I tend to separate real social justice envelope pushers from the ditto warriors. One wants a very agreeable sort of change, the other are in need of something to fight and shout for. The former would challenge and discuss cases of negative cultural appropriation (like, say, an advert for burglar alarms featuring a hurtful depiction of stereotyped gypsies, for instance), while the latter would slap a great notice boards on any non-anglosaxon culture expressions saying "Whities may not touch". Et cetera, et cetera...
(I do wonder where the Souls series sit with the latter; it's appropriation, but I suppose its good or ill depends on how Europeans and Japanese are in relation to each other on their scale. Of course, I bring up the Souls series because it's an excellent example of how fiddling with other cultures can create something great)
I do think that the need for a cause, a banner and a struggle is one of the greatest needs in a human being. Some people, for various reasons, need it more than others, of course, but it's a common need. That was what that whole GG business was mainly about, as far as I could see. Two blocks of very young people, attaching themselves to a cause and joining the struggle. It's also a large question of identity, finding and joining a cause, particularly when you are young and working to chisel out an identity. I did that. Most of us no doubt did.
Well, moving on... Batterfield 1. I don't know. The whole skin thing is not at all as awful as it could be.
I have decided not to buy it, though. Now that I have had a look. The Great War setting seems mismanaged, schizophrenic. As if they couldn't decide if they wanted swashbuckling 1910's action or another sombre monument to the horrid waste or futility of that war, so they said "why not both?". Historical where it suits, not historical where that suits. It would've been so easy to balance it. The Public has become rather used to alternative realities and history scenarios, they could've just made one up. Then, they could've had room for everything they pleased, without the setting and the mood beginning to chafe. Plus, with EA recently back to locking down people's games behind their backs, I don't want to give them the tiniest bit of support.
I wanted to lope people's ears off from my charging steed. But not enough to forego my admittadly petty principles.
Eep, I missed this, and I'd like to say that I agree with pretty much everything you said. I suppose some of us, myself included, may not make it clear enough: we like our fellow progressives. We're down with all the [case 1] situations, that sort of thing tends to be reasonable and justifiable. It's the [case 2] stuff being treated as [case 1] material and forced down our throats with authoritarian zeal that sounds the tyranny alarms
and pisses me off for being loony tunes levels of ideological stupidity. Syncretism is a thing, yanno? Individuals from one culture appreciating or using elements of another in entertainment, art, development of new cultural practices, &c. is not bigotry or whatever unless such is implied ipso facto (like, say, with blackface minstrel shows).
DaS is a great example of why cultural syncretism tends to be a
good thing. Moreover, it's inevitable, natural, and nigh-universal. You know how one of the common responses to cultural appropriation whining is to turn around and say, "Okay then, people from [cultural/racial/ethnic group] can't use [European cultural or technological artifact] either!" It's all patently absurd, especially when we remember that pretty much all developments are the result of the spread of ideas and practices through time and space, and there's nothing wrong with being interested in other cultures and their practices (quite the opposite, I'd say), only when a deliberate effort is made to make a group/practice/whatever look evil or idiotic for some dumb reason. Even unintentional ignorance or offense isn't really worth more than a joke or fifty million (take Evangelion's use of Christian symbols and ideas).
The identity thing is what I've been saying all along, if in slightly less positive terms. The "SJW" crowd, though they've certainly made their own bed, are also a product of the delusions of past generations (special snowflake syndrome and mandatory university + debt are both on the hands of their parents) and the softness of Western society: this is why I take so much pleasure in ripping into the "white privilege" folks, they're so privileged themselves that they can spend all day long fucking around on their $600 phones or $2500 facebook machines whining about how some people have it so easy (double irony points when they're white themselves).
Basically it's in large part that this generation have been taught that they're all super speshul and have a total dearth of serious problems, and then collided with fringe leftists who venerate victimhood. That's the heart of SJW culture: the desire for self-fulfillment twisted to an extreme by their parents, and an ideologically twisted perspective which makes victims out to be the most important people in society, combined with a total lack of things to make
them victims. Thus, they have to invent or inflate problems to make themselves feel victimized to attain personal fulfillment. I'd be more sorry for them if they weren't trampling on actual victims or setting progressivism back by decades in the process. You don't erase inequality or build understanding by continually trying to force people to hate and distrust each other, by attempting to racially segregate society again (fuckin' seriously), or by passing off pre-modern perspectives on women (as fragile emotionally brittle porcelain dolls) as feminism.
At least that's my lazy pop-psych interpretation. I'm mostly just fed up and want them to go away so that we can get back to grinding away at the actual fascists and trying in vain to do something about the atrocious state of labor and the environment. That, and a little scared about what would happen if they actually managed to get their dystopian double-speak and thought policing all the way in the door of the halls of power.
And yeah, one thing people of all types can agree with, EA a shit.
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Topic: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O (Read 14945741 times)