When is PC too PC?

[Erunáme]

John Wiley Price is well known in the DFW area to be a troublemaker when it comes to race. He's one of the most outspoken in the area who is quick to cry racism and take offense where there is none.

It's definitely a real story:

http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/pages/Hom ... geId=1.1.1

[solicitr]

Wotta rube!

[solicitr]

Doctor, doctor there's smoke in my eyes

We should be used by now to the self-important berks of the British Medical Association using their annual junket to suggest some aspect of our over-regulated, over-nannied lives in which they feel there is insufficient interference.

This year, though, they have excelled themselves, demanding higher certification for films that show anyone smoking. Soon, the films of Bogey and Bacall (the latter of whom is still going strong and looking pretty good at 83) will be top-shelf material, and allowed to be shown only on subscription channels well after the watershed.

Let us, though, consider the sheer, unmitigated claptrap of this idea. I am addicted to old films, watch little else when I get near a television, and have been so since infancy. People smoke in them all the time. Yet I have never smoked so much as a salmon in my life.

Do you, like me, start to feel troubled about what role the medical profession would find for itself if we had a totalitarian state? What did that nice Mr Mengele do for a living, by the way?

--Simon Heffer in today's Telegraph

[Túrin Turambar]

Apparently someone finds the Australian flag offensive.

I'm glad that the day I put into helping Pam Parker get elected as Mayor of Logan City seems to be paying off.

[Impenitent]

LM, I saw that story (though with less detail) in The Age and was baffled. What are the parameters for complaining about the flying of the flag? There seems no legal footing for it, other than building regulations which can be waived by Council in any case.

Mind you, I generally find flag-waving a little uncomfortable; patriotism is a good thing, but so many Australians seem to be moving closer and closer to the line between patriotism and nationalism - and jingoism ain't that far beyond it. I'm seeing more and more Australian flags going up in the 'urbs. For me, it flies against the laid-back, understated Australian national character somehow (yeah, a stereotype, I know). That kind of in-your-face symbolism seems contagious.

[Túrin Turambar]

Mind you, I generally find flag-waving a little uncomfortable; patriotism is a good thing, but so many Australians seem to be moving closer and closer to the line between patriotism and nationalism - and jingoism ain't that far beyond it. I'm seeing more and more Australian flags going up in the 'urbs. For me, it flies against the laid-back, understated Australian national character somehow (yeah, a stereotype, I know). That kind of in-your-face symbolism seems contagious.

I’d actually been thinking about that myself. In the end, though, I don’t think it bothers me that much. The people who typically fly Australian flags (in my experience) are older people who’ve been doing it for years. And while it has certainly been appropriated as a symbol of nationalism or even racism in recent years, I know that is not the intended meaning of the overwhelming majority of the people who fly it. Certainly I’m happy that we don’t have any customs of saluting the flag or playing music at it or anything like that here, which seems kind of idolatrous to me.

It would be far worse, in my view, if we did have some sort of culture war over the use of our national flag. If people like Mr Wilson stop flying the flag, then it might just be left entirely in the hands of nationalists and jingoists. Better that people, both within Australia and around the world, see the flag flying merrily in the suburbs than see it being waved by an angry mob.

[Impenitent]

Oh, it's little more than my paranoia showing its face. And there are still many people who don't know all the words to the anthem. There's no groundswell of jingoism beyond the usual suspects and drive-time talkshow hosts - and at international cricket matches, of course!

[Alatar]

Sorry to dig this thread up, but I didn't want to interject into one of the more serious racism threads.

As some of you know, I've started playing a lot of boardgames, and one of the designers has posted an article on how his artwork (or even characters) need to be changed for the US market because they might be deemed racist. Its an interesting perspective and I thought it worth sharing.

Two times, with Isla Dorada and now with Waka Tanka, there has been problems with the graphics in my games, which had to be changed by fear that they would be considered racist in the US. My friends at Days of Wonder also experienced unexpected (and incomprehensible from Europe) attacks about the presence of slaves in their 1001 nights boardgame Five Tribes. I think there is something interesting in why some pictures or themes can be seen as racist in the US and not in Europe. When such an issue occurs, and it happens very often in various industries, the usual reaction on this side of the Atlantic is to mock American oversensibility and political-correctness, while the US point is to consider Europeans insensitive – which they are not – or provocative – which they might be. Another problem is that Americans are used to see attacks on political-correctness come mostly from the right, meaning from people who want the freedom to express problematic ideas, and don’t realize that many European attacks are coming from the left, from people who think, as I do, that euphemizing language or representation is mostly an excuse not to deal with “real world” social or racial issues, and even to hide them. As a result, undiscriminate political-correctness applied to language and representation ends up harming the very cause it was supposed to defend.

Anyway, may be because I am a European, I still don’t really understand what exactly was the problem with the presence of slaves in Five Tribes and, as I wrote earlier, I find their absence in Puerto Rico much more unsettling. Five Tribes has a fantasy and extremely orientalist setting, Puerto Rico has a more historical one, but both settings include slaves, and replacing them with so-called “colonists” or with fakirs, when there are hundreds of slaves but not a single fakir in the whole text of the 10001 nights, looks like a way to simply ignore, to erase, the problematic parts of our history. It’s not getting rid of orientalism or racism, it’s not even helping to make sense of it, it’s just euphemizing them in a very superficial, and some would say hypocritical way.

The full article is here:

http://faidutti.com/blog/?p=5552

Scroll down for the English version.

[CosmicBob]

I've played Five Tribes and had no idea that there was supposed to be slaves in it. It makes sense though.

[Inanna]

I wonder how much exposure to a particular facet in a gaming world makes it easy to accept it in practice? That would be one of my concerns.

India is probably the most non-political country I've seen. People would say to my face how sad it is that my parents have only daughters - and I was their last, failed try. How someone is too fat, too dark, too whatever... Is said to their face.

And with it comes a numbness. Nothing is shocking. When it's perfectly acceptable to be lamented that you are a girl, abortions on gender become acceptable too.

Or maybe the abortions would happen anyway & an open discourse on less desirability of a girl child doesn't affect it. But I think it does. When it's acceptable to talk about/play games that reflect certain practices, it might desensitize us to the actions.




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Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

[Alatar]

But if you're playing a game set in colonial times, its hypocritical to pretend that slavery was not part of that? Take for example the Spartacus game. Granted, it's adult in tone, but you buy and sell slaves and prisoners, train them as Gladiators, use them as assassins. Because that was the culture. Now, you might suggest that's not fitting subject matter for a game, and you might be right, but it would be ridiculous to create such a game and make all the Gladiators paid labourers.

[Impenitent]

Same issue when writing fiction, I would think, especially historical fiction. To rewrite history in a revisionist fashion that omits or whitewashes all the nasty bits is not good practice.

However, including the distasteful bits of history is not the same as condoning them by the manner and tone in which the author/creator includes those elements in the world, whether literary or gaming - and in gaming, that can go a step further by the power given to players to manipulate the world to take advantage of those elements.

My son, for example, has always defended Grand Theft Auto (which he doesn't play) because he insists that the game creators did not explicitly write the game in such a way as to encourage misogynistic/racist treatment of women/non-whites. He says they wrote the game to reflect what happens in the real world, which means that misogynistic actions can be taken against female characters by gamers - but they then have to deal with the consequences of such actions in game because the laws of the real world also apply.

I don't know whether that's true because I've never played the game - but he did write an essay on this in his media class and got full marks (though that probably says more about his debating skills than the merits of the game).

I don't know whether game play has effects upon real life attitudes and behaviours of gamers; my son argued that it does not, unless the gamer already holds socio/psychopathic tendencies, and used an array of statistics to support his argument. I tend to agree with him. Many, many people I know play shoot 'em up games, and have absolutely no desire to shoot people in real life (including my son, who is a pacifist yet enjoys playing first person shooter games which make me feel quite unsettled when I'm in the room listening to gunfire, shrieks of pain and other sounds of warfare).

But back to the topic in hand!

I believe that political correctness can become a zealotry in some people who mean well but seem to hold a very simplistic world view in which all matters are either right or wrong without any capacity for anything in the middle.

[Inanna]

Yes, I agree with Impish and Al. I guess my only question would be how accurately is the plight of the slaves reflected? Are they treated as "things".

Impish, I agree with your son that shooting games does not lead to someone wanting to shoot people up in real life, unless the tendencies are there. I love shooting games too...heck I've even used a light machine gun. That doesn't mean I would like shooting up people.

My comment was more related to the overall tone in the society. If you are asked to be politically correct, I would assume you are given empathetic reasons for them. Would that not increase your empathy?


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Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

[Lalaith]

The question, though, was about how this inclusion of slavery would be viewed in the US, right?

I don't know. I'm not a big fan of political correctness and definitely not of historical revisionism. I do try to be empathetic towards the feelings of others, however, especially in groups to which I do not belong (e.g., black Americans). So slavery in the US. Well, this is still kind of a touchy subject, honestly, and I try to take my cues from the black community. In an overall societal view, slavery isn't a far-removed issue yet. Conceivably, my parents are old enough to have known someone who was an actual slave. Certainly, they would have known their immediate descendants (children and grandchildren), and I am old enough to have known a grandchild of a slave. Keeping in mind, too, that although actual slavery was outlawed, de facto slavery continued, and, certainly, racism is still an issue, with my parents having lived right through the heart of the civil rights movement. My mom is from Alabama, and that is a different environment. Granted, I haven't really visited or spent much time there since I graduated from high school, but there were strong societal standards for how blacks and whites should interact. A black person wouldn't be expected to make prolonged eye contact with me, stay on the same side of the road as me, or otherwise be "disrespectful" to a white person. I am hoping this has changed by now!!!! But that is the way it was back then (late 80s, early 90s). (This was a great shock to me, being a Yankee. It is definitely not that way in Cleveland, which I am glad for.)

Anyway, there is no real point to that, I'm afraid, other than to say that slavery has a major, fairly recent context in American society that might make it a touchier subject than in other countries. But I could be wrong.

[Cerin]

I think a big factor here is that we're referring to a game, not a work of literature that's meant to be historically accurate. Is the game meant to be instructive of history, or is it just a vehicle with which to have fun? If it's not meant to be instructive, I can see that it makes marketing sense to change the slaves to something else for the American market, and I wouldn't think that change would be terribly consequential or violate any important principle.

[Impenitent]

Lali's exposition pins it, I think.

When a society is only one or two generations away from slavery, then it is indeed an issue requiring great sensitivity, and I think there is an argument for bending over backwards to ensure sensitivity for those who are descendants of those who lived through it.

I immediately thought of WWII games - and the inclusion of death camps/guards/gas chambers/ovens as a game element. How horrible to be confronted with that, especially if one were a Holocaust survivor or descendant thereof.

[yovargas]

When a society is only one or two generations away from slavery, then it is indeed an issue requiring great sensitivity, and I think there is an argument for bending over backwards to ensure sensitivity for those who are descendants of those who lived through it.

I agree. Thing is, it's so sensitive that no matter what you do, you're bound to piss off a good chunk of people. There's no "right" way to go about it. But still, it's better to show somehow that you care than that you don't.

[Alatar]

The problem then becomes that it appears like you're "whitewashing" history. Pretending the uncomfortable bits didn't happen. Its part of the narrative. Until George Takei started speaking out, I knew nothing of the Japanese Internment camps. But then they made a Musical about it. Art is a powerful force. If you use art to suppress information rather than free it... Well, if those who forget history are doomed to repeat it, then what of those who deliberately hide history behind political correctness?

[Inanna]

I agree with Al - I have learned most of my history through fiction & art.

What I would like is if within the game it was possible for someone to say that they did not want to own slaves...


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Please bear with my typos & grammar mistakes. Sent from my iPhone - Palantirs make mistakes too.

[yovargas]

I don't know the game in question at all, but I think part of the potentially big problem with something like putting slave owning in a game is that now buying (virtual) slaves becomes a "fun" mechanic. If you're just trying to do a fun strategy game, it might be best to avoid a setting that includes too-recent atrocities as part of the fun. If you must use such a setting, try to somehow give a nod to the fact that what's happening was very very very very un-fun for a big chunk of the humans involved.