Just a quick addendum to yesterday's post:
I've been playing Dungeons & Dragons for a long while now. Since (roughly) 1982...about 43 years. To put that in perspective, Gary Gygax played D&D for 36 years (from 1972-2008) while Dave Arneson played roughly 37 years (from 1972-2009). While I'd imagine they did quite a bit more gaming than myself (as my "hobby" was their lives and livelihoods) I've been around...I'm not "new" to this game.
D&D is for everyone. Over the years, I have played "old edition" D&D (B/X and AD&D) with people of all sorts: Boys and girls as young as age eight. Straight men. Gay men. Straight women. Gay women. Whites. Blacks. Asians. East Indians. Pacific Islander. Mixed race. Mexicans. Canadians. All sorts of Europeans (hello Cauldron!). Proud "Rednecks" from Eastern Washington. Lefty radicals who'd take any opportunity to protest "the Man." Catholics. Christians. Jews. Agnostics. Atheists. People from "old (East Coast) money." People on disability who were unable to work. Ex-military (marine scout-sniper). Alcoholic hoboes. Ex-drug dealers/gang members. Guys who would go on to become Dominican monks. Longshoremen. Computer programmers. Cooks. Bankers. Musicians. Entrepreneurs. Married, family guys. Dating couples. Singles. Suave, charismatic professionals that worked out (a lot) and fat nerds that were the epitome of the "gamer sterotype." Democrats and Republicans and people who've opted out of the political system entirely.
I've played with a LOT of different types of people, from many different walks of life. PLUS a handful of people who I've never seen or met but only played with on-line...who knows what diversity those folks might have been representing?
Have I ever played with a Nazi (Neo- or otherwise)? Not that I know of. But it's certainly possible. Everyone has things about themselves that they keep to themselves. If they were a secret Nazi, it didn't affect my game at all...nor did it mar what appeared (to me) to be their enjoyment from the experience.
I've only had one person tell me that D&D just "wasn't for them" (although they seemed to be having a good time in the moment, while playing); that was my wife. All the others I've encountered and run games for would have happily come back for more if circumstances (time constraints, priorities, responsibilities, etc.) had not intervened. Truth be told, most often those "circumstances" were simply ME flaking out...being unwilling or unable to continue running the game, for a variety of reasons. Many of those people I abandoned continue to play today...just with other Dungeon Masters.
The POINT is that this "D&D thing"...having adventures, fighting monsters, discovering treasure. dying in filthy, subterranean environments....generally holds appeal for ALL types of people. It's not just a "straight white male thing." You'll hear that nonsense from some corners of the internet, but that's not my experience.
[hmm, now that I think of it, there was another guy who told me D&D "wasn't for him;" he had been brought to a session by his (enthusiastic) girlfriend of the time...a guy I'd known for a while through my brother. He was really outside his comfort zone with the whole experience (his interests lay in fast cars, making money, and drugs). However, since Justin is a white straight male, his exclusion from the hobby doesn't really impact the "diversity" of people with whom I've gamed]
And it IS a game for everyone...one that is playable simultaneously by people of varying skill levels, backgrounds, mental and physical capabilities (assuming you have a means of rolling dice or generating random numbers), giving a wide swath of humanity a chance to experience pulse-pounding action together...something that team sports can't even do, unless played at a very low level of competition.
And why does that matter? Because it is the experience of competition...of being "tested under fire"...that brings people together and cements bonds of lasting respect, camaraderie, and friendship.
You see this happen in other pressure experiences: military folks talk about this a lot. Having never been in the military myself, I've only had the opportunity to play with ex-military folks, but I've known quite a few men and women (many of them gamers) who've shared the bonds they've created with their "brothers" in facing true life-and-death situations. I have no reason to doubt it.
On a smaller scale, I see it all the time in youth sports. My son has friends all over this town because of all the various teams he's been a part of with different kids from different schools with different backgrounds. Or here's a better anecdote: my daughter took a year off from playing club soccer, but decided to get back into it for the coming year. She tried out, made a team, and got put with a bunch of girls whom she'd never met before, but who (mostly) already knew each other. After her first week of practice she was having a lot of negative feelings...she was feeling left out and excluded and sad, despite enjoying the sport and having a good coach.
Then came last weekend in which she played two games with the girls against real opponents. Now, her entire demeanor has changed...having gone through the games, playing with the others, suffering the ups and downs, being tested, and contributing she now has a whole different relationship to her teammates. She has a team of "friends," now...they laugh and talk together and have mutual respect for each other and she feels a part of the team. And I suspect (based on what I've observed in the past) that those bonds will only strengthen over the course of the season. Regardless, I've seen the shift in my own child.
It's what I try to produce and promote in the teams that I coach, too. Camaraderie. It makes for a better team and a better quality of play on the field/court/pitch.
Back to D&D: you can achieve this same thing through D&D play. I've seen it happen...it's why I make no bones about being an "adversarial DM" (ah, crap...that's a whole 'nother post I've been meaning to write...). Through running D&D, I can apply pressure that causes folks to come together and form (or strengthen) bonds that can only come from working cooperatively "under fire." Over the years, I've seen it happen many, many times.
And unlike my daughter's soccer team (which requires you to be an 11 year old girl of a certain quality of skill), D&D has practically no limits to the diversity of people that can experience it. Assuming everyone understands how to play, the people around the table can be any gender, any color, any age, any cultural/economic background, any political persuasion, any religion, any anything. And the GAME can still forge bonds between these disparate groups of people. Again, I've seen it happen, many times. Sometimes to extremes: that hippy radical and redneck from Wenatchee I mentioned earlier? Those two ended up getting married (I was the Best Man at their wedding). Sadly, their marriage didn't last, but they were together for years and gaming was a shared passion that (along with love) helped them grow and change together.
On a smaller scale, I can point to my son's best friend who he hasn't gone to school with for 4+ years and who he never played on a sports team with. They are so different in so many ways: Diego is an ultra-competitive athlete, academic achiever, very religious, and tends to take himself very seriously. Maceo is NOT an athlete, not religious, not a great student, and totally at ease with and accepting of who he is (and who he isn't). But they've played D&D together (in my home campaign) several times, and those shared experiences are still things they talk about (sometimes) and allowed them to disregard all the ways they are different and simply focus on their shared friendship as two young, fairly wholesome adolescents. The two went on their first double date last Tuesday...Diego with his carefully coiffed hair, Mace with his blonde buzz cut...and, from what I heard, pretty much ditched the girls after lunch to simply hang out at the mall together.
D&D can bring disparate people together in a shared experience in a way that few...if any...things can do. Yeah, there's something of that in attending a sporting event (you end up 'high-fiving' a lot of strange bedfellows at a Seahawks home game), but the interaction is not nearly as deep, nor as intimate, as gaming around a table. D&D can be a tool for forming connections with our fellow humans in a way that is sorely needed in our present society. Why not use it?
Ghettoizing, ostracizing, and partitioning off people we dislike and/or disagree with is NOT the path to a better world...it just ain't. As I wrote yesterday, we are different for a reason; part of living this life is (I believe) learning to harmonize with others. There is beauty in harmony; in music, a harmony is a unified whole, despite a composition of different notes. That's what we're striving for. Well, it's what I'm striving for.
Not that it's easy or simple. Not that it's a fast/speedy process. Not that it's convenient...but, man O man, don't we already have a lot of conveniences in our lives? Does everything have to be as simple and easy as ordering something off Amazon with the push of a button?
Learning to love your Nazi neighbor isn't an easy task. Neither is learning to be a Dungeon Master. For some people (including, perhaps, myself) the latter is far more easy than the former. And to folks for whom this is the case (like, perhaps, myself) I'd suggest focusing on THAT (i.e. learning to DM) and then simply worry about running an inclusive game devoid of interest in anything other than the action at the table and ability of the players participating. Focus on the game you're running, and let the game do the harder work of bringing people together.
Try it out. See what happens. If that doesn't work then, sure, go ahead and go back to the thing you KNOW doesn't work (kicking the unwanted untouchables to the curb)...that's always in your back pocket.
I don't have any Nazi friends (that I know of). But even if I did, that wouldn't make me a Nazi.
[hmm...I guess that wasn't a "quick" addendum. Apologies]
You can let a Nazi play at your table if you want but, like it or not, the goal of a Nazi is not to harmonise. The Nazi philosophy doesn't allow for diversity or the free exchange of ideas, so eventually you're going to have to make the decision whether you want to run a game that includes Nazis as players or a game that excludes Nazis as players. Having a Nazi friend may not make you a Nazi, but it definitely makes you a Nazi sympthatiser.
ReplyDeleteReputation is important. As for me, I'd rather be known as the DM who doesn't allow Nazis at my table than as a pretty good DM who for some reason tolerates that one skinhead who keeps talking about ethnic cleansing and fascist leadership.
That's not harmonizing with others, that's opening the door for threats and hostility, and enabling it to thrive by doing nothing to act against it.
You can allow Nazis at your table if you want, but Nazis aren't about harmony. They're explicitly interested in pushing out anything that doesn't fit into their ethnic and fascist definition of what's acceptable. Having Nazi friends might not make you a Nazi, but it sure does make you a Nazi sympathiser. Letting a Nazi play at your table enables the Nazi to harbour hatred and intolerance for other players, and frankly I wouldn't feel comfortable playing at your table.
ReplyDeleteReputation is important. I'd rather be know as a pretty good DM who deosn't allow Nazis at the table than a great DM who does.
Hm.
DeleteThere are disruptive people in gaming, and they don't need to be a skinhead with prominent swastika tattoos to cause chaos. ANY disruptive people are going to be asked (by me) to leave the game, regardless of ideology. I run a tight ship.
But if the person isn't disruptive? And if they are a good player and cooperative with the others at the table? What do I care what his/her haircut or tattoos are? We aren't talking politics at the table; we're engaged in play.
I understand you might be uncomfortable by the mere presence of such a person..so much so that you don't want to play at my table anymore. There might be people who are uncomfortable with YOU (or with another player) due to any number of reasons...skin color, style of clothing, manner of speech (accents), general "attitude," whatever.
If folks are uncomfortable and want to leave, I get it. That's their prerogative.
But I also understand what you're saying: there IS such a thing as reputation and stigma by association, and if I allow a professed Nazi to sit at my table, my other players may walk...and then the only player I'd have is the Nazi and their (presumably) Nazi friends. And then I'd just be hanging with Nazis. That would suck, sure.
Hopefully, though, my non-Nazi table mates aren't a bunch of cowards that quit on me or mistrust my ability to keep the peace at my table.
As I've said: I'm not a Nazi. And I'm not a Nazi sympathizer. And, so far as I'm aware, I've never run a game for a Nazi. I'm more interested in a person's astrological sign than their political affiliation, so "are you a Nazi?" is not a question I've ever bothered to ask a player.
But I'll say this: most racism and hatred have their basis in fear and (often) fear of the unknown or unfamiliar. How can we ever come to a place of mutual respect, understanding, and tolerance of we don't open ourselves to others?
If a Nazi sat down at my table, my feeling is that I and my players would assimilate them into OUR culture, not the other way around. If the Nazi acted in a way that disrupted the game (which INCLUDES threatening players at the table or "talking about ethnic cleansing and fascist leadership"), they'd be asked to leave...this is the same as for a person who's not a Nazi who behaves badly. People who play well with others get to stay...others can hit the road.
[a real, dyed in the wool "evil" Nazi probably isn't going to want to play at my table anyway...I have too many friends and acquaintances (and family members!) who aren't of the "master race"]
You say that "Letting a Nazi play at your table enables the Nazi to harbour hatred and intolerance for other players." No, it doesn't. A person who wants to harbor hatred and intolerance are going to harbor hatred and intolerance, regardless of whether they are playing D&D with others or not...and so long as they keep their opinions to themselves, who cares? Everyone has their hatreds (or, at least, petty grievances) that they cherish for stupid, BS reasons...so what? The only way we can hope to encourage (positive) change in others is by getting to know them and letting them know us.
Do you want positive change? Or are you just hoping to outlive all the world's miscreants?
I imagine that my stance on this will be disappointing to some readers. I'm sorry about that. Please understand: tolerating and embracing a fellow human being does NOT mean tolerating and embracing hateful behavior.
But if they are not behaving in a hateful fashion? I'm not going to fault a person for their very existence, sorry.
"But if the person isn't disruptive? And if they are a good player and cooperative with the others at the table? What do I care what his/her haircut or tattoos are? We aren't talking politics at the table; we're engaged in play."
ReplyDeleteHypothetically, here's a situation: you have a married couple at your game table. They get a divorce because the husband beats his wife, and she put up with that until one day he beat their kid half-blind. She's uncomfortable with him at the game table, understandably, but he's always been pleasant and non-disruptive during the game. What do you do?
"But I also understand what you're saying: there IS such a thing as reputation and stigma by association, and if I allow a professed Nazi to sit at my table, my other players may walk...and then the only player I'd have is the Nazi and their (presumably) Nazi friends. And then I'd just be hanging with Nazis. That would suck, sure."
Would you do anything different if that happened? Or just accept that you run a table for Nazis now?
"But if they are not behaving in a hateful fashion? I'm not going to fault a person for their very existence, sorry."
It's not their very existence, they chose to be hateful, to hold the belief that some people are, by the circumstances of their birth, subhuman. They are the ones hating people for their very existence, not the people objecting to them.
If a couple at my table got divorced due to a serious domestic violence incident, I would assume the abuser would be jailed and unable to participate.
DeleteHowever, let's say it was just a "messy breakup;" say, one partner cheated on the other or whatever...something short of criminality. And say both still wanted to play at my table, even though one (or both) of the former partners felt uncomfortable by the presence of the other. How would I deal with that?
I'm not a marriage counselor; I'm not a therapist. I'm a Dungeon Master. If one person (or the other or both) wanted to bog down a game session with rehashing the shit between them, I'd ask that player (or the other or both) to leave. If they were married with kids, I might suggest they both take a break from D&D to work on their relationship, as that (in my opinion) is the bigger priority.
But if they could both behave in a mature fashion, they could both stay and play. I've seen divorced couples and broken up couples continue to work together in all sorts of situations. Plenty of exes working together at the same company...other exes working together at the same (jointly owned) business. I've known exes that still do "family outings" together with their kids...camping trips and whatnot. Hell, look at the musical acts that stuck together despite the divorces and breakups of band members.
As for the hypothetical Nazi situation...that seems pretty unlikely. But maybe that's what God wants me to do: change Nazi ideology by compassionately running D&D for a bunch of skinheads while not tolerating any bad behavior from them. You can call that ridiculous...but, then, the proposed hypothetical situation is pretty ridiculous.
You're suggesting I live in fear...fear of hypotheticals, fear of lost reputation, fear of...I don't know. I'm not going to live in fear. Sorry.
With regard to their hateful beliefs: I am not the thought police. It's not against the law to have bad thoughts. It's not against the law to hate. I care a LOT less about a person's beliefs than a person's actions. Having a hateful belief is not the same as taking a hateful action. Hateful actions will not be tolerated. But your beliefs are your own.
I dunno. It just doesn't quite sit right with me. I've seen some really bad divorces where legally everything was ok.
DeleteAs for hateful beliefs... I do largely agree, I have no idea what is going on in someone's head, you know? But unfortunately, too often we see hateful beliefs, even if never acted on by that person, embolden hateful acts in others. The people that never participated in hateful acts, but cheered them on and let the people that did know they were in like company. Based on that, it seems only right to try to stand against hateful beliefs as well.
Would that you hadn't written a second post.
ReplyDeleteIn Weimar-era Germany, many well-meaning, intellectually or culturally liberal Germans made the same kinds of appeals to shared humanity, civic harmony, and the importance of dialogue over division. They believed—sincerely—that extremism could be moderated through inclusion, or that democratic institutions and cultural practices could absorb and neutralize hate without needing to confront it directly. They saw exclusion as a danger, not a safeguard, and often dismissed early fascists as unserious or too marginal to warrant decisive action. That belief turned out to be catastrophically wrong.
My second argument would be that you haven't really met that many serious fascists. You assume that hateful ideology is primarily a result of immaturity, isolation, or ignorance, rather than deeply internalized belief or identity. That assumption is easier to maintain if your experience with fascism has been indirect—filtered through online discourse, fringe behavior, or adolescent edginess—rather than lived encounters with people who sincerely believe in the supremacy of one race, culture, or order and are committed to enacting it.
There’s a difference between someone parroting reactionary talking points for shock or out of confusion and someone who has embraced fascist thinking as a worldview. The latter group isn’t simply waiting for a positive social encounter to reconsider their ideas. They often view acts of tolerance as weakness, and inclusive spaces as targets, not opportunities. If your experience with fascism is limited to theoretical threats or casual provocateurs, then it’s understandable to imagine that welcoming them to your table could soften or “humanize” them. But that perspective falls apart when you’ve seen what actual, hardline fascists are capable of—how organized, strategic, and fundamentally anti-human their goals can be. People who’ve lived in direct opposition to fascist violence—whether through activism, identity, or resistance—tend not to romanticize the idea of reform through proximity.
I have a third point.
Thirdly, this entire posture—of assuming a neutral ground, of inviting ideological enemies into a shared space with the expectation that human connection will triumph—is only truly available to someone insulated from the direct consequences of the ideology in question. That insulation is what's meant by "white privilege"... not as a moral failing, but as a position of unthreatened perspective. It's the ability to treat fascist ideology as a bad choice or a youthful detour because our identity is not the one being targeted by that ideology in a material, existential way.
ReplyDeleteThis privilege expresses itself subtly throughout your piece. It's the calm certainty that a Neo-Nazi player will behave respectfully at the table. It's the assertion that the game itself can do the heavy lifting of reconciliation, even in the absence of explicit political accountability. It's in the ability to offer a second chance to someone whose views threaten other players' fundamental dignity and safety, without appearing to consider how those other players might feel about it: whether they would still feel safe, whether they would stay at the table at all. When the white speaker is not the one being dehumanised, it's easier to preach about bridges instead of boundaries.
This isn't to say you're unaware, JB. You seem to believe that your openness is a form of resistance to extremism. But the argument is built on the assumption that your role, as DM, as a Christian, as a moral agent — is more important than the greater good of protecting yourself, your family, those people who are right now being cruelly threatened by the ideology, and the vast part of the population to whom these self-same fascists feel no responsibility, no consideration and no remorse for their actions.
You're being very generous. But you can afford to be. Though I don't know why, since those people who matter most to you in this world are direct targets of this very ideology you refuse to see as... well, as dangerous as it actually is.
I have a fourth point.
My fourth point is this. The framing of these two posts makes the extremely dangerous assumption that we only have to deal with fascists one at a time. That fascism is an individual moral failing. One person making one bad choice at a time. By focusing on the "Nazi gamer kid" as an isolated case, you avoid engaging with the communal nature of fascism: how it spreads through networks, how it reinforces itself through shared language and cultural production, how it actively recruits, and how it relies on the acquiescence or silence of bystanders and apologists, such as yourself, who with good intentions opens the door so that more than one can storm through it.
ReplyDeleteThis one-at-a-time lens allows you to apply a pastoral, almost therapeutic approach, where redemption is possible if the individual is treated kindly and shown another way. And yes, of course that can happen. But fascism doesn't grow because no one loved the fascist enough. It grows through cohesion, propaganda, and power. It thrives in tolerated spaces, especially in communities that confuse inclusion with neutrality and mistake early warning signs for youthful rebellion or mere poor taste. By imagining that the table can contain or redirect an isolated individual, you miss how ideological contagion works. How one person at the table may not be the only one, and how even the perception of tolerated fascism can signal permission or safety to others who carry similar views.
Fascists, despite the nonsense of the voyeuristic press, do not operate as lone wolves, even when they present that way. They test boundaries, look for soft spaces, and spread by suggestion, especially in subcultures like gaming where community is strong and moderation is often informal. By refusing to see fascism as a systemic threat, you limit your moral imagination to interpersonal charity rather than collective vigilance. That narrowness doesn't just misread the danger... it inadvertently creates the conditions in which the danger grows.
I have a fifth point.
This is my fifth point.
ReplyDeleteTalking like this, you lay yourself, and this space, and those in this space, open to recruitment. This kind of rhetoric—earnest, tolerant, slow to condemn—is precisely the type of opening that recruitment strategies rely on. Not because you share fascist beliefs, but because you've signalled that you're open to dialogue, open to difference, and most importantly, unwilling to draw hard lines. To someone entrenched in a fascist movement or ideology, you make them an opportunity.
Fascist recruitment doesn’t begin with overt declarations of genocide or racial supremacy. It begins with insinuation, with testing social boundaries, with finding people who are reluctant to call evil by its name unless it’s screaming. A person who says, “I don’t agree with you, but I won’t shut the door on you,” is far more useful to a fascist than someone who argues or even attacks. That kind of person gives access, gives cover, and gives the slow normalization that turns ideas from fringe to familiar.
Your faith in individual transformation through community won't shield you. It has already marked you. And the very fact of my saying that has, both historically and in thousands of present day accounts, been traditionally met with disbelief, because fundamentally, good people don't understand how anyone can think the way I'm about to explain. Someone looking to infiltrate a space or bring someone over to their side would see you as a sympathiser, a pushover, someone who "gets it," how people are too quick to judge, how everyone is redeemable. That makes you susceptible not because you agree, but because your framework refuses to exclude an ideology designed precisely to exploit this attitude you have. The genius of fascism, not overstated, is that it discovered how to take "reasonable people" and walk them right into "reasonable evil."
What you haven't considered is that you've already taken the first step on this road. Because if I were a fascist, reading this, I'd be figuring out not how to put myself in your game, but how to put myself and two of my buddies into your game, without you ever knowing that any of us are fascists.
Think about that. Think about it very seriously. Because this is far more serious than you're taking it with these two posts.
Alexis: you make good points, and I appreciate you taking the time. Please allow me to respond to each in turn:
Delete#1 I confess to being (more than) somewhat ignorant of German history in this regard..
#2 I agree that I have been fortunate to not meet serious fascists. Although, in this particular case, I'm not sure the 'kid' in question would qualify. Regardless: what to do with such individuals? Kill them all?
#3 I readily acknowledge that I speak from a place of privilege. Would I feel different if my life circumstances were different? Quite possibly. However, I am who I am...and I must work with who I am (while being cognizant of my privilege and understanding that others, less privileged than myself, might not feel the same). With regard to my own children, I must still pass on my values. I am not ignorant of the "evil" that is perpetrated in the world, nor are my children...we have frank discussions about this.
#4 I agree with pretty much everything here, though I don't feel I'm being an apologist for Nazis, nor silent with regard to their harmful behavior. I'm only saying that hating them ain't going to fix things.
#5 Again, I can refuse the ideology without excluding the person. Perhaps I have made myself a target...for "infiltration" anyway (I don't think I'm really open to "recruitment" but whatever...). But I've already made myself a target, multiple times in multiple ways. I've written many "target-worthy" posts on this blog (for a variety of haters)...and it's not like I've done much to hide my identity from the masses.
I DO take this stuff seriously, Alexis...though perhaps I don't fear it as much as I should (which you seem to be suggesting). And, sure, I guess I could and should...not only for my sake but for the sake of my loved ones. Maybe I should tread with more caution and wariness.
But you know what? This all happens to be "authentic me." And I really feel this way. And I really feel someone needs to stand up and say what I'm saying. And I'm a "someone" and no one else is saying it, so hey, what am I waiting for?
And it would be a lot easier and a lot safer for me if it were 'just me' and not my family who I'm placing at risk. Maybe I'm being selfish. But Goddamnit, I didn't feel this strongly about this shit back before I was a father. Because now I AM a father, and I'm sick and tired of seeing the world my KIDS are going to be living in (hopefully for a long-ass time) going to shit all around them, MOSTLY because people have stopped trusting each other or trusting systems that a handful of bad actors have gamed over the years to their advantage. As the Nazis would LIKE to do.
So fuck it. I'm going to open my big fat mouth and try to put my money where it's at and put myself out there as best I can and try to MODEL the kind of person I want to be, in the kind of world I want to live in. Yeah, it's pretty "idealistic white guy Christian blahblah" but...well, that's what I am.
I suppose I could keep hating and kicking and hoping that things get better and that the world gets smarter...
HAHAHAHA.
Nah. I'll do it my way for now. For a while anyway...maybe until the Nazis DO show up at my table and start making me feel uncomfortable.
Regardless, I promise I'll be careful.
The very fact that you say this: "But I've already made myself a target, multiple times in multiple ways"... conflating those like me who sometimes disparage you with members sincerely carrying forth the ideology of the single most murderous tyranny in human history, indicates you're not remotely taking this seriously enough, JB.
DeleteWhen the Nazis "show up" at your table, they'll make you feel very comfortable. You'll have no idea they are Nazis, because that's how it was always done. They'll joke with your wife and compliment the furniture and play with your children, and you'll have no idea whatsoever what they're thinking or doing. It's all in Sartre, like I said. I could go on and on... but I'll end it with this. The success of the nazis was never "If you don't do this, we'll kill you." It was, "If you don't do this, we'll kill your children, your wife, your grandmother." And fellows like you, JB, just as you are doing now, didn't believe them. They said, "Oh, come on, no one's that monstrous. That's just crazy. That's just insane." And so, like Sartre explains, the nazis just took over.
DeleteI'm actually talking about angry hate mail I've received from gun-nuts who dislike rants I've written about their guns.
DeleteAs I said, I'm not that hard a target to find. Fortunately, I haven't (yet) been worth the bullet.
As for the Nazis...yeah, they sound really bad. Once I read more on the subject, perhaps I'll change my tune.
Oh. Before you write another word on what you would and wouldn't do, please for the love of all that's good, read Jean-Paul Sartre's "Anti-Semite and Jew." Get educated.
ReplyDeleteThank you for posting these, Alexis. As a person who falls into a demographic that fascists don't particularly care for (to put it mildly), and as the romantic partner of someone who fits into *two* of those demographics, we just... we're not open to "dialogue" with people who would happily see us in prison or dead, or at the very least, removed from society in every way that matters. I don't even know *how* to be open to such a theoretical dialogue. The underlying framework of such a discussion would be, point: people like you shouldn't exist. counterpoint: um, yes I should? I feel that if I have to convince someone that I should have the same rights and privileges as anybody else, that person have fundamental, irreconcilable views of the value of human life. What compromise can there be? Are they going to convince me I should just haul myself off to the gulag? Am I going to somehow change their fundamental view that some people are less than human?
DeleteAnyway, I ramble now. I just wanted to say thank you for making those points in a manner far more articulate than I could.
I would say it's fortunate we have works like this so that we don't repeat the sins of the past, but that would be (mostly) snark.
DeleteI've read commentary an excerpts from Sartre's essay on-line, but I had to order the book at my local library. Should have it in a couple days, and I'll give it a serious read.
I'm not here to debate Nazis, fascism, inclusion, or your critics' five-point plans for ideological purity. Frankly, I don't think any of that matters here.
ReplyDeleteYou keep trying to present yourself as the steady center: reasonable, inclusive, above the fray. You talk about D&D as a bridge between people, and about your role as Dungeon Master as a space-maker, someone who brings others together in play. I believe you mean that sincerely.
But what you wrote isn't mercy and it isn't kindness. It's cowardice wrapped in sentimentality. You never defended the kid. You just treated the slander as if it had substance and then made yourself the noble figure for letting him participate anyway. That's not grace. That's performance. It doesn't protect the accused. It protects you.
What matters is that someone (a kid) was publicly accused of something monstrous. Something he almost certainly doesn't understand in the way his accuser does. Your first instinct wasn't to defend him. Your first instinct wasn't to challenge the lie. It was to write a post about how you're the kind of Christian who would still let him play.
The second post only makes this clearer. That long list of every type of person you've gamed with over the years is not a defense of inclusion. It's a defense of yourself. It reads like a character reference written for the benefit of the mob, as if you're trying to prove you're not one of the bad ones. You weren't speaking to the kid. You weren't speaking to the people throwing around the label. You were speaking to the invisible crowd who might come after you next. That's who the post was really for.
And yet you call yourself a Christian. Fine. Then let's speak to that. Christ didn't posture about mercy. He didn't tolerate slander just to keep the peace. When someone was dragged before the crowd, He didn't stand aside and say, “Well, everyone deserves a seat at the table.” He stood in front of them. He called out hypocrisy. He spoke with clarity. And He paid for it.
What you did is something else. You watched a child get marked. Not with discernment but by a ritual denunciation. And instead of refusing the frame, you wrote an essay about your generosity. That isn’t what Christ looks like.
But there is someone in the gospel who acts like that. He walked with Christ. He believed in the mission. He carried the money. He wanted things to stay orderly, respectable. And when the pressure came, he handed over an innocent man. Not out of hatred, but out of caution. Out of fear dressed up as principle.
When the moment came, you chose comfort over clarity. Peace over truth. Reputation over risk. And told yourself you were being kind.
Well, if that's what you got from my posts, then my communication was unclear. Let me try to be succinct.
DeleteW.r.t post #1: I'm not trying to defend anyone from anything (slander, lies, etc.). The kid might be a Nazi; he might not be a Nazi. I didn't post the letter as a "Dear Reddit" because I wanted to talk about something BROADER: namely, that we (humans) tend to hate and fear others for all sorts of reasons. The Nazi hates people for their reasons; we (non-Nazis) hate Nazis for our reasons. The Left hates the Right; the Right hates the Left. HOWEVER, we are all humans and we ought to stop hating people and partitioning ourselves from each other and should (instead) try making connections with each other...which we can't do when we push others away (or distance ourselves from them) for WHATEVER reason.
That was my point of post #1.
Post #2 was an addendum based on specific comments I received on post #1 (in which I had postulated that D&D was a good way of connecting to people). The point I was trying to make is that different people can play D&D together, and make those human connections (bringing each other closer together) in a way that few activities can. AND because it SAFER than some activities (like going to war) and more ACCESSIBLE to a wider variety of disparate individuals (like sports teams), it's a pretty amazing activity.
And IF the goal postulated in the first post (i.e. that we need to connect with each other, share ourselves with each other, in order to build a world that is not divided and separate and fearful and hateful) is a good one, than playing D&D with people we wouldn't normally (say, Nazis) shouldn't be off the table, given its usefulness in this regard.
I wrote the "addendum" to drive home the bit about using D&D.
So THOSE were my point of the posts; neither post was written to "defend" the kid, even though I mentioned in passing that an 18 year old is pretty young to be an irredeemably bad apple (or to really know their mind about ANYthing). Those digressions were just me meandering off the direct track to my point...as I tend to do.
So, I apologize: I was unclear. I used an example of someone being "marked" and "denunciated" as a way to discuss something about humans and D&D. I never had the intention of defending the specific person in question.
But I'll tell you what: let me put on my "Christ Hat" for a moment and wade knee-deep into the fray:
DeleteWe live in a world in which our actions have consequences. If I write a D&D post that says we should not exclude people from our tables based on beliefs or ideology, than I must be prepared for the inevitable consequences...like having to defend and justify my position when Nazis and whatnot enter into the equation.
If you are an 18 year old kid, you should understand that posting Nazi symbolism and making comments that are anti-semitic ("This is why I hate Jews," for example) are going to carry consequences with anyone who can read the social media platform you are using. Whether you are an ACTUAL dyed-in-the-wool Nazi or just a dumb asshole trying to be provocative.
There is no world in which an 18 year old, internet-using, social media savvy individual (dumb or not) is unaware of what it means to portray themselves as a Nazi.
This isn't even a matter where Christ would need to make himself a whip to drive the kid out...the money-changers in the temple had been permitted (or, at least, not prohibited) by the priests. They needed a wake up call. This ain't that.
And as for the kids' denouncers, this is not a matter of "Let Ye Who Hath Never Harbored A Desire For Genocide Cast The First Stone!" This is not an issue of the kid being murdered for posting on Instagram, this is a person being judged on the internet for their own internet communications.
"Whatever one sows, that he will also reap." That's a reminder (from St. Paul) about living in our consequential world. I believe Christ's teachings would echo this sentiment.
When Christ saved the woman accused of adultery, he told her to change her behavior and refrain from sinning. "Go and sin no more." I doubt Jesus would say to a someone posturing as a Nazi, "Hey, just keep on doing what you're doing...no harm, no foul."
The kid in question may be innocent of a lot of things, but he's not "innocent" of posturing as a Nazi. And people have a pretty clear idea about what it is to be a Nazi.