality. I mean it. The fact that other people are actually taking this load of nonsense seriously makes me weep for my species.

 

I'm sorry to have made you so sad. But perhaps reality out where most of us live is different from reality in your neck of the woods. Racist attitudes (subconscious and otherwise) are rather common out here. Even the majority of well-brought-up and decent middle-class people have been shown to harbour them, even those people who strive to act justly. Rehearsing decision-making techniques in fictional contexts has been shown to reinforce the use of those techniques in real life: an entire training industry is built on the fact. Or indeed several. It is admittedly a speculation that racist decision-making is generalisable, ie. that rehearsing making judgements against one race reinforces the habit of making decisions on the basis of race in general. But we're still a long way from hallucination.

[Guest Worldmaker]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

I'm sorry to have made you so sad. But perhaps reality out where most of us live is different from reality in your neck of the woods.

 

Obviously... since where I live common sense and logic and not some unproven pseudoscientific quackery guide our decisions.

 

Your theory is ridiculous, your conclusions even more so. The "facts" backing up your argument are unconvincing and subject to personal interpretation producing variable conclusions.

 

Your entire argument is weak. At best.

[cyst13]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Even if the only good thing that would come of this thread would be the opportunity to witness Agemegos maintain his considerable elan in the face of hostility and progressively hone his highly articulate arguments, I think it would still be worth it. This guy would make an awesome Vulcan! Kudos to you, sir.

[cyst13]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

In an attempt to come at this topic in a different way, I would pose a question to all those who answered 'no' to this thread's title.

 

Do you think creators of fantastic fiction can use imaginary groups of 'people' to foster real life tolerance towards others in their audience?

 

Specifically, I'm thinking of X-Men and Star Trek. Both these series have specifically intended to encourage their audiences to be more tolerant through the examples of their characters. Both Professor X and Jean-Luc Picard are the moral voice of those series, and they actively enourage us throughout the series to treat all others with tolerance. Is it possible for this to have any affect on how people who read/watch these series act and believe in real life? If you answer yes, then why doesn't the opposite hold true in treating orcs as homogemously evil?

[ghost-angel]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Attn: Worldmaker

 

 

If you do not believe that psychological conditioning is not possible through repetative expersises I point you towards your nearest military training facility.

 

Any psychological condition can be "trained" into the human brain .. you just have to find the right set of buttons to do so.

 

Are RPGs one of the buttons that could trigger "rascist" attitudes in people through constant training that any given race/gender/religion/etc is Evil?

 

Maybe yes, Maybe no. But it's a good place to look and check out anyway. Even if we can't "prove" it (I'll note here that no one has "Proved" the existance of "God" and we (as a species) kill for that belief on a daily basis) doesn't mean the possiblity doesn't exist and we should keep an eye out.

 

Do I believe we should censor our gaming to not include Evil Races? no, not at all - they are a part of the medium.

 

A child does not know the different between "fiction" and "reality" until you TELL them.... And RPGs are but one thing children have access to in order to expand their imagination and concept building techniques. With that in mind we might just want to take an extra moment to make sure our actions in game have no adverse effects out of game.

 

If it's not an issue with you and you don't want to take the time then stop insulting Agemegos and his theories until YOU prove that what he says is wrong. The burden of proof can fall both ways.

 

(and before you start calling the theories pseudo-scientific crap again, remember that we once thought that way about anyone postering the idea that the world was round, bacteria made people sick and flight was possible).

[Guest Worldmaker]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Do you think creators of fantastic fiction can use imaginary groups of 'people' to foster real life tolerance towards others in their audience?

 

Specifically, I'm thinking of X-Men and Star Trek. Both these series have specifically intended to encourage their audiences to be more tolerant through the examples of their characters. Both Professor X and Jean-Luc Picard are the moral voice of those series, and they actively enourage us throughout the series to treat all others with tolerance. Is it possible for this to have any affect on how people who read/watch these series act and believe in real life? If you answer yes, then why doesn't the opposite hold true in treating orcs as homogemously evil?

 

 

 

Promote, but not foster. They can put the message out there but they are in no way in control of how that message is accepted and/or interpreted. It might be their goal to spread the message "Tolerance is good", and they do a good job of it, but they aren't programming people to be more tolerant merely by spreading the message.

 

That said, there are going to be people who do just as you suggest: take the "philosophical message" of the comic book to heart... or at least play at doing so. Most people who do so, have other problems of one sort or another. I refer to those pathetic living stereotypes at SF and Trek cons that everyone and their brother jokes about because they are real if you want a concrete example.

 

Personally, I think a person who takes their philosophy for living from a comic book... even a well-written, rational comic book that is being written with a noble cause in mind, has big, big problems.

[Guest Worldmaker]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Attn: Worldmaker

 

 

If you do not believe that psychological conditioning is not possible through repetative expersises I point you towards your nearest military training facility.

 

Any psychological condition can be "trained" into the human brain .. you just have to find the right set of buttons to do so.

 

 

Been there, done that, still have the bullet-wound scars to show for it.

 

You are now arguing apples and oranges. Military training, where the subject is under constant supervision in a high-pressure closed environment with no escape valve is quite different than four to six people gathering around a dinner table once a week for four hours. The two situations are so drastically different that your comparison is laughable.

 

A person who reacted to the latter situation as if it were the former has more problems than merely being susceptible to any sort of "racist philosophy" you people are imagining exists in the RPG material.

 

 

 

 

If it's not an issue with you and you don't want to take the time then stop insulting Agemegos and his theories until YOU prove that what he says is wrong. The burden of proof can fall both ways.

 

Heh. Right. Two things. Well, two and a half things.

 

1. I never insulted Agemegos. I don't know the man, but he seems to be intelligent and is certainly eloquent and I have no reason to be personally insulting to him.

 

1a. I said his theories were laughable and the support for those theories weak at best. This is an honest appraisal based on the so-called evidence he's provided, and is thus a proper critique of his hypothesis. His theory... note the noun in this sentence please... has yet to be supported by any probative data, and until such time as it is I will continue to be skeptical.

 

2. Its not up to me to prove that he's wrong. Its up to him, as the person making the statement in the first place, to prove himself right... and sorry to say he's got a long, long way to go because so far all he's posted is questionable research, facts that can be interpreted any number of ways, and repeated rewordings of his original theories.

 

 

(and before you start calling the theories pseudo-scientific crap again, remember that we once thought that way about anyone postering the idea that the world was round, bacteria made people sick and flight was possible).

 

And that changes what, precisely? You are now saying a = b, c = b, therefore d = b. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way.

[Doug McCrae]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

Its not up to me to prove that he's wrong. Its up to him' date=' as the person making the statement in the first place, to prove himself right... and sorry to say he's got a long, long way to go[/quote']What sort of proof do you mean? A scientific proof in the sense that smoking has been proven to cause cancer? Obviously that's impossible as no studies have been done in this area. You know this, I know this, everyone involved in the debate knows this. So why are you asking for proof?

[Guest Worldmaker]

Re: Is "evil race" an intrinsically rascist concept?

 

What sort of proof do you mean? A scientific proof in the sense that smoking has been proven to cause cancer? Obviously that's impossible as no studies have been done in this area. You know this' date=' I know this, everyone involved in the debate knows this. So why are you asking for proof?[/quote']

 

 

Oh, this is good. You're rebuking me for not taking your hypothesis on faith. What, are we in church now? Excuse me for having a sense of skepticism and a working cerebellum.