# M.A.R. Barker, author of Tekumel, also author of Neo-Nazi book?



## Ancalagon

Based on this post, *which I was not able to verify*, Barker also wrote a novel called "Serpent's Walk", which has the, ah, interesting description of

"Survivors of the losing side from World War 2 form an underground resistance and make a long-term plan to challenge the new establishment. They adopt many of the tactics that were used against them before the war. They covertly started buying media power and building economic muscle. And after 100 years they make their move. The result is a conflict of critical importance and of enormous proportions; aconflict they simply cannot lose if they are to survive."

The author of this book is "Randolph Calverhall", which I imagine is a  nom-de-plume?  edit:  It has been claimed it's the name of an important ancestor of him.

This is a "breaking story" and I hope others can help shed light on this.

edit:  the Tekumel Foundation confirmed it


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## Parmandur

That's sad...but, knock me over with a feather...


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## Ancalagon

Parmandur said:


> That's sad...but, knock me over with a feather...



are you saying you aren't surprised by the news?  If so, why so?  (I am not super familiar with Tekumel).  If not, I'm not sure what you are implying.


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## Parmandur

Ancalagon said:


> are you saying you aren't surprised by the news?  If so, why so?  (I am not super familiar with Tekumel).  If not, I'm not sure what you are implying.



I am both surprised and not-surprised, if that makes sense? Or, disappointed, but not surprised.

The Venn diagram between European/American adherants to his type esoteric, eclectic philosophy and Fascist ideas is not a circle, but it has overlap.


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## Alzrius

Some Googling suggests that "Randolph D. Calverhall" is supposed to be an ancestor of Barker's. I can't find any corroboration for that, or anything else that conclusively puts him as being the author of the novel in question.

The post in the OP links to a messageboard thread which references a paper about Barker. While the paper makes no explicit mention of the novel, it mentions a pseudonymous work, expounding on this in footnote 25:



> Discussing this novel posed an ethical dilemma. The work is clearly Barker’s – not only does his share his writing style and interests, but it is published in the name of one of his ancestors. (It is also attributed to him in at least one library catalogue.) It refers extensively to the Muslim and South Asian heritage, including a quotation from an eleventh-century Arabic tome on warfare, and dialogue about the esoteric cosmology of Ibn ʿArabi, and the theory of the “divine attributes of majesty and beauty” (_asma al-jalal wa al-jalal_). Hence, any discussion of the intersection of Barker’s beliefs and writing should include this work. This novel has actually been discussed more extensively in academic literature than his Tekumel novels, and, in my view, the writing is superior. However, the novel explores potentially inflammatory political viewpoints, and it was impressed upon me that it was best to preserve the facade of anonymity. I thus will leave it to the interested reader to dig it up – as Barker himself said, “Dig, dig, dig!” (See note 31.)




I've seen a few other references to this online, but nothing more conclusive than what's alleged in the post the OP reproduced here.

*EDIT:* With regard to tying the name "Randolph D. Calverhall" to Barker, I registered for the messageboard linked to in the quote the OP provides. Viewing the original post, the person also says the following: "Phil also left some big fat clues in the book. The name on the cover is the founder of his Shropshire family, the protagonist's heraldic arms are those of the Barker family, and the protagonist is married to a Pakistani women."


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## Tonguez

Barker became a muslim didnt he? Not that it should preclude him also having National-Socialist sympathies.

I understand the story is sci-fi and involves survivors of the SS gaining control of Media and Commerce to then start their war against “Jews and Democrats“ (_thats on the back cover_) - prophetic considering current politic…


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## Parmandur

Tonguez said:


> Barker became a muslim didnt he? Not that it should preclude him also having National-Socialist sympathies.
> 
> I understand the story is sci-fi and involves survivors of the SS gaining control of Media and Commerce to then start their war against “Jews and Democrats“ (_thats on the back cover_) - prophetic considering current politic…



Occultism and esotericism are Fascist adjacent, historically...


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## Ancalagon

I have been looking for firmer evidence and I have been informed of an academic paper, "Muhammad Abd al-Rahman (Phillip) Barker: Bridging Cultural Divides through Fantasy/ Science-Fiction Role-Playing Games and Fictional Religion" by Amina Inloes.

The paper, frustratingly, _alludes_ to this but is unwilling to _say_ it:



> Additionally, Barker published five novels set in his game world: The Man of Gold (1984), Flamesong (1987), Lords of Tsamra (2003), Prince of Skulls (2002), and A Death of Kings (2003), as well as a pseudonymous novel.25




note 25 says:


> 25 Discussing this novel posed an ethical dilemma. The work is clearly Barker’s – not only does his share
> his writing style and interests, but it is published in the name of one of his ancestors. (It is also attributed to
> him in at least one library catalogue.) It refers extensively to the Muslim and South Asian heritage, including
> a quotation from an eleventh-century Arabic tome on warfare, and dialogue about the esoteric cosmology
> of Ibn (
> Arabı¯, and the theory of the “divine attributes of majesty and beauty” (asma¯) al-jala¯l wa al-jama¯l).
> Hence, any discussion of the intersection of Barker’s beliefs and writing should include this work. This
> novel has actually been discussed more extensively in academic literature than his Tekumel novels, and, in
> my view, the writing is superior. However, the novel explores potentially inflammatory political viewpoints,
> and it was impressed upon me that it was best to preserve the fac¸ade of anonymity. I thus will leave it to
> the interested reader to dig it up – as Barker himself said, “Dig, dig, dig!”




:/


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## Ancalagon

Another source, a french-language roleplaying blog:






						Chusúni-kh & Svastika : le créateur et son ombre
					

J'ai du mal à admettre une nouvelle aussi décevante : Muhammad Abd-al-Rahman Barker   (1929-2012), le créateur du monde de Tékumel dissimula...




					anniceris.blogspot.com


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## Ralif Redhammer

Yeah, there are tons of really weird books and movements that exist at the gross confluence of orientalism, occultism, and fascism going back to the 19th century. Considering when M.A.R. Barker was born, I would not be surprised in the slightest if he encountered and was influenced by them.



Parmandur said:


> Occultism and esotericism are Fascist adjacent, historically...


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## Bilharzia

A couple of posts down is this:

_1) Phil's dad, Loris Barker, was a very big name in the German-American Bund in the late thirties, and had connections to the Silvershirts / Loyalty League organization. Phil did not have a good relationship with his father, and was very dismissive of him, his activities, and his beliefs. Phil's college notebooks, which I have photos of, are full of satirical references to his father and the organizations he belonged to.

2) Phil was a devoted prankster and hoaxer. He loved to demonstrate that he was smarter and more clever then any of the people around him, and then laugh at them when they didn;t get his jokes. An example of this is "Ebon Bindings", which he wrote after being told that he knew nothing about the esoteric and occult by three of his early gamers - these were all active in the then-infant occult scene in the Twin Cities, back in the middle 1970s. See also the history of Llewellen Publishing and the Bonewitz brothers, Ike and Doc. EB is the result of Phil going into his collection of medieval South Asian manuscripts, filing off the serial numbers, and publishing the thing. He was delighted when I told him that a congregation in Illinois had burned a copy of the book, thinking it was a real grimoire, as it meant that he'd hoodwinked the gullible.

3) Phil had a nasty habit of liking to push people's buttons and rattle their chains. Once he found what he thought was a weakness in somebody's personality, he'd play on that to influence and control that person. It is, Dave Arneson told me, one of the reasons why Dave lost interest in being Phil's publisher; Dave nominated Phil for Mike Stackpole's GAMA "Hall of Shame", and Phil got the award for "Most Difficult Author In the Game Industry" at an Origins in Detroit; I still have the 'Ralphie', the statuette that Phil got, as I had to get up and give the acceptance speech.

4) It is my position that "Serpent's Walk" has nothing to do with Phil's Tekumel; it is irrelevant to Tekumel, and to Tekumel's creation and development. It does shed a lot of light on Phil's sense of humor and how he dealt with people; he knew he was smarter and more clever then anyone else, and it's my perception - aided by my reading through Phil's letter files, after he passed away - that Phil was playing one of his involved pranks on Loris, his associates and their descendants. It also backfired on Phil very badly, as somebody in his inner circle of the time mentioned it in local fandom and Phil was 'outed' on the website of a local author.

5) When Dr. Inloes asked me about this book, I made these same points to her and apprised her of the outcry that broke out when some of Phil's collection came up for auction. It was my opinion then and now that Tekumel doesn't need to get involved in the discussions over this book, as it was not relevant to Tekumel. I did not 'censor' her paper, nor did I 'edit' it; I gave her my opinion, and she moved on from there. Her views are different then mine, and I welcome her perspectives on Phil and his creation.

6) People may recall the heated discussions that have been going on over the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and R. E. Howard; if we want to look at this as a teaching moment and a springboard for civil discussion, I am all for that. I had, and still have, parts of my extended family on both sides of the Eastern Front as well as on other Allied fronts. The Shoah is a personal matter for our family, and we use what we know as a teaching moment._


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## Ancalagon

writing an entire book as a prank seems a bit... much?


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## thirdkingdom

As Ken White says, if you f*** a goat ironically you're still f***ing a goat.


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## Alzrius

thirdkingdom said:


> As Ken White says, if you f*** a goat ironically you're still f***ing a goat.



And here I thought that was what Mike Cernovich said when he was trying to ruin James Gunn's career.


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## Ralif Redhammer

Yeah, it's that same excuse edgelords use of "It was just a joke." Making a racist joke is racist.


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## Orius

Sounds like it's a book length example of Poe's Law to me.


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## Alzrius

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Yeah, it's that same excuse edgelords use of "It was just a joke." Making a racist joke is racist.



Except for when it's obviously not. For more on this, let's go to Colin and Michael over at SNL:


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## Parmandur

Bilharzia said:


> A couple of posts down is this:
> 
> _1) Phil's dad, Loris Barker, was a very big name in the German-American Bund in the late thirties, and had connections to the Silvershirts / Loyalty League organization. Phil did not have a good relationship with his father, and was very dismissive of him, his activities, and his beliefs. Phil's college notebooks, which I have photos of, are full of satirical references to his father and the organizations he belonged to.
> 
> 2) Phil was a devoted prankster and hoaxer. He loved to demonstrate that he was smarter and more clever then any of the people around him, and then laugh at them when they didn;t get his jokes. An example of this is "Ebon Bindings", which he wrote after being told that he knew nothing about the esoteric and occult by three of his early gamers - these were all active in the then-infant occult scene in the Twin Cities, back in the middle 1970s. See also the history of Llewellen Publishing and the Bonewitz brothers, Ike and Doc. EB is the result of Phil going into his collection of medieval South Asian manuscripts, filing off the serial numbers, and publishing the thing. He was delighted when I told him that a congregation in Illinois had burned a copy of the book, thinking it was a real grimoire, as it meant that he'd hoodwinked the gullible.
> 
> 3) Phil had a nasty habit of liking to push people's buttons and rattle their chains. Once he found what he thought was a weakness in somebody's personality, he'd play on that to influence and control that person. It is, Dave Arneson told me, one of the reasons why Dave lost interest in being Phil's publisher; Dave nominated Phil for Mike Stackpole's GAMA "Hall of Shame", and Phil got the award for "Most Difficult Author In the Game Industry" at an Origins in Detroit; I still have the 'Ralphie', the statuette that Phil got, as I had to get up and give the acceptance speech.
> 
> 4) It is my position that "Serpent's Walk" has nothing to do with Phil's Tekumel; it is irrelevant to Tekumel, and to Tekumel's creation and development. It does shed a lot of light on Phil's sense of humor and how he dealt with people; he knew he was smarter and more clever then anyone else, and it's my perception - aided by my reading through Phil's letter files, after he passed away - that Phil was playing one of his involved pranks on Loris, his associates and their descendants. It also backfired on Phil very badly, as somebody in his inner circle of the time mentioned it in local fandom and Phil was 'outed' on the website of a local author.
> 
> 5) When Dr. Inloes asked me about this book, I made these same points to her and apprised her of the outcry that broke out when some of Phil's collection came up for auction. It was my opinion then and now that Tekumel doesn't need to get involved in the discussions over this book, as it was not relevant to Tekumel. I did not 'censor' her paper, nor did I 'edit' it; I gave her my opinion, and she moved on from there. Her views are different then mine, and I welcome her perspectives on Phil and his creation.
> 
> 6) People may recall the heated discussions that have been going on over the writings of H. P. Lovecraft and R. E. Howard; if we want to look at this as a teaching moment and a springboard for civil discussion, I am all for that. I had, and still have, parts of my extended family on both sides of the Eastern Front as well as on other Allied fronts. The Shoah is a personal matter for our family, and we use what we know as a teaching moment._



Sooooh, he wasn't a Fascist, just a huge jerk...?


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## darjr

If it was truly meant to be a prank on the neo-nazis, an attempt to have them out themselves for example, it would be a lot better than if he meant it.

Still, wtf.


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## Parmandur

darjr said:


> If it was truly meant to be a prank on the neo-nazis, an attempt to have them out themselves for example, it would be a lot better than if he meant it.
> 
> Still, wtf.



I meeeeaaaaan...is it _that_ much better...?

I think "better" provides the wrong dimensionality: slightly less odious, in a different way, perhaps?


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## Tonguez

Ancalagon said:


> writing an entire book as a prank seems a bit... much?



both LotR and Narnia were spawned from a wager between friends a d was Dianetics written as an experiment?


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## Parmandur

Tonguez said:


> both LotR and Narnia were spawned from a wager between friends a d was Dianetics written as an experiment?



Nah, the wager lead to the Planetary Trilogy from Lewis, and the post-humous "Lost Road" from Tolkien. And those both contained their actual ideas and beliefs, hardcore.

Dianetics is not a comparison that speaks well, si it...?


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## Defender_X

I didn't realize he was a Muslim. Unlike Baker, I didn't change my name upon reversion. That being said, kinda hard not to be disappointed at hearing this. So I don't feel bad about not having any Tekumel books.


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## Parmandur

Defender_X said:


> I didn't realize he was a Muslim. Unlike Baker, I didn't change my name upon reversion. That being said, kinda hard not to be disappointed at hearing this. So I don't feel bad about not having any Tekumel books.



He wasn't exactly mainstream in his religous expression or beliefs.


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## Ruin Explorer

Parmandur said:


> The Venn diagram between European/American adherants to his type esoteric, eclectic philosophy and Fascist ideas is not a circle, but it has overlap.



Exactly this. It's profoundly unsurprising.

As for "he wrote it as a prank", whilst it's not impossible, and he seems to have had the personality for that sort of extreme shenanigans, I am somewhat skeptical, because there's a very close to 1:1 correlation between people who think it's funny to "pretend" to be Nazis frequently or on a long-term basis and people with fairly horrific/reprehensible views re: race, Judaism, etc.

Indeed the whole Nazi/Muslim thing isn't surprising either. Not because there's anything wrong with Islam, to be clear, but fringe-y people looking for a philosophy/way-to-live often latch on to one of those, or sequentially one then the other.


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## darjr

It wasn’t a prank. I’m convinced of that now. Based on what I’ve seen reported. I have a tiny bit of hope it’s still all a mistake, a shrinking hope.

Seeing that he was part of a group bent on holocaust denial is bad enough all on its own.

But like I said, I hope it’s all untrue, and at this point it’d probably have to prove to be an elaborate conspiracy of a hoax in order for it to be untrue.


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## Blue Orange

1. Is it possible he was making fun of his dad? Writing a whole book as a joke might seem unlikely, but this was a guy who as we know was a huge fan of the 'false documents' technique (it's all through Tekumel). Doesn't seem out of character.

2. This was in 1991. Is there any reason to assume he maintained Neo-Nazi beliefs for the next 20 years? (He died in 2012.) Did he ever advocate for them in any fashion over the next 30 years? Are we going to judge a person by every dumb thing they've ever done? He made one of the first RPGs to use non-European inspirations, which is somewhat odd for a white supremacist to do, particularly in the late 20th century. While I am aware of the Nazi occultist current and attempts at synthesizing Islamic and Nazi philosophy (not to mention Hindu-Nazi authors like Savitri Devi), the one thing I seem to get from reading his life is that he was an extreme xenophile (and maybe this was a rebellion against Dad).

3. Again, this was in 1991. White nationalism was much weaker then than it is now, and he might not have felt as bad (assuming in fact he was not a Nazi) about writing a fake white nationalist book if it wasn't going to convert anyone. A vaccine conspiracy plot is different in 2000 (remember the X-files smallpox vaccination subplot?) than in 2020.

4. Yet again...1991. There was much more of an acceptance of 'edgy' humor back then, and it might have been something along the lines of 'let me write this totally crazy thing to make fun of my dad'. (I think my attitudes are probably closer to 1991 than 2022 TBH).

I am half Jewish by ancestry (and lost a few extended family members to the Nazis), but am not inclined to 'cancel' Barker over an obscure book he wrote in 1991. Indeed, I think I will go and donate a little to the Tekumel Foundation. We used to make stuff like _The Producers_, now we're digging up 30-year-old dirt on game designers who have been dead for a decade.

Now if you want to talk about Louis-Ferdinand Celine...


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## darjr

Rpg.net thread






						🚦 A-Game - M.A.R. Barker, creator of Tékumel, wrote a neo-Nazi novel in 1991 (He also sat on the board of a Holocaust-denial publication)
					

Since this is all being hashed out again, I strongly suggest that everyone read the full posts by Chirine linked above, not only the excerpts. The matter is better explained by people who knew and worked with the Professor for decades, rather than amateur sleuths and philosophers on Reddit...




					forum.rpg.net
				




This last bit I know nothing else about.


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## eyeheartawk

That's, as the kids would say, a big oof.


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## Alzrius

darjr said:


> This last bit I know nothing else about.



Well, it's easy enough to look into. Going by their homepage URL as listed on Wikipedia, a quick search turns up the following:


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## domesude

Barker's name appears as "Philip Barker, Ph.D." from Minneapolis, MN in the "Journal" from 1989-2002. Easy to find on the Intenet Archive (not linking for obvious reasons, even though ithe Archive is not a racist site). I mean, it's just getting impossible to believe that this isn't him.


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## billd91

Unfortunately for Barker's rep, if you check here: The Journal of Historical Review, Table of Contents
You'll find they list the Editorial Advisory Committee and he's there as "Philip Barker, Ph.D., Minneapolis, Minnesota"


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## Dire Bare

Blue Orange said:


> 1. Is it possible he was making fun of his dad? Writing a whole book as a joke might seem unlikely, but this was a guy who as we know was a huge fan of the 'false documents' technique (it's all through Tekumel). Doesn't seem out of character.
> 
> 2. This was in 1991. Is there any reason to assume he maintained Neo-Nazi beliefs for the next 20 years? (He died in 2012.) Did he ever advocate for them in any fashion over the next 30 years? Are we going to judge a person by every dumb thing they've ever done? He made one of the first RPGs to use non-European inspirations, which is somewhat odd for a white supremacist to do, particularly in the late 20th century. While I am aware of the Nazi occultist current and attempts at synthesizing Islamic and Nazi philosophy (not to mention Hindu-Nazi authors like Savitri Devi), the one thing I seem to get from reading his life is that he was an extreme xenophile (and maybe this was a rebellion against Dad).
> 
> 3. Again, this was in 1991. White nationalism was much weaker then than it is now, and he might not have felt as bad (assuming in fact he was not a Nazi) about writing a fake white nationalist book if it wasn't going to convert anyone. A vaccine conspiracy plot is different in 2000 (remember the X-files smallpox vaccination subplot?) than in 2020.
> 
> 4. Yet again...1991. There was much more of an acceptance of 'edgy' humor back then, and it might have been something along the lines of 'let me write this totally crazy thing to make fun of my dad'. (I think my attitudes are probably closer to 1991 than 2022 TBH).
> 
> I am half Jewish by ancestry (and lost a few extended family members to the Nazis), but am not inclined to 'cancel' Barker over an obscure book he wrote in 1991. Indeed, I think I will go and donate a little to the Tekumel Foundation. We used to make stuff like _The Producers_, now we're digging up 30-year-old dirt on game designers who have been dead for a decade.
> 
> Now if you want to talk about Louis-Ferdinand Celine...



Who's advocating we "cancel" MAR Barker? Of course, no such thing really as "canceling", the better term is "consequences". Barker has passed, so however folks react to this won't impact him all that much. But if folks learn this, and decide to not engage with Barker's work . . . more power to them. It's a fair reaction.

The tone I'm getting is _disappointment_ rather than _torches-and-pitchforks_. Which again, is a fair reaction.

To try and dismiss the concerns over Barker's engagement with racism and anti-Semitism is poor form. It doesn't matter that it was 1991, Barker's actions were racist by the standards of the time and by the standards of today. Hopefully he did outgrow these beliefs and behaviors before he passed, but . . . . doesn't erase the harm.

Personally, I feel no urge to "judge" Barker. This news cements my impression of Barker that he was a weird, complicated, and problematic dude . . . but I've never been interested in his work, and I'm even less likely to give his novels or Tekumel RPGs a look now. He's passed, his influence on the RPG scene was already over-rated, so I'll just . . . continue to not read or play his works.


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## Alzrius

billd91 said:


> Unfortunately for Barker's rep, if you check here: The Journal of Historical Review, Table of Contents
> You'll find they list the Editorial Advisory Committee and he's there as "Philip Barker, Ph.D., Minneapolis, Minnesota"



Ugh...

I find myself hoping is that the single "L" in the first name isn't just some irrelevant misspelling, and that by sheer coincidence that's another person with a similar name.


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## John Dallman

billd91 said:


> Unfortunately for Barker's rep, if you check here: The Journal of Historical Review, Table of Contents
> You'll find they list the Editorial Advisory Committee and he's there as "Philip Barker, Ph.D., Minneapolis, Minnesota"



That really is quite damning. "Parody" will not wash for that.


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## Blue Orange

All right, it's for real, and he kept doing it. It's a little weird given the rest of his biography, but people are often weird.

No chance there were two Dr. Phil Barkers in Minneapolis at this time? Minneapolis had a population of just under 400K at this time, but about 1% of the population has a Ph.D. (probably higher in a college town and big city), so out of 4000+ doctorates in Minneapolis I guess two could have been named Phil Barker. (I could definitely see him dropping the M.A.R. for the Nazis...)


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## Willie the Duck

Bilharzia said:


> A couple of posts down is this:
> ...
> _2) Phil was a devoted prankster and hoaxer. He loved to demonstrate that he was smarter and more clever then any of the people around him, and then laugh at them when they didn;t get his jokes. An example of this is "Ebon Bindings", which he wrote after being told that he knew nothing about the esoteric and occult by three of his early gamers - these were all active in the then-infant occult scene in the Twin Cities, back in the middle 1970s. See also the history of Llewellen Publishing and the Bonewitz brothers, Ike and Doc. EB is the result of Phil going into his collection of medieval South Asian manuscripts, filing off the serial numbers, and publishing the thing. He was delighted when I told him that a congregation in Illinois had burned a copy of the book, thinking it was a real grimoire, as it meant that he'd hoodwinked the gullible.
> 
> 3) Phil had a nasty habit of liking to push people's buttons and rattle their chains. Once he found what he thought was a weakness in somebody's personality, he'd play on that to influence and control that person. It is, Dave Arneson told me, one of the reasons why Dave lost interest in being Phil's publisher; Dave nominated Phil for Mike Stackpole's GAMA "Hall of Shame", and Phil got the award for "Most Difficult Author In the Game Industry" at an Origins in Detroit; I still have the 'Ralphie', the statuette that Phil got, as I had to get up and give the acceptance speech._




Oh good. The most charitable interpretation of all this is that Phil was one a 'that guy' -- as in, that nerd that thought he was the smartest guy to whatever room into which they walked. Ugh. I think we all got tired of that guy in high school when they came into math league/debate club and thought they were going to own the place (kinda like the guy that would take pride in a _"Most Difficult _____ In the _____ Industry" award)_. Regardless, 'Ironically' or 'prankishly' writing Nazi work isn't actually smart, it's incredibly foolish. Even this (increasingly unlikely) interpretation take Phil down several rungs in my esteem.


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## Willie the Duck

Blue Orange said:


> All right, it's for real, and he kept doing it. It's a little weird given the rest of his biography, but people are often weird.
> 
> No chance there were two Dr. Phil Barkers in Minneapolis at this time? Minneapolis had a population of just under 400K at this time, but about 1% of the population has a Ph.D. (probably higher in a college town and big city), so out of 4000+ doctorates in Minneapolis I guess two could have been named Phil Barker. (I could definitely see him dropping the M.A.R. for the Nazis...)



Phil went by Phil with most people, or at least that's what Chirine told me (I've met and gamed with him. He's nice. I hope he continues to frame this as 'here's the evidence, make what there is of it').

The actual Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area would have been closer to 1 million at the time (It's one of those cities that cuts off to a suburb after about 60 blocks from the city center, and people from the suburbs might not say "I'm from Bloomington, MN" in a national publication or whatever). The percentage of advanced degrees is also quite high. That said, two Phil Barkers... that's a long stretch.


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## Ancalagon

At this point, I think the issue that bothers me is that the Tekumel foundation knew about this for years and kept it under wraps...


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## Ancalagon

Tonguez said:


> both LotR and Narnia were spawned from a wager between friends a d was Dianetics written as an experiment?



there is _quite_ a bit of a difference between writing a book as a _wager_ vs as a joke.  Notably, the books written were serious undertaking.  

Furthermore, see the journal editing above.


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## aramis erak

Parmandur said:


> Sooooh, he wasn't a Fascist, just a huge jerk...?



Inveterate leg-puller, according to some of the TSR staff. Prankster; often past the bounds of good taste. The guy whose jokes are unfun for the butt of the joke.


Tonguez said:


> both LotR and Narnia were spawned from a wager between friends a d was Dianetics written as an experiment?



Dianetics was written (or so it's been claimed by Niven, Herbert, and Heinlein) on a group challenge- who could write the best SF about religion. L. Ron won...
L. Ron Hubbard wrote Dianetics.
Heinlein wrote Job.
Asimov  wrote Nightfall.
Herbert wrote Dune
Niven was the judge.


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## Parmandur

Ancalagon said:


> At this point, I think the issue that bothers me is that the Tekumel foundation knew about this for years and kept it under wraps...



More relevant and alarming...


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## Rogerd1

It was 31 years ago FFS, people change their opinions and beliefs in a shorter span. At this point who cares?

It is only relevant if he still holds such beliefs.


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## Parmandur

Rogerd1 said:


> It was 31 years ago FFS, people change their opinions and beliefs in a shorter span. At this point who cares?
> 
> It is only relevant if he still holds such beliefs.



I mean, he's dead.


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## Rogerd1

Parmandur said:


> I mean, he's dead.



Okay so why drag his name through the mud when he cannot even put his point of view forward.

This is just typical of this Cancel / Woke Culture naughty word.


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## Fifth Element

Rogerd1 said:


> It was 31 years ago FFS, people change their opinions and beliefs in a shorter span. At this point who cares?
> 
> It is only relevant if he still holds such beliefs.



We now know he was on the editorial board of a Holocaust-denying "journal" for 13 years, until that journal ceased to exist. He clearly held horrible beliefs for a long time.


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## Fifth Element

Rogerd1 said:


> Okay so why drag his name through the mud when he cannot even put his point of view forward.



He did put his point of view forward. That's the problem - his point of view. It was disgusting and harmful.


----------



## Rogerd1

Fifth Element said:


> We now know he was on the editorial board of a Holocaust-denying "journal" for 13 years, until that journal ceased to exist. He clearly held horrible beliefs for a long time.



And that board existed between what dates?


Fifth Element said:


> He did put his point of view forward. That's the problem - his point of view. It was disgusting and harmful.



And when did he put this point of view forward


----------



## Ixal

So how nazi is Serpent's Walk? I mean we had "Look who's back" (book and movie) which could be given a similar cover text but was a comedy and criticism on modern media and certainly not a glorification of Hitler.
Are tha Nazis in Serpent's Walk heroic protagonists? Parodies like in Starship Trooper? Bumbling Idiots that succeed because everyone is even dumber?


----------



## Fifth Element

Rogerd1 said:


> And that board existed between what dates?



I believe it was 1989 to 2002. So it ended 73 years after his birth, but only 10 years before his death. But yeah, he probably changed his mind apparently?



Rogerd1 said:


> And when did he put this point of view forward



When he wrote the Neo-Nazi book. And when he served on editorial board of a blatantly anti-Semitic publication.


----------



## Fifth Element

Ixal said:


> So how nazi is Serpent's Walk? I mean we had "Look who's back" (book and movie) which could be given a similar cover text but was a comedy and criticism on modern media and certainly not a glorification of Hitler.
> Are tha Nazis in Serpent's Walk heroic protagonists? Parodies like in Starship Trooper? Bumbling Idiots that succeed because everyone is even dumber?



A publisher description is "Serpent’s Walk is an intellectually-stimulating action novel in which Hitler’s warrior elite — the SS — didn’t give up their struggle for a White world when they lost the Second World War."


----------



## Rogerd1

Fifth Element said:


> I believe it was 1989 to 2002. So it ended 73 years after his birth, but only 10 years before his death. But yeah, he probably changed his mind apparently?
> 
> 
> When he wrote the Neo-Nazi book. And when he served on editorial board of a blatantly anti-Semitic publication.



Hang on, the book was written 31 years ago so I could not care less about that.
And saying he put his point forward between two dates....is there something to confirm this?


----------



## Fifth Element

Rogerd1 said:


> Hang on, the book was written 31 years ago so I could not care less about that.



Please think through the implications of this line of thought.


----------



## Rogerd1

Fifth Element said:


> Please think through the implications of this line of thought.



I have, someone writing some beliefs they held 31 years ago are irrelevant.
Personality can change a lot in ten years, let alone 20.
What beliefs did they hold nearer the time, say 2000 onwards? Do we have something concrete on that?


----------



## Fifth Element

Rogerd1 said:


> And saying he put his point forward between two dates....is there something to confirm this?



It was mentioned above. Just a quick google search away. If you care to actually check before dismissing it.









						M.A.R. Barker, author of Tekumel, also author of Neo-Nazi book?
					

writing an entire book as a prank seems a bit... much?  both LotR and Narnia were spawned from a wager between friends a d was Dianetics written as an experiment?




					www.enworld.org


----------



## Fifth Element

Rogerd1 said:


> What beliefs did they hold nearer the time, say 2000 onwards? Do we have something concrete on that?



He was on the editorial board of a Holocaust-denial journal until 2002. As has been explained already.


----------



## Willie the Duck

Rogerd1 said:


> Okay so why drag his name through the mud when he cannot even put his point of view forward.
> 
> This is just typical of this Cancel / Woke Culture naughty word.



He did put a view forward, in a book submitted for publication to the world at large. Those who publish material should be well aware that that material might come under scrutiny.

It's an interesting take that people who have passed on should not have their works analyzed. Does that count for posthumous praise as well?

The whole 'this is just wokeness being unfair' diatribe we keep hearing kinda falls flat when we're talking about Nazi sympathizing. Isn't this the one thing we're all in agreement is genuinely terrible? Didn't we fight a war over it? I think pretty much the whole world was involved.


----------



## Morrus

Rogerd1 said:


> Okay so why drag his name through the mud when he cannot even put his point of view forward.
> 
> This is just typical of this Cancel / Woke Culture naughty word.



Oops. Please review the rules, and leave the thread.


----------



## Nikosandros

Maybe he was affected by an orbital mind control laser? Maybe he was under psionic domination by an aboleth? Maybe he was replaced by his evil twin from the Mirror Universe? Who knows? We can't be sure and so we shoudn't pass judgment, right?


----------



## Rogerd1

Fifth Element said:


> It was mentioned above. Just a quick google search away. If you care to actually check before dismissing it.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> M.A.R. Barker, author of Tekumel, also author of Neo-Nazi book?
> 
> 
> writing an entire book as a prank seems a bit... much?  both LotR and Narnia were spawned from a wager between friends a d was Dianetics written as an experiment?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.enworld.org



Couldn't be arsed to google search.


Willie the Duck said:


> He did put a view forward, in a book submitted for publication to the world at large. Those who publish material should be well aware that that material might come under scrutiny.
> 
> It's an interesting take that people who have passed on should not have their works analyzed. Does that count for posthumous praise as well?
> 
> The whole 'this is just wokeness being unfair' diatribe we keep hearing kinda falls flat when we're talking about Nazi sympathizing. Isn't this the one thing we're all in agreement is genuinely terrible. Didn't we fight a war over it? I think pretty much the whole world was involved.





Fifth Element said:


> He was on the editorial board of a Holocaust-denial journal until 2002. As has been explained already.



Are Nazi's aresholes, sure.
I cannot find Holocaust denying journal thing to check....link?


----------



## Parmandur

"C. S. Lewis wrote some Christian treatises, sure, but maybe he became a transcendtal Buddhist towards the end of his life. Who can say?"


----------



## Morrus

Rogerd1 said:


> Couldn't be arsed to google search.
> 
> 
> Are Nazi's aresholes, sure.
> I cannot find Holocaust denying journal thing to check....link?



I asked you to leave the thread. You didn't. So now you'll be leaving the site for a few days. These things are not requests.


----------



## Jer

Willie the Duck said:


> The whole 'this is just wokeness being unfair' diatribe we keep hearing kinda falls flat when we're talking about Nazi sympathizing. Isn't this the one thing we're all in agreement is genuinely terrible. Didn't we fight a war over it? I think pretty much the whole world was involved.



It should be.  One of the more disappointing things in recent years is how much it isn't.


----------



## Blue Orange

Jer said:


> It should be.  One of the more disappointing things in recent years is how much it isn't.




I always figured most of it was the last WW2 veterans (and in some cases Holocaust survivors) gradually dying off. There are still a few left, but I'd bet 10 years ago a lot of the edgy kids dressing up as Nazis would have gotten beat up by their granddad. ("You dressed up as _that?_ Look kid, I was in the war, and you _know _what I saw, you stupid little whippersnapper?") After a while any event enters the history books--lifespans are finite.

This is all IMHO, but the 2008 financial crash discredited laissez-faire capitalism and libertarianism, the Iraq War discredited neoconservatism, and with the decline of religion Christian conservatism looks less appealing. So if you're right-leaning (or displeased with the left) you have fewer models to choose from. I mean, more people being drawn to left-wing ideologies is another result of that, but there's some people who just aren't a very good fit for the left (and I admit I may be one of them). Some fraction of them are going to become fascists.


----------



## doctorbadwolf

Ancalagon said:


> writing an entire book as a prank seems a bit... much?



Not at all, for the sort of person described.  

The two thugs fit seemlessly together, and do nothing to make me less inclined to think highly of the man. I’ve little respect for “ironic” nazi rhetoric, and about as little respect for people who enjoy exploiting “weaknesses in a persons personality”.


----------



## Willie the Duck

doctorbadwolf said:


> The two _thug_s fit seemlessly together



This seems a fortuitous typo.


----------



## Tonguez

If anyone wants to bother the book is available on audiobooks, I listned to the first chapter it features a few historic south Asian and Arabic quotes and a paramilitary unit talking smack about ethnics (referencing the Chinese War, third world India and a middle eastern war in 2038 (forget the name used)), nothing overtly Nazi yet…


----------



## Blue Orange

Parmandur said:


> "C. S. Lewis wrote some Christian treatises, sure, but maybe he became a transcendtal Buddhist towards the end of his life. Who can say?"




It's not really the same thing, though. C.S. Lewis was known for his Christian writings and that was basically his entire public image; nobody knew about this until 10 years after Barker died.

This is like someone finding records of C.S. Lewis having secretly belonged to NAMBLA 20 years ago or something. There are possibly fringe interpretations that make it compatible with Christianity, but it's not the common thing and the vast, vast majority of Christians would find the idea horrifying. Did he stick with it? Did he join the journal and they just never took him off? (I know from my work with predatory journals it can be hard to get your name off their masthead.) Who knows?


----------



## domesude

Blue Orange said:


> It's not really the same thing, though. C.S. Lewis was known for his Christian writings and that was basically his entire public image; nobody knew about this until 10 years after Barker died.
> 
> This is like someone finding records of C.S. Lewis having secretly belonged to NAMBLA 20 years ago or something. There are possibly fringe interpretations that make it compatible with Christianity, but it's not the common thing and the vast, vast majority of Christians would find the idea horrifying. Did he stick with it? Did he join the journal and they just never took him off? (I know from my work with predatory journals it can be hard to get your name off their masthead.) Who knows?



According to Chirine, former archivist for the Tekumel Foundation, some members were aware of Barker's views well before he died. I can see no reason to doubt his account.


----------



## Parmandur

Blue Orange said:


> It's not really the same thing, though. C.S. Lewis was known for his Christian writings and that was basically his entire public image; nobody knew about this until 10 years after Barker died.
> 
> This is like someone finding records of C.S. Lewis having secretly belonged to NAMBLA 20 years ago or something. There are possibly fringe interpretations that make it compatible with Christianity, but it's not the common thing and the vast, vast majority of Christians would find the idea horrifying. Did he stick with it? Did he join the journal and they just never took him off? (I know from my work with predatory journals it can be hard to get your name off their masthead.) Who knows?



Yeah, it seems he was smart wnough to keep it on the downlow, but people knew...


----------



## QuentinGeorge

Tonguez said:


> both LotR and Narnia were spawned from a wager between friends a d was Dianetics written as an experiment?



Only Narnia. Tolkien never finished his work written for the bet. Lotr was unrelated.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

IMHO, if someone committed a particular odious world view to print or public action, holding them accountable for it is 100% justified.

The mere passage of time does not mitigate that.

Certainly, people DO change.  But unless there is  actual concrete evidence that they have done so, there is no reason to let them off the hook.  Someone merely choosing not to be a Nazi apologist/sympathizer/practitioner in public _is in no way an indication that the person has actually ceased believing in Nazism._

Put differently: sins in public require repentance in public.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

Tonguez said:


> Barker became a muslim didnt he? Not that it should preclude him also having National-Socialist sympathies.



I mean, yeah.







Considering that there's huge numbers of slavic people attracted to this sort of ideology (think about what Hitler might have thought about that), there's not really any religious or cultural background that necessarily precludes it. (Except Jewish, obviously except for the very bizarre cases, and I haven't heard of any Nazi-Jains either).

That being said, I think Barker's religious beliefs are incidental to this. He converted as a young man and there doesn't seem to be any real link.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

Dannyalcatraz said:


> IMHO, if someone committed a particular odious world view to print or public action, holding them accountable for it is 100% justified.
> 
> The mere passage of time does not mitigate that.
> 
> Certainly, people DO change.  But unless there is  actual concrete evidence that they have done so, there is no reason to let them off the hook.  Someone merely choosing not to be a Nazi apologist/sympathizer/practitioner in public _is in no way an indication that the person has actually ceased believing in Nazism._
> 
> Put differently: sins in public require repentance in public.



He's dead though. So we can't really hold him unaccountable or know for sure how much he held these beliefs. (though based on the evidence provided, it doesn't really look to me like it was a "prank". If it was, there wasn't any payoff really.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

QuentinGeorge said:


> He's dead though. So we can't really hold him unaccountable or know for sure how much he held these beliefs. (though based on the evidence provided, it doesn't really look to me like it was a "prank". If it was, there wasn't any payoff really.



Just because he is personally beyond our reach doesn’t mean we can’t discuss his flaws and make personal decisions on how we interact with his legacy.  

For some, nothing will change- they won’t give up the things he made that they like, but they won’t support the reprehensible stuff.  For others, they have gained a hero they didn’t know they had.  Others still may choose to avoid his works in any form, and may even divest themselves of his non-Nazi writings.

Not only that, what happens to his legacy going forward will be instructive to others.  Some will choose to keep their darker natures hidden from public view instead of committing them to media- even under pseudonyms and aliases.  Even more will realize that idolizing humans is risky business.  Humans are fallible and flawed, and even the best of us have ugliness within us.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Just because he is personally beyond our reach doesn’t mean we can’t discuss his flaws and make personal decisions on how we interact with his legacy.
> 
> For some, nothing will change- they won’t give up the things he made that they like, but they won’t support the reprehensible stuff.  For others, they have gained a hero they didn’t know they had.  Others still may choose to avoid his works in any form, and may even divest themselves of his non-Nazi writings.
> 
> Not only that, what happens to his legacy going forward will be instructive to others.  Some will choose to keep their darker natures hidden from public view instead of committing them to media- even under pseudonyms and aliases.  Even more will realize that idolizing humans is risky business.  Humans are fallible and flawed, and even the best of us have ugliness within us.



Well, exactly, and probably more evidence is that your creative heroes can offer harbour dark secrets that you don't know are there. Personally I never really read anything Barker wrote nor was I a Tekumel fan so I guess my consumption habits re his works will remain at 0%. I won't judge anyone else for whatever decision they make, however.


----------



## John R Davis

He wrote an RPG world.
He wrote a fictional tale, which nobody had read or been offended by.

Is the takeaway here that fiction can no longer be controversial, or have an unsavoury theme?

Struggling?


----------



## QuentinGeorge

John R Davis said:


> He wrote an RPG world.
> He wrote a fictional tale, which nobody had read or been offended by.
> 
> Is the takeaway here that fiction can no longer be controversial, or have an unsavoury theme?
> 
> Struggling?



I don't think its a matter of who was or wasn't offended. I think its more fans being disappointed since they didn't know he held those beliefs.


----------



## aramis erak

domesude said:


> According to Chirine, former archivist for the Tekumel Foundation, some members were aware of Barker's views well before he died. I can see no reason to doubt his account.



I can:

Basic Human Decency
Basic presumption of innocence
The book is under a nom de plume; it's not a certainty that it's Barker. 
Style can be faked. the examples I'd choose to illustrate this would violate the restrictions on RSP.

The claim is by a former subordinate; it's as plausible that it's sour grapes as it is that it's true.
The default assumption is that the claimant is in unintentional error

The claim is not consistent with the various descriptions of him by many others.
He's dead. Let him be, he can't defend himself.


----------



## Parmandur

aramis erak said:


> I can:
> 
> Basic Human Decency
> Basic presumption of innocence
> The book is under a nom de plume; it's not a certainty that it's Barker.
> Style can be faked. the examples I'd choose to illustrate this would violate the restrictions on RSP.
> 
> The claim is by a former subordinate; it's as plausible that it's sour grapes as it is that it's true.
> The default assumption is that the claimant is in unintentional error
> 
> The claim is not consistent with the various descriptions of him by many others.
> He's dead. Let him be, he can't defend himself.



The evidence seems pretty convincing, and the accounts of his character all seem of a piece with it.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

aramis erak said:


> I can:
> 
> Basic Human Decency
> Basic presumption of innocence
> The book is under a nom de plume; it's not a certainty that it's Barker.
> Style can be faked. the examples I'd choose to illustrate this would violate the restrictions on RSP.
> 
> The claim is by a former subordinate; it's as plausible that it's sour grapes as it is that it's true.
> The default assumption is that the claimant is in unintentional error
> 
> The claim is not consistent with the various descriptions of him by many others.
> He's dead. Let him be, he can't defend himself.



This isn't a criminal trial, he's not going to be prosecuted for a crime, it's just people sleuthing so I'm not sure why the "presumption of innocence" is relevant.


----------



## Fifth Element

aramis erak said:


> I can:
> 
> Basic Human Decency
> Basic presumption of innocence
> The book is under a nom de plume; it's not a certainty that it's Barker.
> Style can be faked. the examples I'd choose to illustrate this would violate the restrictions on RSP.
> 
> The claim is by a former subordinate; it's as plausible that it's sour grapes as it is that it's true.
> The default assumption is that the claimant is in unintentional error
> 
> The claim is not consistent with the various descriptions of him by many others.
> He's dead. Let him be, he can't defend himself.



You ignored the fact that he was on the editorial board of a Holocaust-denial journal for 13 years.

This isn't a courtroom. No one's going to prison.

And the idea that you shouldn't discuss a person's flaws just because they're dead is ridiculous.


----------



## Fifth Element

John R Davis said:


> He wrote an RPG world.
> He wrote a fictional tale, which nobody had read or been offended by.
> 
> Is the takeaway here that fiction can no longer be controversial, or have an unsavoury theme?
> 
> Struggling?



The takeaway is that it's fine to say that someone who writes pro-Nazi fiction is probably not a good person.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

Good news for Lovecraft though - he soured on the Nazis pre-Holocaust, Barker was still thinking they were cool in 1991.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

QuentinGeorge said:


> Good news for Lovecraft though - he soured on the Nazis pre-Holocaust, Barker was still thinking they were cool in 1991.



He’s got his own, well-documented issues, of course.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

John R Davis said:


> He wrote an RPG world.
> He wrote a fictional tale, which nobody had read or been offended by.
> 
> Is the takeaway here that fiction can no longer be controversial, or have an unsavoury theme?
> 
> Struggling?



Not struggling.

As noted, you missed the part about his documented 13 years of Holocaust denialism.

That aside, if you put something- ANYTHING- into the world, it *will* be analyzed, criticized and judged.  So will you, the creator.

If you want to create things that are controversial or unsavory, you don’t get to hide from people responding to it.  You have no valid clam of freedom from critique of your creations.

And neither death nor the mere passage of time grant you immunity from that either.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Dannyalcatraz said:


> He’s got his own, well-documented issues, of course.



Yep. He was hardcore a hardcore bigot, even for his times.

People have opinions. It doesn't change the quality of their artistic efforts. The Petal Empire is a foundation stone of our hobby. I buy the products of a virulent racist because I like the game system. And he's careful not to let his opinions show in his commercial work.

Barker's hardly the only VIP of the RPG hobby, past or present, to have views that are legal but shocking to the more delicate sort.

As a person of color, I find that political correctness just builds a more subtle bigot. Myself, I miss the days when you knew up front where people stood.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Dannyalcatraz said:


> And neither death nor the mere passage of time grant you immunity from that either.



Death pretty much does. Barker certainly doesn't care what anyone thinks now. Odds are very good he didn't care back when he was alive.


----------



## Hussar

John R Davis said:


> He wrote an RPG world.
> He wrote a fictional tale, which nobody had read or been offended by.
> 
> Is the takeaway here that fiction can no longer be controversial, or have an unsavoury theme?
> 
> Struggling?



If that's your takeaway, then I would say that you have badly missed the point.  

It's absolutely astonishing to me that people, still now, insist on so badly missing the point.  

Or, put it another way, why is knowing the truth, as in the complete truth and not just the comfortable, selected truths, seen as a bad thing?  Why is it when we learn about how this formerly lauded individual (regardless of who it is) actually was a real human being with flaws and views, it's suddenly a bad thing?  

Look, it's pretty simple.  If you don't want history to remember you as a dick, don't be a dick.  We live in this vast sea of information now.  Which means that all that stuff that was "conveniently forgotten" like, say, being a slave trader (as an example) is now readily available.  And yes, new information results in people changing their views on the past.  And it should.  We should never look back on the history of someone or something, interpret it one way, and then, regardless of any new information that is later learned, insist that that single interpretation must be the only one we ever use for all time.

I know it's a big shift for a lot of people to learn that the "facts" they grew up with are no longer the only facts.  It's hard to learn that people we thought of as heroes were in fact, really not.  Good grief, I'm old enough to remember when Columbus was a hero.  Now, we realize that he was much more of a murderous bastard who spend a significant time in Spanish prison for being TOO violent to the natives.  How bad do you have to be for the 15th century Spanish to chuck you in jail for what are essentially human rights violations?    

It is NEVER about "fiction can never be controversial".


----------



## Casimir Liber

Had been musing on looking into Tekumel as I was aware of it as a kid at some point. This makes me significantly less inclined to do so. Given the esoteric nature of EPT/Tekumel, all this will do is influence numbers of in-depth gamers like us to either ignore the news or (for probably more of us) lose interest in investigating it. It's sad really overall.


----------



## Blue Orange

Hussar said:


> If that's your takeaway, then I would say that you have badly missed the point.
> 
> It's absolutely astonishing to me that people, still now, insist on so badly missing the point.
> 
> Or, put it another way, why is knowing the truth, as in the complete truth and not just the comfortable, selected truths, seen as a bad thing?  Why is it when we learn about how this formerly lauded individual (regardless of who it is) actually was a real human being with flaws and views, it's suddenly a bad thing?
> 
> Look, it's pretty simple.  If you don't want history to remember you as a dick, don't be a dick.  We live in this vast sea of information now.  Which means that all that stuff that was "conveniently forgotten" like, say, being a slave trader (as an example) is now readily available.  And yes, new information results in people changing their views on the past.  And it should.  We should never look back on the history of someone or something, interpret it one way, and then, regardless of any new information that is later learned, insist that that single interpretation must be the only one we ever use for all time.
> 
> I know it's a big shift for a lot of people to learn that the "facts" they grew up with are no longer the only facts.  It's hard to learn that people we thought of as heroes were in fact, really not.  Good grief, I'm old enough to remember when Columbus was a hero.  Now, we realize that he was much more of a murderous bastard who spend a significant time in Spanish prison for being TOO violent to the natives.  How bad do you have to be for the 15th century Spanish to chuck you in jail for what are essentially human rights violations?
> 
> It is NEVER about "fiction can never be controversial".




The rules for 'don't be a dick' change considerably over time. People used to be _burned at the stake _for being gay; now it's increasingly no big deal. Andrew Jackson was considered a great president for all the land he got his supporters; now we hate him for getting it by driving off the Native Americans. It works the other way--Grant's reputation has improved as his drunkenness gets forgotten (and the Lost Cause and Dunning School historians lose influence) and his attempts to push Reconstruction are appreciated. I'm sure the Brits here have their own examples.

Do the right thing because it's the right thing, but don't think you can predict the sweep of history. Future generations may decide they hate you for driving a car and eating meat and flooding them with global warming. Or you may be persecuted for your social justice activism by the Carlson, DeSantis, or Shapiro administrations.

There was actually a whole push-and-pull between the Crown and the conquistadors over how much to exploit the natives, ironically enough. They didn't have modern conceptions of human rights, but once you were baptized you weren't supposed to mistreat Christians... but of course the conquistadors wanted their gold, and the Crown was far away. Bartolome de las Casas embarrassed them into making rules, but they weren't enforced very well. 

Being a Nazi was considered bad in 1991, but it's not quite so open-and-shut in most other cases.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jd Smith1 said:


> The Petal Empire is a foundation stone of our hobby.



This is an exaggeration to be sure. And yes, oftentimes you can separate an artist from their art, and EotPT seems to be one of those cases.

That does not mean, in any way, that we should not criticize the man for what he apparently was as a person. Because very often, fandom goes beyond appreciating a particular piece of work and enters into idolizing its creator. That is clearly not appropriate for Barker at this juncture.

And I'm not saying that you're doing that, but some people do. And you're not the only one reading.


----------



## Fifth Element

Blue Orange said:


> The rules for 'don't be a dick' change considerably over time. People used to be _burned at the stake _for being gay; now it's increasingly no big deal.



This is moral relativism. It was *always *wrong to kill people for their sexual orientation, even if the majority of people did not realize it. Some people *did *know it was wrong, of course, and that's how it started to be seen as wrong by more and more people. So yes, you can criticize a person for not understanding that something was wrong, even if most people at the time also did not realize it.


Blue Orange said:


> Do the right thing because it's the right thing, but don't think you can predict the sweep of history. Future generations may decide they hate you for driving a car and eating meat and flooding them with global warming.



There are plenty of people *today *who understand the wrongness of how our society currently does things. Not being able to do anything about it, and vocally supporting it by writing about how good it is instead, are not equivalent.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jd Smith1 said:


> Death pretty much does. Barker certainly doesn't care what anyone thinks now. Odds are very good he didn't care back when he was alive.



Death might do it for someone who no ones cares about. Barker still has large numbers of fans, and a foundation named after him, etc, etc. He's still a pretty big name in his field. This has nothing to do with what Barker might feel about anything. His legacy still exists, and that's what we're addressing.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jd Smith1 said:


> I find that political correctness just builds a more subtle bigot.



"Promote Nazi ideology is harmful to people" is not political correctness. It's just correctness.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Fifth Element said:


> This is an exaggeration to be sure.



I don't believe so. I was around when the foundations were being laid.


Fifth Element said:


> That does not mean, in any way, that we should not criticize the man for what he apparently was as a person.



'Apparently' is the point where you lose this issue. Criticized him if you have factual proof  Otherwise you're just rumor-mongering.


----------



## Dire Bare

Blue Orange said:


> Being a Nazi was considered bad in 1991, but it's not quite so open-and-shut in most other cases.



No. Just no.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Blue Orange said:


> The rules for 'don't be a dick' change considerably over time. People used to be _burned at the stake _for being gay; now it's increasingly no big deal.



Do you mean literally? I had never heard that.



Blue Orange said:


> Andrew Jackson was considered a great president for all the land he got his supporters; now we hate him for getting it by driving off the Native Americans.



We do? I never got that memo.



Blue Orange said:


> It works the other way--Grant's reputation has improved as his drunkenness gets forgotten (and the Lost Cause and Dunning School historians lose influence) and his attempts to push Reconstruction are appreciated. I'm sure the Brits here have their own examples.



Grant wasn't a drunk during the ACW. That is a long-debunked rumor.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Fifth Element said:


> Death might do it for someone who no ones cares about. Barker still has large numbers of fans, and a foundation named after him, etc, etc. He's still a pretty big name in his field. This has nothing to do with what Barker might feel about anything. His legacy still exists, and that's what we're addressing.



Given that he was openly a Holocaust denier for years, and he still has fans and a foundation, what exactly are you 'addressing'?

On a forum dedicated to a niche hobby, I might add.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Fifth Element said:


> "Promote Nazi ideology is harmful to people" is not political correctness. It's just correctness.



No, it is not, because it takes the stand that 1) Freedom of speech is not inalienable.

2) That people as a group are too dumb to see the weakness of that ideology.

3) that your own ideology is so fragile that it cannot prevail in the face of competition.


----------



## Hussar

Jd Smith1 said:


> No, it is not, because it takes the stand that 1) Freedom of speech is not inalienable.
> 
> 2) That people as a group are too dumb to see the weakness of that ideology.
> 
> 3) that your own ideology is so fragile that it cannot prevail in the face of competition.




Umm freedom of speech is not inalienable and never has been.


----------



## darjr

Looks like someone from the Tekumel foundation posted that they are working on a response.


----------



## Professor Murder

I'm warry of people who feel the need to defend scoundrels. You can tell someone's moral vision by whom they give the benefit of the doubt.
Parallels to Lovecraft are obvious and are worth exploring. I am not going to claim to know much of anything about Barker or Tekumel, and for me as a non-fan, not engaging with his work or legacy isn't really a sacrifice. It falls to fans, both current ones and the possible future ones who discover this work later to decide how to square the acts of Barker with his work as a creator and artist. I am curious to hear from someone keenly familiar with Tekumel, to learn if there are elements of the setting which might set off red flags when viewed though the lens of it's creator being an anti-Semite. I know that as a fan of Lovecraft, I have had to reevaluate his work as I grew up and learned more and more of his racist predilections. It is easier when they are dead and Barker is dead. But you need not defend his actions to defend his art, if you so choose to. You need to be willing to be objective. But. If you find yourself thinking that writing an entire novel with Nazi themes and protagonists and active participation in Holocaust denial apparently for decades as aberrations, you need to step back, because you are defending evil.


----------



## Levistus's_Leviathan

Professor Murder said:


> I'm warry of people who feel the need to defend scoundrels. You can tell someone's moral vision by whom they give the benefit of the doubt.
> Parallels to Lovecraft are obvious and are worth exploring. I am not going to claim to know much of anything about Barker or Tekumel, and for me as a non-fan, not engaging with his work or legacy isn't really a sacrifice. It falls to fans, both current ones and the possible future ones who discover this work later to decide how to square the acts of Barker with his work as a creator and artist. I am curious to hear from someone keenly familiar with Tekumel, to learn if there are elements of the setting which might set off red flags when viewed though the lens of it's creator being an anti-Semite. I know that as a fan of Lovecraft, I have had to reevaluate his work as I grew up and learned more and more of his racist predilections. It is easier when they are dead and Barker is dead. But you need not defend his actions to defend his art, if you so choose to. You need to be willing to be objective. But. If you find yourself thinking that writing an entire novel with Nazi themes and protagonists and active participation in Holocaust denial apparently for decades as aberrations, you need to step back, because you are defending evil.



Agreed.

If you have 999 people wholly defending 1 Nazi sympathizer, you have 1000 Nazi sympathizers. There are no "ifs", "ands," or "buts." Defending someone that denied the Holocaust for decades and wrote a neo-Nazi book makes you a Nazi sympathizer.

There are no "both sides," there is no "but CaNcEl CuLtUrE," and there is absolutely no reason to defend or support him. If he was a Nazi or sympathizer of them, and you're supporting him after learning this, _you're a Nazi sympathizer_.


----------



## Professor Murder

AcererakTriple6 said:


> Agreed.
> 
> If you have 999 people wholly defending 1 Nazi sympathizer, you have 1000 Nazi sympathizers. There are no "ifs", "ands," or "buts." Defending someone that denied the Holocaust for decades and wrote a neo-Nazi book makes you a Nazi sympathizer.
> 
> There are no "both sides," there is no "but CaNcEl CuLtUrE," there is no reason to defend or support him. If he was a Nazi or sympathizer of them, and you're supporting him after learning this, you're a Nazi sympathizer.



I agree, if perhaps slightly different in tone. Respectfully. 
To put it simply:
It is not acceptable to be a Nazi. It is not acceptable to admire the Nazis and model your views after them, even in part.
And in addition:
It is not acceptable to be OK with some people being Nazis or admiring Nazis and modeling their views after them, even in part.
Is it the same sin? The same severity? 
No. But it is a sin none the less. Because Fascist ideologies always are rooted in violence and cruelty and their end goal will always be these things and if you condone these beliefs, you condone these actions.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hussar said:


> Umm freedom of speech is not inalienable and never has been.



Yep.  Every right has boundaries defined by duties to others.


----------



## aramis erak

Fifth Element said:


> This is an exaggeration to be sure. And yes, oftentimes you can separate an artist from their art, and EotPT seems to be one of those cases.
> 
> That does not mean, in any way, that we should not criticize the man for what he apparently was as a person. Because very often, fandom goes beyond appreciating a particular piece of work and enters into idolizing its creator. That is clearly not appropriate for Barker at this juncture.
> 
> And I'm not saying that you're doing that, but some people do. And you're not the only one reading.



It's not much of one. EPT was the first licensed game. TSR licensed him to use adapted D&D OE mechanics.  It was also pretty much the first game with prose about the setting. The first several national conventions where D&D was significant, EPT was there, as an advanced/alternate form of D&D, and with Gygax's blessings. 
There are some implications that Barker may have been more influential than E. Gary Gygax Sr made out; the "Beyond Here Be Dragons" manuscript in his effects appears to be a late stage draft of OE D&D. 

Tekumel/EPT are every bit as important as Metamorphosis Alpha, Tunnels and Trolls, RuneQuest, and Traveller. They were all commercial successes which proved that there was room in the RPG realm for games other than D&D, and for playstyles other than the "push your luck dungeoneering" (which is the style of play presented in the OE D&D rules, even if it wasn't what Gygax did at his tables)...  Further, there were novels that brought people to EPT, at least later, and Phil's worldbuilding is comparable in scope to Tolkien, albeit with not as wide a fanbase. Phil's being an educator with a public wargaming hobby also brought a certain level of tolerance during the heyday of the Satanic Panic. 

Phil not having done EPT wouldn't have killed the hobby, but it would have had some important effects. And I say this as someone who's never played Tekumel based games. Phil is a historical figure of note within FRPG-ing, and a spreader of the hobby. An influencer. His D&D spinoff, as well, expanded the audience for TTRPGs, because it did things slightly differently; RuneQuest, Traveller, MetA, T&T, and En Garde all did things differently, too. We don't, and can't, know where the tipping point was, but we can see that these games all did jointly push RPGs into more homes, hearts, and minds. 50 years on, and people are still playing Tekumel. And T&T. And RQ. And Traveller. And En Garde. And D&D. 

By comparison, some other early games got no real traction... few have heard of Kaball, fewer still have read it, and fewer even have played/run it. Starships & Spacemen  never got a big following; if FGU could have afforded the Trek License, it would likely be in that above list... but they couldn't, and it's a historical footnote. (Albeit one I have enjoyed off and on for decades.) There are a dozen other pre 1980 games that could have been important, but weren't, for various reasons.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Jd Smith1 said:


> Death pretty much does. Barker certainly doesn't care what anyone thinks now. Odds are very good he didn't care back when he was alive.



Whether or not _he_ is capable of caring, his _legacy_- including his personal flaws- is certainly fair game for critique, regardless of how long he has been dead.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Jd Smith1 said:


> As a person of color, I find that political correctness just builds a more subtle bigot. Myself, I miss the days when you knew up front where people stood.



As a person of color, I agree it can make _some_ bigots more subtle, but most respond in a reactionary fashion- pushing back- not by modifying their behavior.


----------



## overgeeked

Tekumel Foundation to release a statement. Didn’t see it on the site, but a spokesman hit the Tekumel discord.


----------



## overgeeked

I agree about the parallels to H. P. Lovecraft, to a point. Lovecraft was openly, viciously racist throughout most of his life. And freely expressed his racism in his fiction, poetry, letters, speech, etc. MAR Barker wrote a neo-Nazi tract under a pseudonym to protect himself from the obvious repercussions. A lot of Lovecraft’s fans despise his politics. I get the impression there’s going to be a lot of talk about separating the art from the artist in the near future.


----------



## Hussar

Blue Orange said:


> The rules for 'don't be a dick' change considerably over time. People used to be _burned at the stake _for being gay; now it's increasingly no big deal. Andrew Jackson was considered a great president for all the land he got his supporters; now we hate him for getting it by driving off the Native Americans. It works the other way--Grant's reputation has improved as his drunkenness gets forgotten (and the Lost Cause and Dunning School historians lose influence) and his attempts to push Reconstruction are appreciated. I'm sure the Brits here have their own examples.
> /snip



But, even at the time, people were pretty much sure that burning other people at the stake was a bad thing and those doing the burning, by and large, even at the time, weren't exactly being patted on the back, even if they weren't being openly opposed. 

And, again, let's not forget, we're talking about someone who was apparently openly supporting Nazis in the 1990's.  There's really no "Oh, well, he's just a product of his time" excuse to be had here.


----------



## GuyBoy

There is no “grey area” with Nazism and neo-Nazism. No historical relativism.
They are repugnantly evil. 
Attempting to mitigate that repugnant evil with accusations of “ cancel culture” is siding with repugnant evil.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Dannyalcatraz said:


> As a person of color, I agree it can make _some_ bigots more subtle, but most respond in a reactionary fashion- pushing back- not by modifying their behavior.



In the more extreme cases, I agree. But in the majority of bigots, my experience has been that they simply changed their public habits. But I have little proof of this, of course.

But if we operate under the premise that opinion has been modified because of an elimination of public expression, then racism ended in the USA decades ago...


----------



## Jd Smith1

overgeeked said:


> I agree about the parallels to H. P. Lovecraft, to a point. Lovecraft was openly, viciously racist throughout most of his life. And freely expressed his racism in his fiction, poetry, letters, speech, etc. MAR Barker wrote a neo-Nazi tract under a pseudonym to protect himself from the obvious repercussions. A lot of Lovecraft’s fans despise his politics. I get the impression there’s going to be a lot of talk about separating the art from the artist in the near future.



Just what is needed: a lot of talk.  

Barker was openly a Holocaust denier for years. I doubt he used a pseudonym (if he wrote the book) out of fear of repercussions. For that matter, what repercussions? If he wrote the book he did nothing illegal, and its hardly the only such book out there. 

I've known about Lovecraft for decades (he certainly did not hide his opinions), but I've used his Mythos for nearly as long. Bigot or not, the man could write.

I'm about to hire a contactor to do some repairs to my patio roof, and I'm not going to inquire as to his politics. All I am concerned with in this interaction is the quality of his work and the fairness of his fees.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jd Smith1 said:


> 'Apparently' is the point where you lose this issue. Criticized him if you have factual proof  Otherwise you're just rumor-mongering.



Earlier you said you buy the products of a virulent racist because you don't think the racism matters to the products. Now you're claiming that there is insufficient reason to believe that Barker was racist. But if you buy a racist's products anyway, that isn't the issue for you. So it's a red herring.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jd Smith1 said:


> Given that he was openly a Holocaust denier for years, and he still has fans and a foundation, what exactly are you 'addressing'?



The fact that the vast majority of his fans have no idea he was a Holocaust denier.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jd Smith1 said:


> No, it is not, because it takes the stand that 1) Freedom of speech is not inalienable.



It isn't. But if it is, you should have zero problem with the things I'm saying, since my freedom of speech is inalienable.



Jd Smith1 said:


> 2) That people as a group are too dumb to see the weakness of that ideology.



Okay, we shouldn't say obvious things because they're obvious, even if many people go to great lengths to defend those things. Makes sense.



Jd Smith1 said:


> 3) that your own ideology is so fragile that it cannot prevail in the face of competition.



LOL.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jd Smith1 said:


> Barker was openly a Holocaust denier for years.



Wait, I thought that was just "rumor-mongering?"


----------



## Jd Smith1

Fifth Element said:


> Earlier you said you buy the products of a virulent racist because you don't think the racism matters to the products. Now you're claiming that there is insufficient reason to believe that Barker was racist. But if you buy a racist's products anyway, that isn't the issue for you. So it's a red herring.



Please quote where I said that Baker was not a racist. I think you are confused.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Fifth Element said:


> The fact that the vast majority of his fans have no idea he was a Holocaust denier.



Could you post a link to proof of what the vast majority of his fans know?


----------



## Jd Smith1

Fifth Element said:


> It isn't. But if it is, you should have zero problem with the things I'm saying, since my freedom of speech is inalienable.



Oh, I support your right to say what you want, however poorly I view you as a person.


----------



## Willie the Duck

Jd Smith1 said:


> No, it is not, because it takes the stand that 1) Freedom of speech is not inalienable.



Freedom of speech has literally nothing to do with the conversation. No one is keeping anyone from speaking. Instead, people (or their posthumous esteem in the eyes of others) are receiving the consequences of that speech. No more, no less.


----------



## Blue Orange

So, I admit I was wrong. People have presented enough information to convince me Phil Barker probably was on the board of a Holocaust-denial journal into the 2000s. It's a little weird, but then people are weird, and don't always make sense to us.

Besides, Nazis are one of the few groups 90% of people can still agree to hate (used to be 99). Hate to give that up.

I'm not losing my interest in Tekumel, but I'm going to look a little askance at the guy himself from now on.

(BTW, a lot of what we think of as the Lovecraft mythos is actually developed by Sandy Petersen, who's a bit rightier than people around here like but has never actually been a Nazi as far as I know.)


----------



## Fifth Element

Jd Smith1 said:


> Please quote where I said that Baker was not a racist. I think you are confused.



You claimed that I was merely rumor-mongering when I made the argument that Barker appeared to be racist based on the available evidence. The point here is that this is a red herring, because your comment made it clear that don't care whether a creator is racist or not, And then you proceeded to say that he was on the editorial board of a Holocaust-denial journal, which does, in fact, make him racist.


----------



## Fifth Element

Jd Smith1 said:


> Could you post a link to proof of what the vast majority of his fans know?



Sorry, I was merely giving them the benefit of the doubt. I was being charitable, assuming that the majority of people would not support someone that they knew was a Holocaust denier. And given that we have evidence the Tekumel Foundation had this information and knowingly covered it up, there's good reason to believe that it was not widely-disseminated information.

As such, I made a reasonable inference. Proof is for math. We're just having a discussion here.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Fifth Element said:


> You claimed that I was merely rumor-mongering when I made the argument that Barker appeared to be racist based on the available evidence. The point here is that this is a red herring, because your comment made it clear that don't care whether a creator is racist or not, And then you proceeded to say that he was on the editorial board of a Holocaust-denial journal, which does, in fact, make him racist.



Actually, it makes him an anti-Semitic It is important to the words that actually apply.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Fifth Element said:


> Sorry, I was merely giving them the benefit of the doubt.



No, you're just making things up. Time to put you aside.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Blue Orange said:


> So, I admit I was wrong. People have presented enough information to convince me Phil Barker probably was on the board of a Holocaust-denial journal into the 2000s. It's a little weird, but then people are weird, and don't always make sense to us.
> 
> Besides, Nazis are one of the few groups 90% of people can still agree to hate (used to be 99). Hate to give that up.
> 
> I'm not losing my interest in Tekumel, but I'm going to look a little askance at the guy himself from now on.
> 
> (BTW, a lot of what we think of as the Lovecraft mythos is actually developed by Sandy Petersen, who's a bit rightier than people around here like but has never actually been a Nazi as far as I know.)



Lovecraft wasn't a Nazi; in the early-mid 30s he expressed admiration for Hitler's handling of the depression and political chaos (this was the period where Hitler was also Time Magazine's Man of the Year), but turned against Hitler and the NSDAP before his death in '37.

The problem with Nazis is that for certain age groups it has morphed from a clear political definition into a generic term for 'people I don't like'. It's literally getting over-used into oblivion.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Willie the Duck said:


> Freedom of speech has literally nothing to do with the conversation. No one is keeping anyone from speaking. Instead, people (or their posthumous esteem in the eyes of others) are receiving the consequences of that speech. No more, no less.



How does a dead man suffer consequences? As to his legacy, his opinions were never a secret. He stated them publically and at great length.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Jd Smith1 said:


> Oh, I support your right to say what you want, however poorly I view you as a person.



Mod Note:

Making it personal potentially earns warning points.  You’ve realized that potential.


----------



## LongTimeLurker

Rogerd1 said:


> And that board existed between what dates?



Doesn't  matter. Holocaust denial is so ridiculous that there can be no excuses or mitigating circumstances that make it ok.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Jd Smith1 said:


> Lovecraft wasn't a Nazi; in the early-mid 30s he expressed admiration for Hitler's handling of the depression and political chaos (this was the period where Hitler was also Time Magazine's Man of the Year), but turned against Hitler and the NSDAP before his death in '37.
> 
> The problem with Nazis is that for certain age groups it has morphed from a clear political definition into a generic term for 'people I don't like'. It's literally getting over-used into oblivion.



*Mod Note:*

Clearly drifting into current-day politics. Drop it please.


----------



## Jd Smith1

LongTimeLurker said:


> Doesn't  matter. Holocaust denial is so ridiculous that there can be no excuses or mitigating circumstances that make it ok.



It is completely ridiculous, but how can you take someone who believes it seriously?


----------



## Davies

Jd Smith1 said:


> It is completely ridiculous, but how can you take someone who believes it seriously?



By recognizing that they might have lawyers, guns and money, with which they can do harm beyond hurting someone's feelings. So you might not take their ideas seriously, but you should take _them_ quite seriously.


----------



## Sacrosanct

These types of threads are always challenging, and always depressing to find out abhorrent behavior from a cherished contributor.  I've never been a fan of Tekumel or Barker, just never got into it at all, even if I knew what it was.

The challenging part is everyone has different lines in the sand.  Some seem obvious, some not so much, and nearly everyone has a different thing they consider deal-breaking.  It's why I am hesitant to call anyone a Nazi-sympathizer for enjoying the product separate from the person.  It may seem that way to me at times, but there is a big slippery slope.

If you're a nazi sympathizer for continuing to enjoy Tekumel as a product, does that also mean..
..you're a racist for enjoying Lovecraft?
..you're anti-trans for enjoying Harry Potter?
..you're pro-child molestation for enjoying Michael Jackson music?
..you're pro-child abuse for enjoying David Eddings books?
..you're a misogynist for enjoying D&D because Gygax invented it?

I suspect only each individual can make that choice, even if I suspect most people, even those who enjoy the works above, do not support any of those abhorrent beliefs.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Davies said:


> By recognizing that they might have lawyers, guns and money, with which they can do harm beyond hurting someone's feelings. So you might not take their ideas seriously, but you should take _them_ quite seriously.



I simply can't. During my working career I dealt regularly and repeatedly with all manner of neo-Nazis, Ayrans, and their ilk, and it was difficult to take them seriously (a more poorly organized, ineptly led, and willfully ignorant bunch has seldom existed, I believe). But I never met one who was thick enough to seriously deny that the Holocaust took place.

Everyone has lawyers, guns, and money. But if you seriously deny an event of such historical scope, documentation, and admission, you're not a threat to anyone, IMO.


----------



## Parmandur

Blue Orange said:


> So, I admit I was wrong. People have presented enough information to convince me Phil Barker probably was on the board of a Holocaust-denial journal into the 2000s. It's a little weird, but then people are weird, and don't always make sense to us.
> 
> Besides, Nazis are one of the few groups 90% of people can still agree to hate (used to be 99). Hate to give that up.
> 
> I'm






Sacrosanct said:


> These types of threads are always challenging, and always depressing to find out abhorrent behavior from a cherished contributor.  I've never been a fan of Tekumel or Barker, just never got into it at all, even if I knew what it was.
> 
> The challenging part is everyone has different lines in the sand.  Some seem obvious, some not so much, and nearly everyone has a different thing they consider deal-breaking.  It's why I am hesitant to call anyone a Nazi-sympathizer for enjoying the product separate from the person.  It may seem that way to me at times, but there is a big slippery slope.
> 
> If you're a nazi sympathizer for continuing to enjoy Tekumel as a product, does that also mean..
> ..you're a racist for enjoying Lovecraft?
> ..you're anti-trans for enjoying Harry Potter?
> ..you're pro-child molestation for enjoying Michael Jackson music?
> ..you're pro-child abuse for enjoying David Eddings books?
> ..you're a misogynist for enjoying D&D because Gygax invented it?
> 
> I suspect only each individual can make that choice, even if I suspect most people, even those who enjoy the works above, do not support any of those abhorrent beliefs.



I wouldnthink that being a Tekumel fan makes someone a Nazi...but it is important to understand the worldview of the creator, just as it is important to analyzing Tolkien to understand his Platonism and Catholocism (speaking as a Platonist and Catholic myself, so it doesn'teven have to come from a place of disagreement, just understanding), and it is important to understand Lovecrafts...everything...when reading his work. Enjoying the art of a creator doesn't mean agreeing with everything thought...but you have to take account of it.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Jd Smith1 said:


> But if we operate under the premise that opinion has been modified because of an elimination of public expression, then racism ended in the USA decades ago...



That’s silly from start to finish.  

Public expression hasn’t been eliminated, the use of certain forms have been declared to be less acceptable by a majority of society.  You can still use those forms, but the odds of receiving negative feedback for doing so have increased.

And the only people who think racism in the USA ended decades ago are the ones who have no idea what racism really is.


----------



## Jd Smith1

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That’s silly from start to finish.
> 
> Public expression hasn’t been eliminated, the use of certain forms have been declared to be less acceptable by a majority of society.  You can still use those forms, but the odds of receiving negative feedback for doing so have increased.
> 
> And the only people who think racism in the USA ended decades ago are the ones who have no idea what racism really is.



You quoted half the post. The line you quoted was meant to disprove the statement I quoted and the other half of my post above.

I know better than most the racism is alive and well; it is my opinion that the use of forms declared to be less acceptable by a _percentage _of society has resulted in little practical value.

But that's a long way from the topic. I think we're beating a dead horse.


----------



## Levistus's_Leviathan

Sacrosanct said:


> These types of threads are always challenging, and always depressing to find out abhorrent behavior from a cherished contributor.  I've never been a fan of Tekumel or Barker, just never got into it at all, even if I knew what it was.
> 
> The challenging part is everyone has different lines in the sand.  Some seem obvious, some not so much, and nearly everyone has a different thing they consider deal-breaking.  It's why I am hesitant to call anyone a Nazi-sympathizer for enjoying the product separate from the person.  It may seem that way to me at times, but there is a big slippery slope.
> 
> If you're a nazi sympathizer for continuing to enjoy Tekumel as a product, does that also mean..
> ..you're a racist for enjoying Lovecraft?
> ..you're anti-trans for enjoying Harry Potter?
> ..you're pro-child molestation for enjoying Michael Jackson music?
> ..you're pro-child abuse for enjoying David Eddings books?
> ..you're a misogynist for enjoying D&D because Gygax invented it?
> 
> I suspect only each individual can make that choice, even if I suspect most people, even those who enjoy the works above, do not support any of those abhorrent beliefs.



I'm sorry, but this is just a mischaracterization of what's going on. A huge false dichotomy. No one is calling fans of Barker's work Nazi-sympathizers for enjoying his books. No one is doing that. The answer to all of those questions is pretty obviously a big "No, of course not, that would be ridiculous".

If you are a Nazi-sympathizer for defending, supporting, and praising Barker after it became public information that he was a Nazi-sympathizer and Holocaust-denier, does that also mean .  . .
. . . you're racist for supporting, defending, and praising Lovecraft and his legacy, a blatantly racist man that supported Hitler?
. . . you're transphobic for supporting, defending, and praising Rowling after she made her anti-trans comments online?
. . . you're pro-child molestation for supporting, defending, and praising Michael Jackson and his legacy after it came out that he was a pedophile?
. . . you're a misogynist for supporting, defending, and praising Gygax and his legacy once you learned that he was sexist?

The answer to all of those questions is an absolute "YES!"

Enjoying the product of a horrible person does not make you a horrible person, but defending, supporting, and praising the horrible person after learning how awful they were *does *make you a horrible person.

You're a Nazi-sympathizer if you support, defend, and praise a Nazi-sympathizer after learning the extent of their awful nature. You're not a Nazi-sympathizer if you enjoy the things produced by the Nazi-sympathizer while acknowledging how awful of a person they were.

That is the dichotomy. It's not "if you like the things they made, you're an awful person", it's "if you continue to support, defend, and praise the person that made those things after learning how bad they were, you're an awful person".


----------



## Sacrosanct

AcererakTriple6 said:


> I'm sorry, but this is just a mischaracterization of what's going on. A huge false dichotomy. No one is calling fans of Barker's work Nazi-sympathizers for enjoying his books. No one is doing that. The answer to all of those questions is pretty obviously a big "No, of course not, that would be ridiculous".



I was talking in general terms.  Conversations on this topic, not _just _this one conversation.
I also think you're gonna find some disagreement with:



> . . . you're a misogynist for supporting, defending, and praising Gygax and his legacy once you learned that he was sexist
> 
> The answer to all of those questions is an absolute "YES!"




Lots of people defend Gygax's legacy and his contributions while _not_ defending his sexist comments.  You're saying they are misogynist for doing so.

That's where the "I suspect that line will be different based on person" because it gets awfully muddled.


----------



## Levistus's_Leviathan

Sacrosanct said:


> Lots of people defend Gygax's legacy and his contributions while _not_ defending his sexist comments. You're saying they are misogynist for doing so.
> 
> That's where the "I suspect that line will be different based on person" because it gets awfully muddled.



You can't divorce Gygax's sexist comments and implementations of his sexism in the game from his legacy. It is a part of his legacy. Defending his legacy is defending his sexism, because his sexism is a part of his legacy. You can defend, support, and praise his creations (D&D) while acknowledging that he wasn't a great person. But supporting him and his legacy _is _supporting his sexism.


----------



## Parmandur

AcererakTriple6 said:


> I'm sorry, but this is just a mischaracterization of what's going on. A huge false dichotomy. No one is calling fans of Barker's work Nazi-sympathizers for enjoying his books. No one is doing that. The answer to all of those questions is pretty obviously a big "No, of course not, that would be ridiculous".
> 
> If you are a Nazi-sympathizer for defending, supporting, and praising Barker after it became public information that he was a Nazi-sympathizer and Holocaust-denier, does that also mean .  . .
> . . . you're racist for supporting, defending, and praising Lovecraft and his legacy, a blatant racist man that supported Hitler
> . . . you're transphobic for supporting, defending, and praising Rowling after she made her anti-trans comments online?
> . . . you're pro-child molestation for supporting, defending, and praising Michael Jackson and his legacy after it came out that he was a pedophile
> . . . you're a misogynist for supporting, defending, and praising Gygax and his legacy once you learned that he was sexist
> 
> The answer to all of those questions is an absolute "YES!"
> 
> Enjoying the product of a horrible person does not make you a horrible person, but defending, supporting, and praising the horrible person after learning how awful they were *does *make you a horrible person.
> 
> You're a Nazi-sympathizer if you support, defend, and praise a Nazi-sympathizer after learning the extent of their awful nature. You're not a Nazi-sympathizer if you enjoy the things produced by the Nazi-sympathizer while acknowledging how awful of a person they were.
> 
> That is the dichotomy. It's not "if you like the things they made, you're an awful person", it's "if you continue to support, defend, and praise the person that made those things after learning how bad they were, you're an awful person".



It's more clear if you flip it to more positive or neutral traits if an artist:

- you can enjoy the works of Tolkien without being a Catholic

- you can enjoy the works of C. S. Lewis without being a Neoplatonist (though it helps)

- you can enjoy the works of Victor Hugo without being a Deist.

And so on and on. You don't need to assume the identity and beliefs of an artist to get something from them. But you should understand what they were.


----------



## Sacrosanct

AcererakTriple6 said:


> You can't divorce Gygax's sexist comments and implementations of his sexism in the game from his legacy. It is a part of his legacy. Defending his legacy is defending his sexism, because his sexism is a part of his legacy. You can defend, support, and praise his creations (D&D) while acknowledging that he wasn't a great person. But supporting him and his legacy _is _supporting his sexism.



You can't, but others can.  That's my point.  It's subjective, based on how an individual person feels.  For example, I can see your point, but by doing so that means that Luke (and many others) are sexists.  And I know he's not.

Things aren't as black and white as we like to make them be.  Especially when people can't agree what exactly fits into what is legacy and what is not.  By the logic you're using, anything bad someone does, says, or believes is part of their legacy that can't be divorced from them and they can never be defended or supported, and that lies a very dangerous road, because none of us are perfect.  which means none of us can ever be defended or supported without you assuming they defend and support the negative things we've done.

It doesn't work that way.

Edited for clarity.


----------



## Hussar

Sacrosanct said:


> You can't, but others can.  That's my point.  It's subjective, based on how an individual person feels.  For example, I can see your point, but by doing so that means that Luke (and many others) are sexists.  And I know he's not.
> 
> Things aren't as black and white as we like to make them be.  Especially when people can't agree what exactly fits into what is legacy and what is not.  By the logic you're using, anything bad someone does, says, or believes is part of their legacy that can't be divorced from them and they can never be defended or supported, and that lies a very dangerous road, because none of us are perfect.  which means none of us can ever be defended or supported without you assuming they defend and support the negative things we've done.
> 
> It doesn't work that way.
> 
> Edited for clarity.



The difference is, you're claiming that if you say someone is, say, sexist, then that person is just bad.  That we should condemn that person.  That's not true.  Someone being a sexist doesn't really mean that they weren't brilliantly creative, or absolutely terrible at business.

The point that's being made here is that we should never hide the truth.  The truth is, Gary Gygax included a considerable amount of sexism in his game.  That's undeniable.  Taking it further and calling Gary Gygax sexist is about blame and generally is rather pointless.

However, this isn't about Tekumel.  It's actually specifically about Barker himself.   He was a Holocaust denier.  That seems pretty true.  And, as such, should be known about him.  

So much evil in the world is because we are afraid to confront the fact that many, MANY people out there that are held up in high esteem really shouldn't be.  The only reason they get held up this way is because of lies.  Whether flagrant lies or lies of omission, it's still lying.  And for what?  Why is it better to protect the false memory of someone rather than let the truth be known?  Who is really being protected here?


----------



## Sacrosanct

Hussar said:


> The difference is, you're claiming that if you say someone is, say, sexist, then that person is just bad.  That we should condemn that person.  That's not true.



It's not true because that's not what I'm saying.  the post you quoted was in direct response to this:



> . . . you're racist for supporting, defending, and praising Lovecraft and his legacy, a blatant racist man that supported Hitler
> . . . you're transphobic for supporting, defending, and praising Rowling after she made her anti-trans comments online?
> . . . you're pro-child molestation for supporting, defending, and praising Michael Jackson and his legacy after it came out that he was a pedophile
> . . . you're a misogynist for supporting, defending, and praising Gygax and his legacy once you learned that he was sexist
> 
> The answer to all of those questions is an absolute "YES!"




Which does seem to be saying that if you support or defend a person who may have said or done -ist things, then you're an -ist as well.  Which goes back to my overall point that the lines we draw are subjective and vary from person to person, we should proceed with caution before making those assertions.  I'm not saying we _can't_ make them, only to use them with caution.


----------



## Peter BOSCO'S

Nikosandros said:


> Maybe he was under psionic domination by an aboleth?




I punch the aboleth.


----------



## Dire Bare

AcererakTriple6 said:


> You can't divorce Gygax's sexist comments and implementations of his sexism in the game from his legacy. It is a part of his legacy. Defending his legacy is defending his sexism, because his sexism is a part of his legacy. You can defend, support, and praise his creations (D&D) while acknowledging that he wasn't a great person. But supporting him and his legacy _is _supporting his sexism.



Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with this.

HP Lovecraft, MAR (Phil) Barker, Gary Gygax . . . all complicated people, in the same sense that we are all complicated people. Having aspects of your personality and beliefs be problematic doesn't make you automatically a "horrible person", nor does it make folks who admire you "horrible people".

HP Lovecraft was hella racist. He was also mentally ill. He was a miserable man leading a miserable life. You can be a fan of Lovecraft's work, and even admire the man, while still acknowledging and rejecting his racism. I respect and admire Lovecraft as an author, I feel sorry for him as a person, and his embrace of racist ideas saddens me. I doubt I would have enjoyed his company or friendship if we lived at the same time and place.

Gary Gygax was "_grandpa-racist_" and "_grandpa-sexist_" . . . he held the kinds of racist and sexist views common amongst white dudes of his time. I doubt Gygax considered himself racist or sexist, and his views were shaped by his upbringing and experiences. *Doesn't excuse them, of course.* Gygax, IMO, wasn't even that great of a game designer, he just happened to capture _lightning-in-a-bottle_ with Dave Arneson. I don't have a great deal of admiration for Gygax as an artist or designer, although I do respect and am grateful for his contribution to my favorite hobby. Gygax was not a horrible person . . . but also not worthy of hero worship either, IMO. So many better game designers in our hobby, both as designers and as people.

MAR Barker, Phil, was an odd academic who created a detailed world that appeals to a very small fanbase. Even before we learned of his involvement with racism, I wasn't much of a fan of his work as an author and world-builder. Without defending his actions, we still don't know a lot of the details of exactly HOW racist he was, but we know enough to be saddened and uncomfortable with his work. Being on the editorial board of a problematic academic journal isn't a good look, but isn't proof Barker was a Nazi-sympathizer. His "secret" novel isn't necessarily either, I'd have to read it or read a synopsis/review from a trusted source to judge . . . but it's not worth the effort to find out. Barker may have been no more or less racist than other white academic dudes of his time, but harbored odd ideas of how to engage or deal with Nazism. His novel, regardless of his reasons for writing it, is highly problematic. I wasn't impressed with him before, I'm less so now, but I'm also not willing to judge him as a secret Nazi-sympathizer quite yet. Barker might have been a horrible person, but I don't know enough to judge him yet, and I also don't care enough to dig deeper. His impact on society is limited. I actually was recently considering picking up his Tekumel novels out of curiosity . . . but my interest has soured, after this recent news about the man.

My mixed views on Lovecraft, Gygax, and Barker doesn't make me a horrible person, an apologist for horrible people, a sexist, racist, or a Nazi apologist. If any of these gentlemen were still alive today, I wouldn't be engaging with them, I likely wouldn't be purchasing their works, I wouldn't be attending conventions with them as major guests. But I also don't feel the need to put them in the neat little boxes of "horrible person".


----------



## Hussar

Thank you @Dire Bare for saying what I wanted to say, much better than I could say it.

The only point I would add, which I did badly the last time, is that we should never be afraid to learn more about people.  "Oh, this happened a long time ago.." or "He's dead, leave him be..." or various other ways of putting it are not the way forward.  We should recognize both the good and the bad.  Barker did have a significant role in the early days of the hobby.  There's no denying that.  And, we should recognize that.  Same as we should recognize, say, someone like Lovecraft for their contributions to the genre.  

Again, no one can deny that Lovecraft played a huge role in the genre.  

But, by the same token, we should also recognize that some of these people held some very, very icky beliefs.  And maybe, just maybe, while we should recognize their contributions, it shouldn't be done in such a way as to ignore, hide or bury that fact.  Giving out a Fantasy Award statue to a black writer that's a bust of the head of Lovecraft is probably not the best idea.  Maybe, for example, and I know this is a bit of a hot button topic, but, when we write a list of "Inspirational Reading" for D&D, we leave off some of these authors.  In a list of "Founders of the Genre" or an academic study of the genre, sure, these guys should be right up there.  

I guess I'm saying that there is a time and place for things.  Telling a new to the hobby 13 year old girl of mixed heritage that Lovecraft is a great place to start reading when getting into the genre is maybe not the best idea.  Maybe we don't tout the 1e PHB as the best place to get into D&D for that girl too.  

That doesn't mean that Gygax or Lovecraft or Barker aren't influential.  They are.  Obviously they are.  But, again, time and place.


----------



## Professor Murder

It is larger than the scope of this discussion, but there is another reason why there is a need for open, vocal acknowledgement of these failing of Baker.

Geek spaces have a under-addressed Fascism problem.


----------



## MGibster

overgeeked said:


> I agree about the parallels to H. P. Lovecraft, to a point. Lovecraft was openly, viciously racist throughout most of his life. And freely expressed his racism in his fiction, poetry, letters, speech, etc. MAR Barker wrote a neo-Nazi tract under a pseudonym to protect himself from the obvious repercussions. A lot of Lovecraft’s fans despise his politics. I get the impression there’s going to be a lot of talk about separating the art from the artist in the near future.



I think a lot of us are having some difficulty reconciling the problematic aspects of those from the past with the works they produced that we continue to enjoy today.  Not me.  I'm fairly comfortable knowing many people from the past, including my ancestors, were bastards by today's standards.  As a fan of Lovecraft's work, I'm on the side of those who argue in favor of examining Barker's body of work.  As @Dannyalcatraz wrote, "his _legacy_- including his personal flaws- is certainly fair game for critique, regardless of how long he has been dead."

For those who are fans of Tekumel, I imagine this revelation is rather jarring.  I know I was rather disappointed to learn about some of the attitudes and things said by Gary Gygax that I only learned about in recent years.  I was neither disappointed nor surprised about anything I learned about Lovecraft because, well, yeah, you could see some of his beliefs right there in the writing.


----------



## MGibster

AcererakTriple6 said:


> You can't divorce Gygax's sexist comments and implementations of his sexism in the game from his legacy. It is a part of his legacy. Defending his legacy is defending his sexism, because his sexism is a part of his legacy. You can defend, support, and praise his creations (D&D) while acknowledging that he wasn't a great person. But supporting him and his legacy _is _supporting his sexism.



Like it or not, Gygax is one of the individuals who laid the foundation for the world's most popular table top RPG.  Everyone who plays D&D in 2022 is honoring Gygax's legacy and he's recognized in the credits for 5th edition.


----------



## Levistus's_Leviathan

MGibster said:


> Like it or not, Gygax is one of the individuals who laid the foundation for the world's most popular table top RPG.  Everyone who plays D&D in 2022 is honoring Gygax's legacy and he's recognized in the credits for 5th edition.



That's ridiculous. That's like saying "everyone that eats a chocolate chip cookie or drives a car is honoring the person that invented them". 

A terrible, awful, scumbag of a person can invent something amazing, and you can use/consume the things that the person invented without "honoring the person and/or their legacy". Note that I'm not calling Gygax any of those things, I'm just giving an example. I don't have a very favorable opinion of the guy, but I also don't despise his guts. 

Using/enjoying something that an awful person created doesn't inherently "honor" them or their legacy. If Hitler had invented the telephone, it wouldn't be honoring him to use one.


----------



## Dire Bare

The Tekumel Foundation released a statement on their Facebook page.





__





						The Tekumel Foundation | ## **THE TEKUMEL FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS STATEMENT ON *SERPENT’S WALK*:**
					

## **THE TEKUMEL FOUNDATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS STATEMENT ON *SERPENT’S WALK*:**  The Tekumel Foundation Board of Directors wants to acknowledge that our research shows Professor M.A.R. Barker wrote...




					www.facebook.com
				




Looks like Barker wrote Serpent's Walk. No doubts anymore. And several folks familiar with the work have given synopsizes, plus links to finding the novel free online. The novel is, without a doubt, a pro-Nazi work. Ick.

Why did Barker write the novel? Occam's Razor would suggest because he is a Nazi sympathizer. However, the novel seems an outlier for Barker's work . . . there doesn't seem to be other examples of pro-Nazi writings from Barker. Ultimately though, I don't care WHY Barker wrote Serpents Walk . . . he wrote and published it, that's enough for me.

I don't have a desire to dig into Barker's life and work for more information, I don't need to label him as evil, awful, racist, or anything really. But I am disappointed and saddened, and have lost all desire and curiosity to explore Tekumel and Barker's work.

This news does suck for fans of Barker and Tekumel, I feel sorry for the volunteers who run the Tekumel Foundation and other fans who are discovering one of their favorite authors wrote a racist, pro-Nazi novel. Sigh.


----------



## darjr

Nevermind. They can do it themselves.


----------



## MGibster

AcererakTriple6 said:


> That's ridiculous. That's like saying "everyone that eats a chocolate chip cookie or drives a car is honoring the person that invented them".



It's no more ridiculous than claiming that honoring Gygax's legacy makes one a misogynist.  



AcererakTriple6 said:


> A terrible, awful, scumbag of a person can invent something amazing, and you can use/consume the things that the person invented without "honoring the person and/or their legacy". Note that I'm not calling Gygax any of those things, I'm just giving an example. I don't have a very favorable opinion of the guy, but I also don't despise his guts.



Is there maybe some room for nuance here?  Can we recognize both the positive aspects of a person's legacy and honor them for that while simultaneously decrying the negative aspects?  Or is this simply a binary choice where we must say no?  
Or maybe I'm just a little hung up on honoring.  What do you mean by that?  If I argue that Lovecraft was good at crafting certain types of stories does that count as honoring him?  If he's referenced as an influence in someone's work is that honoring him?


----------



## Hussar

MGibster said:


> It's no more ridiculous than claiming that honoring Gygax's legacy makes one a misogynist.
> 
> 
> Is there maybe some room for nuance here?  Can we recognize both the positive aspects of a person's legacy and honor them for that while simultaneously decrying the negative aspects?  Or is this simply a binary choice where we must say no?
> Or maybe I'm just a little hung up on honoring.  What do you mean by that?  If I argue that Lovecraft was good at crafting certain types of stories does that count as honoring him?  If he's referenced as an influence in someone's work is that honoring him?



I'd say using a bust of him for an award would be honoring him.  Which was done up until just a few years ago, despite the fact that everyone knew he was a racist bigot.  

See, there's a point that's getting forgotten here.  A lot of these people really WERE getting a free pass on their histories simply because people liked what they created.  Lovecraft was and is given a pretty high place in the genre for example.  Heck, we actually use his name as a bloody adjective - THAT'S how revered he is in the genre.  Same with Gygax really.  Gygaxian is certainly a word that is used to describe a particular writing style.  

Now, imagine that you know that the writing of 1e D&D was pretty misogynistic.  And you know that Gygax wrote it.  Now, you publish a work, something you are very proud of.  Maybe you're a woman publishing in D&D.  And someone describes your work as Gygaxian because you like big words and neologisms.  How happy are you?  

All this stuff that's coming to light now wasn't a secret.  It wasn't hidden.  Most of it was pretty well known and has been known for quite some time.  But, it was ignored because of lots of reasons.  Well, it's now time to pay the tab.


----------



## S'mon

Dire Bare said:


> Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with this.
> 
> HP Lovecraft, MAR (Phil) Barker, Gary Gygax . . . all complicated people, in the same sense that we are all complicated people. Having aspects of your personality and beliefs be problematic doesn't make you automatically a "horrible person", nor does it make folks who admire you "horrible people".
> 
> HP Lovecraft was hella racist. He was also mentally ill. He was a miserable man leading a miserable life. You can be a fan of Lovecraft's work, and even admire the man, while still acknowledging and rejecting his racism. I respect and admire Lovecraft as an author, I feel sorry for him as a person, and his embrace of racist ideas saddens me. I doubt I would have enjoyed his company or friendship if we lived at the same time and place.
> 
> Gary Gygax was "_grandpa-racist_" and "_grandpa-sexist_" . . . he held the kinds of racist and sexist views common amongst white dudes of his time. I doubt Gygax considered himself racist or sexist, and his views were shaped by his upbringing and experiences. *Doesn't excuse them, of course.* Gygax, IMO, wasn't even that great of a game designer, he just happened to capture _lightning-in-a-bottle_ with Dave Arneson. I don't have a great deal of admiration for Gygax as an artist or designer, although I do respect and am grateful for his contribution to my favorite hobby. Gygax was not a horrible person . . . but also not worthy of hero worship either, IMO. So many better game designers in our hobby, both as designers and as people.
> 
> MAR Barker, Phil, was an odd academic who created a detailed world that appeals to a very small fanbase. Even before we learned of his involvement with racism, I wasn't much of a fan of his work as an author and world-builder. Without defending his actions, we still don't know a lot of the details of exactly HOW racist he was, but we know enough to be saddened and uncomfortable with his work. Being on the editorial board of a problematic academic journal isn't a good look, but isn't proof Barker was a Nazi-sympathizer. His "secret" novel isn't necessarily either, I'd have to read it or read a synopsis/review from a trusted source to judge . . . but it's not worth the effort to find out. Barker may have been no more or less racist than other white academic dudes of his time, but harbored odd ideas of how to engage or deal with Nazism. His novel, regardless of his reasons for writing it, is highly problematic. I wasn't impressed with him before, I'm less so now, but I'm also not willing to judge him as a secret Nazi-sympathizer quite yet. Barker might have been a horrible person, but I don't know enough to judge him yet, and I also don't care enough to dig deeper. His impact on society is limited. I actually was recently considering picking up his Tekumel novels out of curiosity . . . but my interest has soured, after this recent news about the man.
> 
> *My mixed views on Lovecraft, Gygax, and Barker doesn't make me a horrible person*, an apologist for horrible people, a sexist, racist, or a Nazi apologist. If any of these gentlemen were still alive today, I wouldn't be engaging with them, I likely wouldn't be purchasing their works, I wouldn't be attending conventions with them as major guests. But I also don't feel the need to put them in the neat little boxes of "horrible person".




I disagree with your assessment of Barker, from what we know now, afaict he seems to have been seriously engaged with/supportive of Neo-Nazism, making him vastly more racist than most people then or now. Based on this, I would lean strongly towards him being a 'horrible person' (& I'd say the same of game designers on the Left equally supportive of eg Maoism). But the more important point "*My mixed views on Lovecraft, Gygax, and Barker doesn't make me a horrible person" *I agree with 100%.


----------



## MGibster

Hussar said:


> Now, imagine that you know that the writing of 1e D&D was pretty misogynistic. And you know that Gygax wrote it. Now, you publish a work, something you are very proud of. Maybe you're a woman publishing in D&D. And someone describes your work as Gygaxian because you like big words and neologisms. How happy are you?



When I refer to a dungeon as Gygaxian it's not a compliment but I get your point.  And I was fine with them getting rid of Lovecraft's image on a bust for an award.  But I'm not so fine with the idea of removing his name from everything as some people desire.  

I'll ask again.  Is there any nuance here?  Can we recognize someone for their contributions to our hobby while simultaneously acknowledging the bad?  Or is the best course of action to remove them from any lists of contributors or influences?  Like I said, Gygax is still listed in 5th edition D&D.  We're still honoring the guy for his contributions.


----------



## Blue Orange

I don't have an 18(50) limit for female STR in D&D games. But I still play D&D.

All our favorite creators were people, and in many cases people of their times (Gygax) or considerably more prejudiced than average for their times (Lovecraft and Barker, apparently). We take the good from what they did and discard the bad. To quote the author of a notorious antisemitic play, "Use every man after his desert, and who shall 'scape whipping?"


----------



## Fifth Element

MGibster said:


> We're still honoring the guy for his contributions.



Wait, so if The RPG Pundit is named in the 5E PHB, does that mean you're honoring his contributions by playing the game?

You might argue that WotC is still honouring Gygax for his contributions. But claiming that a player is simply by playing the game? That doesn't track.


----------



## John R Davis

It's hardly honouring them.
Acknowledging their contribution more like, and this is fine IMO


----------



## Parmandur

Fifth Element said:


> Wait, so if The RPG Pundit is named in the 5E PHB, does that mean you're honoring his contributions by playing the game?
> 
> You might argue that WotC is still honouring Gygax for his contributions. But claiming that a player is simply by playing the game? That doesn't track.



WotC removed the Pundit from the book a while ago.


----------



## Fifth Element

Parmandur said:


> WotC removed the Pundit from the book a while ago.



Indeed they did. My point remains unchanged. Playing the game using a book including his name does not it any way mean you honoured his contributions when doing do.


----------



## MGibster

Fifth Element said:


> You might argue that WotC is still honouring Gygax for his contributions. But claiming that a player is simply by playing the game? That doesn't track.



Is WotC misogynistic for including Gygax's name in the credits of 5th edition?


----------



## aramis erak

Fifth Element said:


> Wait, so if The RPG Pundit is named in the 5E PHB, does that mean you're honoring his contributions by playing the game?
> 
> You might argue that WotC is still honouring Gygax for his contributions. But claiming that a player is simply by playing the game? That doesn't track.



A player who knows Pundit was a paid consultant and who Pundit is, and how toxic and misogynistic and generally misanthropic? Yes. One who is clueless? No. 

If, as several above have implied, any support/defense of evildoers makes one evil, then playing a game with strong input from two people (Pundit and Zac Smith) generally considered to be at least toes into the behavioral space called evil, that would be endorsing them tacitly, if one is aware or can be reasonably expected to be aware, of that evil.

I don't buy into that. 
Just like I don't buy into the idea that innocent until proven guilty is just for crimes (and in the US, it's not - it is for all court cases outside of Louisiana), nor even for just the courts.


----------



## Alzrius

aramis erak said:


> Just like I don't buy into the idea that innocent until proven guilty is just for crimes (and in the US, it's not - it is for all court cases outside of Louisiana), nor even for just the courts.



People who put forward the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" outside of legal proceedings are, I believe, invoking the broader principle of "you shouldn't condemn someone unless there's compelling reason to do so; being accused, unto itself, does not meet that burden."

The reason that people find that idea laudable is that it requires us, as people, to adhere to a higher standard. One doesn't need to look very far to see that the more typical response is to go directly from accusation to condemnation, with no intermediary steps.

Ergo, people who dismiss the idea of innocent until proven guilty outside of legal proceedings are saying that they're either unwilling or incapable of holding themselves to that higher standard.


----------



## Fifth Element

MGibster said:


> Is WotC misogynistic for including Gygax's name in the credits of 5th edition?



Didn't suggest that. Just clarifying that saying players "honour" his contributions by merely playing the game doesn't hold water.

WotC made the choice to include his name. Different kettle of fish.


----------



## Fifth Element

aramis erak said:


> A player who knows Pundit was a paid consultant and who Pundit is, and how toxic and misogynistic and generally misanthropic? Yes. One who is clueless? No.



So even though his contributions that made it into the published work were limited, if you know how terrible he is you're "honouring" his contributions by playing a game that was produced almost entirely by people other than him? I know he claims to have had significant influence on certain things, but I trust his claim about as far as I can throw him.

I could see an argument that you would be honouring him if you played the game specifically *because *he contributed to it. But if he's one contributor among many, and not one of the main designers? That doesn't track.



aramis erak said:


> Just like I don't buy into the idea that innocent until proven guilty is just for crimes (and in the US, it's not - it is for all court cases outside of Louisiana), nor even for just the courts.



It's the "proven" that's the sticking point. In everyday life, you reach conclusions when you have reasonable evidence to do so. Things do not need to be proven to the degree that they are in a court of law, for very good reasons.


----------



## Fifth Element

Alzrius said:


> People who put forward the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" outside of legal proceedings are, I believe, invoking the broader principle of "you shouldn't condemn someone unless there's compelling reason to do so; being accused, unto itself, does not meet that burden."



Indeed. Now, when you have a direct accusation, the issue tends to be that if you assume the accused is innocent, you have to assume that the accuser is lying. So you're condemning the accuser of lying, without evidence that they are lying. Meaning it's not that easy a lot of the time.

Accusations are not enough. But accusations accompanied with some evidence are entirely different. Accusing Barker of being racist with the knowledge that he wrote pro-Nazi fiction and worked on a Holocaust-denial journal for over a decade? That's a reasonable conclusion, right there. For example.


----------



## Alzrius

Fifth Element said:


> Indeed. Now, when you have a direct accusation, the issue tends to be that if you assume the accused is innocent, you have to assume that the accuser is lying. So you're condemning the accuser of lying, without evidence that they are lying. Meaning it's not that easy a lot of the time.



Let's leave aside for a moment that it's not supposed to be easy; it's supposed to be just (or at least, less unjust than condemning someone who might be innocent). You do _not_ need to assume that the accuser is lying; there, and always have been, alternatives. They might be mistaken, or misremembering, or mischaracterizing something. To say that believing someone accused of something necessarily means that you're calling the accuser a liar is a gross oversimplification.


Fifth Element said:


> Accusations are not enough. But accusations accompanied with some evidence are entirely different.



Which is why the next step is then examining and weighing the evidence, since presenting it alone does not necessarily validate the accuser.


----------



## Fifth Element

Alzrius said:


> You do _not_ need to assume that the accuser is lying; there, and always have been, alternatives.



I probably wasn't clear enough. When I said "tends to be", I was trying to focus on the cases where the only real alternative is lying (as evidenced by my "a lot of the time."). It's inaccurate to say that there is always an alternative explanation. Sometimes the only realistic alternative is lying.



Alzrius said:


> Which is why the next step is then examining and weighing the evidence, since presenting it alone does not necessarily validate the accuser.



The problem with people putting forward innocent until proven guilty in the context of this type of discussion is that they tend to stop there, and refuse to even examine what evidence there might be, because they want to apply a standard of evidence beyond what is reasonable. It's used as a discussion-ender, not a standard of evidence. Edit: It's happened in this very thread, for example.


----------



## Alzrius

Fifth Element said:


> I probably wasn't clear enough. When I said "tends to be", I was trying to focus on the cases where the only real alternative is lying (as evidenced by my "a lot of the time."). It's inaccurate to say that there is always an alternative explanation. Sometimes the only realistic alternative is lying.



The problem with that is that it presumes there's a clear manner to delineate "where the only real alternative is lying," from all of the other times. While I won't go so far as to say that there's _always_ an alternative explanation, my suspicion is that instances where there isn't are fewer than is generally presumed.


Fifth Element said:


> The problem with people putting forward innocent until proven guilty in the context of this type of discussion is that they tend to stop there, and refuse to even examine what evidence there might be, because they want to apply a standard of evidence beyond what is reasonable. It's used as a discussion-ender, not a standard of evidence. Edit: It's happened in this very thread, for example.



Who decides what's reasonable? It strikes me as entirely possible for two people to look at the same evidence and come to vastly different conclusions, including a determination that the evidence is insufficient to reach a conclusion, necessitating a default back to the presumption of innocence.


----------



## Alzrius

Parmandur said:


> The Venn diagram between European/American adherants to his type esoteric, eclectic philosophy and Fascist ideas is not a circle, but it has overlap.



I think this pussyfoots around a more incisive take on what might be the case here, which is that it's neither racist nor Islamophobic to point out that there's a non-negligible portion of contemporary Islamic culture that engages in antisemitism, and that's where the Venn diagram overlaps with Nazism. To what degree this may or may not have been related to Barker's apparent engagement with Holocaust denial I can't speculate, but the possibility is one that should at least be acknowledged.


----------



## Dire Bare

S'mon said:


> I disagree with your assessment of Barker, from what we know now, afaict he seems to have been seriously engaged with/supportive of Neo-Nazism, making him vastly more racist than most people then or now. Based on this, I would lean strongly towards him being a 'horrible person' (& I'd say the same of game designers on the Left equally supportive of eg Maoism). But the more important point "*My mixed views on Lovecraft, Gygax, and Barker doesn't make me a horrible person" *I agree with 100%.



As the conversation here and elsewhere has developed, I've learned more. I don't think we have enough information to know Barker was 100% a neo-Nazi without doubt . . . but we have enough to know its pretty darn likely. The weight of evidence is against him. He most definitely engaged in neo-Nazi rhetoric. We have enough for me to be disappointed and saddened in the man.

But . . . game designers on the left who support Maoism? Is that a burning issue we've been unaware of?


----------



## Dire Bare

Fifth Element said:


> Indeed. Now, when you have a direct accusation, the issue tends to be that if you assume the accused is innocent, you have to assume that the accuser is lying. So you're condemning the accuser of lying, without evidence that they are lying. Meaning it's not that easy a lot of the time.
> 
> Accusations are not enough. But accusations accompanied with some evidence are entirely different. Accusing Barker of being racist with the knowledge that he wrote pro-Nazi fiction and worked on a Holocaust-denial journal for over a decade? That's a reasonable conclusion, right there. For example.





Fifth Element said:


> I probably wasn't clear enough. When I said "tends to be", I was trying to focus on the cases where the only real alternative is lying (as evidenced by my "a lot of the time."). It's inaccurate to say that there is always an alternative explanation. Sometimes the only realistic alternative is lying.
> 
> 
> The problem with people putting forward innocent until proven guilty in the context of this type of discussion is that they tend to stop there, and refuse to even examine what evidence there might be, because they want to apply a standard of evidence beyond what is reasonable. It's used as a discussion-ender, not a standard of evidence. Edit: It's happened in this very thread, for example.



Outside a court of law, the standard of "_innocent until proven guilty_" is (usually) lower, but still a good principle to adhere to. Do we have enough evidence to convict MAR Barker in a court of law as a neo-Nazi? Probably not. But we have enough evidence to know he's guilty of engaging in neo-Nazi rhetoric. And that's enough (for most folks).

The stakes are lower too, and not just because Barker has passed. If he were still alive, he would not be in danger of being executed, jailed or fined. He would risk a hit to his reputation and possible income from sales of his work, or being fired from his job as a professor.

Some folks do use the principle of "_innocent until proven guilty_" as a way to deflect criticism of a bad actor like Barker. But that doesn't make the principle itself flawed or not useful. It just makes those folks who use it that way also bad actors, or at least lazy thinkers.


----------



## Dire Bare

Alzrius said:


> The problem with that is that it presumes there's a clear manner to delineate "where the only real alternative is lying," from all of the other times. While I won't go so far as to say that there's _always_ an alternative explanation, my suspicion is that instances where there isn't are fewer than is generally presumed.
> 
> Who decides what's reasonable? It strikes me as entirely possible for two people to look at the same evidence and come to vastly different conclusions, including a determination that the evidence is insufficient to reach a conclusion, necessitating a default back to the presumption of innocence.



As this isn't a court of law, we don't need to come to a consensus.

One person may feel there is enough evidence that Barker is a terrible neo-Nazi, and another may feel there is not yet enough evidence. Those folks will likely react differently to the recent news of "Serpent's Walk". And that's okay.

We only need worry about those who think Barker being a neo-Nazi isn't a big deal. Or worse, those who would be now more interested in his work. Or those who work very hard to deflect any criticism or discussion over their literary and gaming heroes revealed flaws.


----------



## Blue Orange

Dire Bare said:


> As the conversation here and elsewhere has developed, I've learned more. I don't think we have enough information to know Barker was 100% a neo-Nazi without doubt . . . but we have enough to know its pretty darn likely. The weight of evidence is against him. He most definitely engaged in neo-Nazi rhetoric. We have enough for me to be disappointed and saddened in the man.
> 
> But . . . game designers on the left who support Maoism? Is that a burning issue we've been unaware of?




One of the 'Uncaged' series had hammer and sickle magic items in what was obviously supposed to be a positive context, and Communism has its own eight-digit death toll. People more up-to-date could probably come up with better examples.

I don't think there's a huge fascism problem in tabletop gaming _per se_. (Online games are another story...I'm told they're a major recruiting ground.) It may have inclusion problems, but actual fascists seem pretty thin on the ground from what I've seen...even progressive _bete noires_ like the RPGPundit will boot you from their forums if you actually start expressing Nazi views.  Barker seems to have kept anything explicit out of his game. Nazis are standard villains, often to a ridiculous degree (Cthulhu Dark Ages has evil cults whose symbol is a swastika...though I suppose in-game maybe the historical Nazis were descendants of the evil cults, which is very Cthulhu).

Tabletop games, for whatever reason, seem to lean heavily left (maybe in reaction to the Satanic Panic of the 80s driving off a large fraction of the right? no clue). But I don't think support for Communist cells is a 'burning issue'.


----------



## Fifth Element

Dire Bare said:


> Some folks do use the principle of "_innocent until proven guilty_" as a way to deflect criticism of a bad actor like Barker. But that doesn't make the principle itself flawed or not useful.



Never suggested otherwise. It is, in fact, simply a restatement of the principle of skepticism for a particular purpose. You shouldn't believe anything until you have good reason to believe it, with "good reason" being entirely dependent on the circumstances and the nature of the claim.


----------



## Fifth Element

Alzrius said:


> The problem with that is that it presumes there's a clear manner to delineate "where the only real alternative is lying," from all of the other times. While I won't go so far as to say that there's _always_ an alternative explanation, my suspicion is that instances where there isn't are fewer than is generally presumed.



It presumes no such thing. It's talking about the cases in which we can make such a delineation. That often has to do with the form that the particular accusation takes.



Alzrius said:


> Who decides what's reasonable?



Everyone has to do that for themselves, obviously. And when discussing it with someone, if you think their standards are too low or too high, you can explain why you think that in order to convince them. This is how we discuss things and arrive at conclusions.


----------



## Dire Bare

Blue Orange said:


> One of the 'Uncaged' series had hammer and sickle magic items in what was obviously supposed to be a positive context, and Communism has its own eight-digit death toll. People more up-to-date could probably come up with better examples.
> 
> I don't think there's a huge fascism problem in tabletop gaming _per se_. (Online games are another story...I'm told they're a major recruiting ground.) It may have inclusion problems, but actual fascists seem pretty thin on the ground from what I've seen...even progressive _bete noires_ like the RPGPundit will boot you from their forums if you actually start expressing Nazi views.  Barker seems to have kept anything explicit out of his game. Nazis are standard villains, often to a ridiculous degree (Cthulhu Dark Ages has evil cults whose symbol is a swastika...though I suppose in-game maybe the historical Nazis were descendants of the evil cults, which is very Cthulhu).
> 
> Tabletop games, for whatever reason, seem to lean heavily left (maybe in reaction to the Satanic Panic of the 80s driving off a large fraction of the right? no clue). But I don't think support for Communist cells is a 'burning issue'.



There's a difference between communism, Stalinism, and Maoism. Communism itself, does not have a death toll. Specific examples of communism, like Stalinism and Maoism, most certainly do. But, yeah, the _hammer-and-sickle_ doesn't represent general communism, but rather Soviet-style communism, Stalinism. It's not something I'd be comfortable including in a gaming product.

But someone of Russian descent, for whom the _hammer-and-sickle_ are as patriotic as the _stars-and-stripes_ in the US? I'd hesitate to judge the positive use of the_ hammer-and-sickle_ as supportive of the worst aspects of Soviet communism.

I don't have all of the Uncaged books, but now I want to go back through the ones I do have looking for these items! You don't remember which volume they are in, do you?


----------



## Tantavalist

Alzrius said:


> I think this pussyfoots around a more incisive take on what might be the case here, which is that it's neither racist nor Islamophobic to point out that there's a non-negligible portion of contemporary Islamic culture that engages in antisemitism, and that's where the Venn diagram overlaps with Nazism. To what degree this may or may not have been related to Barker's apparent engagement with Holocaust denial I can't speculate, but the possibility is one that should at least be acknowledged.




As someone who's been familiar with Temumel for two decades now this is what I suspect was the biggest influence on MAR Barker when he did these things. He was a convert to Islam, and took on board antisemetism from that route rather than via US-based neo-Nazi groups.

It doesn't make what he did acceptable. I point this out not as an excuse but as an explanation for what most Tekumel fans will find the hardest part to accept about Barker writing neo-nazi propaganda, which is...

_His biggest claim to fame was that he dedicated a significant portion of his life to creating a detailed fictional setting where all the humans are brown-skinned._ 

The only hint remaining that Europeans ever existed is that recessive genes occasionally produce someone with blue eyes- which the Tsolyani consider a sign of being cursed and results in treatment not dissimilar to how Westerosi in Game of Thrones treat bastards. Oh, and homosexuality is also practiced openly and without persecution there as well.

As for how someone manages to take on the anti-semetic portion of Nazi ideology without the rest of it... Like being any form of bigot, there comes a point where you can't explain their actions logically because they ultimately aren't based on logic.


----------



## Blue Orange

There are quite a few antisemitic ideologies. I recall reading about one Nazi who had joined the Order of Nine Angles, an obscure occult group, and was prosecuted for aiding ISIS. This sounds kind of similar. Common enemies have been a staple of political alliances since forever, and not just on the fringes--how much did evangelical Christians and corporate CEOs have in common during the Reagan era? Well, they were both against Communism. A 'popular front' is an alliance of liberals, socialists, and communists against fascism.

I disagree, though, they often do follow some sort of logical scheme, it's just that the premises are so bizarre. (The rapper BoB's 'Flatline' includes antisemitic statements along with references to the Freemasons, Holocaust denial, David Icke's Reptoids, and the earth being flat.)


----------



## Umbran

AcererakTriple6 said:


> You can't divorce Gygax's sexist comments and implementations of his sexism in the game from his legacy. It is a part of his legacy. Defending his legacy is defending his sexism





Hold your roll a second, because "legacy" is a big word. What counts as "his legacy"?

It is reasonable to say that D&D, in general, is Gygax's legacy (it is also Arneson's, and several other people's).  There are _parts_ of what he left us that were problematic.  Heck, one can make a solid argument that _RPGs in general_ are his legacy to us.

You are currently posting on a site that was born of celebrating his legacy in that sense - D&D, 3e and beyond.  So, you are currently celebrating his legacy posting here.  So, either you, and every other person on this site, are defending his sexism, or we recognize that we _can_ separate parts of the work, call them out as problems and leave them behind, but celebrate the rest.

Rare, indeed, is the perfect person.  If you say we cannot ever separately consider the good and the bad, then as a practical matter, there is no ethical way to ever enjoy any art, because we are always defending their flaws.


----------



## Parmandur

Yeah, I don't think it's fair to compare Gygax's character shortcomings with Neo-Nazism and Holocaust denial. Gygax appear at have had some casual standard issue Midwestern American Boomer racist and sexist ideas, which isn't great...but he wasn't involved in reactionary political action on either front.


----------



## Random Task

Dire Bare said:


> As this isn't a court of law, we don't need to come to a consensus.
> 
> One person may feel there is enough evidence that Barker is a terrible neo-Nazi, and another may feel there is not yet enough evidence. Those folks will likely react differently to the recent news of "Serpent's Walk". And that's okay.
> 
> We only need worry about those who think Barker being a neo-Nazi isn't a big deal. Or worse, those who would be now more interested in his work. Or those who work very hard to deflect any criticism or discussion over their literary and gaming heroes revealed flaws.



Writing a Neo-Nazi novel and being on the board of a Holocaust denying journal for decades are pretty darn convicting.


----------



## Parmandur

Tantavalist said:


> _His biggest claim to fame was that he dedicated a significant portion of his life to creating a detailed fictional setting where all the humans are brown-skinned._
> 
> The only hint remaining that Europeans ever existed is that recessive genes occasionally produce someone with blue eyes- which the Tsolyani consider a sign of being cursed and results in treatment not dissimilar to how Westerosi in Game of Thrones treat bastards. Oh, and homosexuality is also practiced openly and without persecution there as well.



Not gonna lie...that setup sounds super racist to me, in a sort of racist dystopia fashion.


----------



## Blue Orange

Dire Bare said:


> There's a difference between communism, Stalinism, and Maoism. Communism itself, does not have a death toll. Specific examples of communism, like Stalinism and Maoism, most certainly do. But, yeah, the _hammer-and-sickle_ doesn't represent general communism, but rather Soviet-style communism, Stalinism. It's not something I'd be comfortable including in a gaming product.
> 
> But someone of Russian descent, for whom the _hammer-and-sickle_ are as patriotic as the _stars-and-stripes_ in the US? I'd hesitate to judge the positive use of the_ hammer-and-sickle_ as supportive of the worst aspects of Soviet communism.
> 
> I don't have all of the Uncaged books, but now I want to go back through the ones I do have looking for these items! You don't remember which volume they are in, do you?




Volume 4, under magical items there's a hammer of freedom (with the inscription "nothing to lose but our chains") and a worker's sickle.

I'm not sure Russians would consider the hammer and sickle patriotic at this point (though most Russians outside of Russia probably aren't feeling all that patriotic with Putin's invasion). Current national symbols include the flag, the bear, the double-headed eagle on the coat of arms, and the chamomile flower (at least according to Wikipedia). The few Russians I talked to didn't seem to have fond memories of the Soviet period, though they weren't fond of Putin either. (Honestly, Russian history is pretty unpleasant.)

The hammer and sickle was banned in Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, and Ukraine in 2010, though apparently Moldova and Hungary later reversed this (and this was pre-Orban). So, it is kind of like the swastika in parts of Europe.

Now there were attempts at a 'kinder, gentler' communism (the Eurocommunism that came about in reaction to the crushing of the Prague Spring), but from what I can tell they all turned into social democracy or hardline communism. Whether socialism is the same thing as communism is another story--democratic socialist regimes exist, and don't seem to be all that economically successful but don't turn into genocidal regimes either. (There's an excellent argument to be made that trading some success for equality is moral--laissez-faire capitalism has its own list of horrors-- but I don't want to get into that now.) Basically, there are lots of non-democidal leftist ideologies, but I don't think communism qualifies at this point.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Jd Smith1 said:


> Actually, it makes him an anti-Semitic It is important to the words that actually apply.



*Mod Note:*

Since the Holocaust consumed the lives of not only Jews, but also ethnic and racial minorities, the term “racist” still applies, as would “equal opportunity bigot”.

IMHO, you’ve stirred the pot in this thread well enough.  Done,


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

*Mod Note:*

Y’all, while this IS a politically charged thread, it’s getting into the weeds a bit.  Let’s step back from the edge a bit, shall we?


----------



## S'mon

Blue Orange said:


> Tabletop games, for whatever reason, seem to lean heavily left (maybe in reaction to the Satanic Panic of the 80s driving off a large fraction of the right?




Nerd culture in general seems to have gone from broadly Right-Libertarian decades ago, to broadly Left-Liberal today.


----------



## mythago

Dire Bare said:


> Some folks do use the principle of "_innocent until proven guilty_" as a way to deflect criticism of a bad actor like Barker. But that doesn't make the principle itself flawed or not useful. It just makes those folks who use it that way also bad actors, or at least lazy thinkers.



Yes, the principle is - at best - flawed. Even when used in good faith, it is a rhetorical sleight-of-hand, appropriating the very high standard necessary to procure a _criminal conviction_ and demanding that we should not believe a thing to be true unless that standard is met.

"Innocent until proven guilty", in a criminal court, really means "innocent until proven guilty _beyond a reasonable doubt_". That high standard exists because the State is attempting to judge someone as having committed a crime, and to be subject to deprivation of their liberty and property. The standard of proof in _civil _courts of law is nowhere near that harsh - even in lawsuits for millions of dollars, the burden of proof is "by a preponderance of the evidence", also expressed as "more likely than not" or "a little more than 50%".

I don't think it's an accident that in discussions like this, especially when the argument is against judging someone's actions, the standard thrown out is "innocent until proven guilty". Doing so evokes a whole set of cultural tropes about the need to protect the accused, the risk of consequences for judgment, and the huge pile of evidence that we demand before we accept something as true when we'd really rather not. Imagine instead saying "I really would want a preponderance of the evidence showing this is true." Just doesn't have the same, all-about-the-principles, Atticus Finch kinda oomph to it, eh?


----------



## aramis erak

mythago said:


> Yes, the principle is - at best - flawed. Even when used in good faith, it is a rhetorical sleight-of-hand, appropriating the very high standard necessary to procure a _criminal conviction_ and demanding that we should not believe a thing to be true unless that standard is met.
> 
> "Innocent until proven guilty", in a criminal court, really means "innocent until proven guilty _beyond a reasonable doubt_". That high standard exists because the State is attempting to judge someone as having committed a crime, and to be subject to deprivation of their liberty and property. The standard of proof in _civil _courts of law is nowhere near that harsh - even in lawsuits for millions of dollars, the burden of proof is "by a preponderance of the evidence", also expressed as "more likely than not" or "a little more than 50%".
> 
> I don't think it's an accident that in discussions like this, especially when the argument is against judging someone's actions, the standard thrown out is "innocent until proven guilty". Doing so evokes a whole set of cultural tropes about the need to protect the accused, the risk of consequences for judgment, and the huge pile of evidence that we demand before we accept something as true when we'd really rather not. Imagine instead saying "I really would want a preponderance of the evidence showing this is true." Just doesn't have the same, all-about-the-principles, Atticus Finch kinda oomph to it, eh?



The standard of proof for most legal cases is "Preponderance of the Evidence" - because most legal cases are not criminal court cases.

I don't see it rising to that for being neonazi. Anti-Jewish? Quite possibly, but there's no evidence I've seen of him *acting *upon it in his day job. (Academia is higher than general population rates with persons of Jewish ethnicity and faith. But keep in mind, technically, Semite isn't just Jews; the whole region technically is mostly semites - Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, Syrians, Chaldeans... all Semites.) 70's and 80's academia, being openly anti-Jewish would have been a career ender in many institutions - the JADL would have seen to that.


----------



## Parmandur

aramis erak said:


> The standard of proof for most legal cases is "Preponderance of the Evidence" - because most legal cases are not criminal court cases.
> 
> I don't see it rising to that for being neonazi. Anti-Jewish? Quite possibly, but there's no evidence I've seen of him *acting *upon it in his day job. (Academia is higher than general population rates with persons of Jewish ethnicity and faith. But keep in mind, technically, Semite isn't just Jews; the whole region technically is mostly semites - Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, Syrians, Chaldeans... all Semites.) 70's and 80's academia, being openly anti-Jewish would have been a career ender in many institutions - the JADL would have seen to that.



Writing a detailed Neo-Nazi novel and taking money for it is action.


----------



## mythago

aramis erak said:


> The standard of proof for most legal cases is "Preponderance of the Evidence" - because most legal cases are not criminal court cases.




Sure. Which is something that gets a little lost in the arguments about what standards "courts of law" have. Urging innocent until proven guilty as a standard for deciding "Should we believe this negative thing about a person?" is indulging in the pretense that we are choosing a neutral, thoughtful, and well-established method of reaching a decision.


----------



## aramis erak

Parmandur said:


> Writing a detailed Neo-Nazi novel and taking money for it is action.



Not action in his day job, tho'.


----------



## aramis erak

mythago said:


> Sure. Which is something that gets a little lost in the arguments about what standards "courts of law" have. Urging innocent until proven guilty as a standard for deciding "Should we believe this negative thing about a person?" is indulging in the pretense that we are choosing a neutral, thoughtful, and well-established method of reaching a decision.



Which I consider part of basic human to human decency. (Not to mention a religious obligation for many.)


----------



## Parmandur

aramis erak said:


> Not action in his day job, tho'.



I'm sorry, but taking Nazi action in a side hustle is still pretty terrible.


----------



## Parmandur

aramis erak said:


> Which I consider part of basic human to human decency. (Not to mention a religious obligation for many.)



From a religious and moral angle, a charitable read still isn't good: ignorance and stupidity, unfortunately, are not viable options for parsing his actions, given that Barker was a certified genius and highly educated professor of history and language. Malice is the only logically remaining option.


----------



## J.Quondam

S'mon said:


> Nerd culture in general seems to have gone from broadly Right-Libertarian decades ago, to broadly Left-Liberal today.



Seems to me that it's just more accepting of a vastly more diverse group than the straight, white, STEM-oriented, anglophone males that ruled the roost 40-ish years ago.  That is to say, it doesn't strike me as "broadly left-liberal," so much as just "no longer defined by exclusive white guys."


----------



## aramis erak

Parmandur said:


> From a religious and moral angle, a charitable read still isn't good: ignorance and stupidity, unfortunately, are not viable options for parsing his actions, given that Barker was a certified genius and highly educated professor of history and language. Malice is the only logically remaining option.



You lack imagination.
being on the board of directors of a problematic publisher? Given the culture into which he placed himself, he may not have shared the views of the editorial staff, but not been willing to make waves.

I mean, looking at my own life: I was on the board of directors for a mental health agency where the clinical lead was sexually abusing patients and embezzling. I was not party to, nor beneficiary of, any of that. When I, as a member of the board found out, we first made certain we had a place to transfer our non-clinical clients, then dissolved the corporation. I was not evil for being on the board; I was unaware of the behavior of the staff when I was appointed to the board. And, until the executive director/clinical lead was arrested, was unaware of his behaviors. Failure of oversight? Maybe, but HIPPA made the actual level of oversight needed to catch him problematic. The board didn't even have access to the full client list until we were dissolving.

So I'm really opposed to "Guilt by association" based claims, and the "He's smart so he can't be ignorant" argument is just plain making naughty word up. Lots of really smart people are clueless about certain aspects.


----------



## Parmandur

aramis erak said:


> You lack imagination.
> being on the board of directors of a problematic publisher? Given the culture into which he placed himself, he may not have shared the views of the editorial staff, but not been willing to make waves.
> 
> I mean, looking at my own life: I was on the board of directors for a mental health agency where the clinical lead was sexually abusing patients and embezzling. I was not party to, nor beneficiary of, any of that. When I, as a member of the board found out, we first made certain we had a place to transfer our non-clinical clients, then dissolved the corporation. I was not evil for being on the board; I was unaware of the behavior of the staff when I was appointed to the board. And, until the executive director/clinical lead was arrested, was unaware of his behaviors. Failure of oversight? Maybe, but HIPPA made the actual level of oversight needed to catch him problematic. The board didn't even have access to the full client list until we were dissolving.
> 
> So I'm really opposed to "Guilt by association" based claims, and the "He's smart so he can't be ignorant" argument is just plain making naughty word up. Lots of really smart people are clueless about certain aspects.



There is a major difference between your story (where, yeah, sounds like you did nothing wrong) and Barker working with a Holocaust denial publication: I assume that the mental health agency was not advertising itself as a sexual abuse and embezzlement scam, and that probably they did things other than embezzle and take advantage of patients.

The private publication that Barker was involved in was openly Holocaust denying and anti-Semitic: that was the point. Similarly, nobody made him write a novel with an obvious self-insert as a secret SS hero fighting the "democrats and Jews" to save the "white race." Really, these things are out now, and it's bad.


----------



## Bilharzia

Parmandur said:


> I'm sorry, but taking Nazi action in a side hustle is still pretty terrible.



As a response to an accusation of being a neo-nazi, that has to be a spectacularly weak one...
_"He was only a neo-nazi in his spare time! As a hobby! You know, for fun, not professionally!"_

On the idea that the novel was a joke or a satire. If you are poking fun at neo-Nazis, you have to go where they are, and the obvious choice has to be literary fiction.


----------



## Bilharzia

Tantavalist said:


> As someone who's been familiar with Temumel for two decades now this is what I suspect was the biggest influence on MAR Barker when he did these things. He was a convert to Islam, and took on board antisemetism from that route rather than via US-based neo-Nazi groups.



Before you get too excited by the thought that he was inspired by extremist Muslim conspiracies, it's worthy noting that MAR Barker's father was a member of the Silver Legion of America, a US Fascist group active in the 1930s.


----------



## Parmandur

Bilharzia said:


> As a response to an accusation of being a neo-nazi, that has to be a spectacularly weak one...
> _"He was only a neo-nazi in his spare time! As a hobby! You know, for fun, not professionally!"_
> 
> On the idea that the novel was a joke or a satire. If you are poking fun at neo-Nazis, you have to go where they are, and the obvious choice has to be literary fiction.



Yeah, what I've read...this isn't satire, it's wish fulfillment. Which is hella creepy.


----------



## Blue Orange

J.Quondam said:


> Seems to me that it's just more accepting of a vastly more diverse group than the straight, white, STEM-oriented, anglophone males that ruled the roost 40-ish years ago.  That is to say, it doesn't strike me as "broadly left-liberal," so much as just "no longer defined by exclusive white guys."




It's an interesting side question, though. As late as the mid-2000s libertarianism was pretty common from what I saw. I kind of wonder if it was the 2008 crash that soured a lot of geeks (and everyone else) on laissez-faire. Timing seems about right. 

Depressingly, an awful lot of the people who didn't go left went fascist.


----------



## Parmandur

Blue Orange said:


> It's an interesting side question, though. As late as the mid-2000s libertarianism was pretty common from what I saw. I kind of wonder if it was the 2008 crash that soured a lot of geeks (and everyone else) on laissez-faire. Timing seems about right.
> 
> Depressingly, an awful lot of the people who didn't go left went fascist.



Could also be the invention of the smartphone broadened the conversation.


----------



## Tantavalist

Bilharzia said:


> Before you get too excited by the thought that he was inspired by extremist Muslim conspiracies, it's worthy noting that MAR Barker's father was a member of the Silver Legion of America, a US Fascist group active in the 1930s.




The number of such Fascist groups active in the USA in that period (the KKK only being the best known) was so high that this alone doesn't signify anything. As a percentage of the adult male population they probably accounted for more Americans then than the percentage of such involved in the TTRPG hobby today. (No, seriously, look it up if you feel inclined to doubt this.) So that's nothing in and of itself.

I was considering how, exactly, a setting like Tekumel (which his father's group would likely have condemned just like the Proud Boys today would) and Serpent's Walk could co-exist in the creative mindspace of the same man. This seems the most likely answer to me.

But wherever he picked up these views, they are absolutely _not_ acceptable. This goes beyond Lovecraft's actions even absent the excuse that one lived in a time where these views were widespread. And fact that he wrote the book under a pseudonym and went to a neo-nazi press to publish it shows Barker was well aware that mainstream society would not accept him doing it.


One thing I'm not going to accept, though, is the accusatory word *excited* which suggests that I'm grasping at straws to find excuses for what Barker did. I'm not looking for excuses because there are none; I'm looking for explanations which are _not_ the same thing. Please refrain from suggesting otherwise because having just discovered these things about the author of a setting I've loved for decades I am not in the mood to be polite with people making hints that I'm tarred with the same brush.


----------



## Parmandur

Tantavalist said:


> The number of such Fascist groups active in the USA in that period (the KKK only being the best known) was so high that this alone doesn't signify anything. As a percentage of the adult male population they probably accounted for more Americans then than the percentage of such involved in the TTRPG hobby today. (No, seriously, look it up if you feel inclined to doubt this.) So that's nothing in and of itself.
> 
> I was considering how, exactly, a setting like Tekumel (which his father's group would likely have condemned just like the Proud Boys today would) and Serpent's Walk could co-exist in the creative mindspace of the same man. This seems the most likely answer to me.
> 
> But wherever he picked up these views, they are absolutely _not_ acceptable. This goes beyond Lovecraft's actions even absent the excuse that one lived in a time where these views were widespread. And fact that he wrote the book under a pseudonym and went to a neo-nazi press to publish it shows Barker was well aware that mainstream society would not accept him doing it.
> 
> 
> One thing I'm not going to accept, though, is the accusatory word *excited* which suggests that I'm grasping at straws to find excuses for what Barker did. I'm not looking for excuses because there are none; I'm looking for explanations which are _not_ the same thing. Please refrain from suggesting otherwise because having just discovered these things about the author of a setting I've loved for decades I am not in the mood to be polite with people making hints that I'm tarred with the same brush.



Lovecraft was just a loon, and didn't hide anything. Barker was clever enough to hide his views.


----------



## billd91

Parmandur said:


> Lovecraft was just a loon, and didn't hide anything. Barker was clever enough to hide his views.



Hiding your views is an indication that you know they are, at least socially in your environment, unacceptable. In many environments, this is innocuous such as avoiding controversial subjects at work like religion and politics. But when it comes to writing Neo-Nazi fiction under a pen name, that's a little more extreme.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Alzrius said:


> I think this pussyfoots around a more incisive take on what might be the case here, which is that it's neither racist nor Islamophobic to point out that there's a non-negligible portion of contemporary Islamic culture that engages in antisemitism, and that's where the Venn diagram overlaps with Nazism. To what degree this may or may not have been related to Barker's apparent engagement with Holocaust denial I can't speculate, but the possibility is one that should at least be acknowledged.



*Mod Note:*

Before I became a Mod, I posted something about the Islamic world’s reactions to that infamous Charlie Hedbo cover.   Problem is, I edited it poorly, and instead of just singling out the radicals, I essentially pointed at the world’s entire Muslim population…and didn’t notice until I was slapped with a sitewide 1-2 week ban.  While it was unintentional on my part, I deserved that ban.

This seems to be in similarly perilous territory, but isn’t accidental. So I must act: 7 days away from this thread.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

aramis erak said:


> Not action in his day job, tho'.



*Mod Note:*

Very few people have some version of “Nazi Sympathizer” as a day job.  Doesn’t make it any less vile or dangerous when performed as amateurs.


----------



## Hussar

MGibster said:


> When I refer to a dungeon as Gygaxian it's not a compliment but I get your point. And I was fine with them getting rid of Lovecraft's image on a bust for an award. But I'm not so fine with the idea of removing his name from everything as some people desire.
> 
> I'll ask again. Is there any nuance here? Can we recognize someone for their contributions to our hobby while simultaneously acknowledging the bad? Or is the best course of action to remove them from any lists of contributors or influences? Like I said, Gygax is still listed in 5th edition D&D. We're still honoring the guy for his contributions.




Oh absolutely there is room for nuance. A “one size fits all “ solution is just as bad as doing nothing.


----------



## Bilharzia

Tantavalist said:


> The number of such Fascist groups active in the USA in that period (the KKK only being the best known) was so high that this alone doesn't signify anything. As a percentage of the adult male population they probably accounted for more Americans then than the percentage of such involved in the TTRPG hobby today. (No, seriously, look it up if you feel inclined to doubt this.) So that's nothing in and of itself.
> ...
> One thing I'm not going to accept, though, is the accusatory word *excited* which suggests that I'm grasping at straws to find excuses for what Barker did. I'm not looking for excuses because there are none; I'm looking for explanations which are _not_ the same thing. Please refrain from suggesting otherwise because having just discovered these things about the author of a setting I've loved for decades I am not in the mood to be polite with people making hints that I'm tarred with the same brush.



So you on the one hand claim that membership of a Fascist group is "nothing in and of itself" - so common you consider it insignificant, and on the other you "suspect":



> As someone who's been familiar with Temumel for two decades now this is what I suspect was the biggest influence on MAR Barker when he did these things. He was a convert to Islam, and took on board antisemetism from that route rather than via US-based neo-Nazi groups.



That it is _Islam_ which is to blame for Barker's behaviour - well, you are making this claim in your previous post! How is it that you feel fine making _that_ inflammatory claim with no evidence? Despite the direct connection Barker had with a Fascist father!


----------



## Hussar

One of the larger issues, and this goes back to the point about nuance, is that people always seem to want a single standard that always applies instead of taking each issue as case by case. 

Look at this thread. People invoked Gygax and the notion of legacy. As well as people like RPG Pundit. Thing is, these are all individual problems and you can’t really connect them. They have to be treated separately. 

Trying to make blanket solutions doesn’t work.


----------



## Tantavalist

Since there's nothing I can say that won't be taken badly and result in an escalating argument I'm going to do what I should have done one post ago and just bow out of this thread. I'm honestly surprised mods haven't locked this already and it's clearly coming.

RIP Tekumel and _WTF Prof. Barker?!?_ can stand as my summary of the situation. The Tekumel fandom was a twitching corpse with little chance of a rebirth before this. Now? There won't be any new blood entering the fandom and a lot of those in it have had our enthusiasm killed.


----------



## mythago

aramis erak said:


> Which I consider part of basic human to human decency. (Not to mention a religious obligation for many.)



What religions adopt the Anglo-American criminal burden of proof as an obligation?

And it’s untrue that “basic human decency” means adopting this criminal burden of proof for all our interactions and decisions. Nobody does this on the regular. It’s a fake moral standard that gets whipped out when we don’t like what’s being said or we do like the person it’s being said about.


----------



## MGibster

Parmandur said:


> Lovecraft was just a loon, and didn't hide anything. Barker was clever enough to hide his views.



Lovecraft didn't have to hide anything because millions of his contemporaries would have agreed with them.  Being a Neo-Nazi in the 80s and 90s was something that you had to hide from polite society.


----------



## Fifth Element

J.Quondam said:


> Seems to me that it's just more accepting of a vastly more diverse group than the straight, white, STEM-oriented, anglophone males that ruled the roost 40-ish years ago.  That is to say, it doesn't strike me as "broadly left-liberal," so much as just "no longer defined by exclusive white guys."



That sounds like a distinction without a difference to me, speaking as a straight, white, anglophone male.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Bilharzia said:


> On the idea that the novel was a joke or a satire. If you are poking fun at neo-Nazis, you have to go where they are, and the obvious choice has to be literary fiction.



And that novel was published by a white supremacist organization.  This isn’t Random House or Penguin we’re talking about.  You’d have to actively seek them out, because they’re NOT going to be high profile enough to be included in a tickler file of mainstream publishers.  They’re not going to be included on a list of self-publishing services.

Going that far as a joke is highly unlikely.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

aramis erak said:


> You lack imagination.



*Mod Note:*

You are making this personal. Bad idea.


----------



## pemerton

I have a copy of Empire of the Petal Throne -  the 1987 Different Worlds edition. I've read most of it, but never played it. The gameplay system seems to be very much of its mid-70s vintage. The setting seems interesting, but with the gameplay not likely to bring out its most interesting aspects.

There is nothing in the setting or the system that I've noticed that suggests it's a work of neo-Nazim or anti-Semitism, but I'd be interested to hear what others think they've found by way of a closer reading than I've engaged in.

That it's author turns out to have been a neo-Nazi is a surprise (in the sense that I at least didn't predict or foresee it) but perhaps not a total or inexplicable one. I can't see post #2 in this thread, but the reply to it suggests that I may not be alone. To me Tekumel seems to have at least an element of enthusiasm for reaction, and also a type of reification of cultural, linguistic and ethnic distinctions.

EDIT: I don't think that this revelation means that anyone who finds Tekumel interesting and engaging would have to change their mind.


----------



## Campbell

I find the idea that social judgements or decisions to purchase or engage with a work of fiction requires the same standard as condemning someone to a lengthy prison sentence to be beyond the pale. If we applied that standard consistently we would never be able to decide who we wanted to be friends with, game with or date.

We all make social judgements based on a preponderance of the evidence all the time. If I think someone is a jerk I am unlikely to invite them to a dinner party. If I am shown evidence later on to show they were just having a bad day when we met I might socialize with them later.

I think are putting too much weight on the decision to support or not support a given author. That's a personal decision we all make for ourselves. I don't feel people should be compelled to act in ways they are not comfortable acting.

I am unlikely to financially support MAR Baker in the future. If presented with countervailing evidence I reserve the right to change my mind. That's how social and economic judgements work.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Tantavalist said:


> As someone who's been familiar with Temumel for two decades now this is what I suspect was the biggest influence on MAR Barker when he did these things. He was a convert to Islam, and took on board antisemetism from that route rather than via US-based neo-Nazi groups.



*Mod Note:*

Here’s the deal: at least one other poster has already pointed out, M.A.R. Barker’s father was a member of the Silver Legion of America.  Here’s a note about the SLoA:



> Legion leader Pelley called for a "Christian Commonwealth" in America that would combine the principles of nationalism, and theocracy, while excluding Jews and non-whites.




It is a FAR smaller leap to think his father (a member of a US-based neo-Nazi group) taught him his bigotry than relying on stereotypes impugning Islam in general.  Occam’s Razor and all that.

But you went there, sooooo…


----------



## pemerton

Campbell said:


> I find the idea that social judgements or decisions to purchase or engage with a work of fiction requires the same standard as condemning someone to a lengthy prison sentence to be beyond the pale. If we applied that standard consistently we would never be able to decide who we wanted to be friends with, game with or date.
> 
> We all make social judgements based on a preponderance of the evidence all the time.



Agreed. As a general rule, we're not under any sort of moral obligation to befriend a particular person, or to engage with a particular creator's work. Even less so to buy something that someone is selling.

That's not to deny that it's not generally a good thing to be nice to people.  But there are hundreds or thousands of RPG creators whose work I (and anyone else posting in this thread) will never purchase or engage with, for all sorts of reasons from the inadvertent and trivial to the serious and considered. It doesn't seem to do anyone any harm to add MAR Barker to that list, for those who are now inclined to do so.



Campbell said:


> I think are putting too much weight on the decision to support or not support a given author. That's a personal decision we all make for ourselves. I don't feel people should be compelled to act in ways they are not comfortable acting.



Doubly so for an author who is dead.

Is the legacy of Tekumel tainted by this revelation? I think it probably is. Is the work itself changed because of it? Not necessarily - if the work wasn't a work of hatred beforehand, I don't think its character _has_ to change because we learn new things about its author.


----------



## Random Task

I would just like to point out that M.A.R Barker was 15 or 16 at the end of World War II.  The Nuremberg trials and information coming out after the war were all in his lived experience.  Others in this thread have maintained that he was a genius level academic linguist.  So, this person chose to publish a neo-Nazi novel with a known neo-Nazi publisher and was on the board of a Holocaust denying journal.  That is quite extraordinary and does not seem in the least to be a mere foible of his personality.  I am having a hard time thinking of another creator that I am familiar with that has done something as shocking.  People like Lovecraft, Dickens and Wagner had lots of personal animus against others, but I am not aware that they were organized about it.  Maybe D.W Griffith is close, but the racist work, _Birth of a Nation, _is what he was known for whereas M.A.R Barker was hiding this stuff.


----------



## jasper

DId he get paid? If so good. I know some well know fantasy authors wrote soft porn in late 60s and 70s.


----------



## Umbran

jasper said:


> DId he get paid? If so good. I know some well know fantasy authors wrote soft porn in late 60s and 70s.




If you are trying to say that, "If you get paid, what you write is excusable," or something similar... that's going to be a bit of a hard sell.  If you discard ethics for convenience, then they weren't really ethics to begin with.


----------



## MGibster

jasper said:


> DId he get paid? If so good. I know some well know fantasy authors wrote soft porn in late 60s and 70s.



I'm okay with people writing soft core material.  I'm not so keen on people writing Holocaust denial or Nazi apologies.


----------



## Retreater

My dad kicked me out of the house because I didn't support his favored political candidate. I slept in my car until I could find an apartment. 
My mom still doesn't talk to me because I don't follow her politics. She will likely die before we have any reconciliation. And keep in mind that I don't even bring up politics with her - she just knows that I don't vote for who she wants me to vote for.
The point of all this is that some people are willing to do terrible things to their family and friends to show loyalty for celebrities and political figures who don't know that they exist. 
Those of you getting heated about this, I hope you realize that MAR Barker wouldn't give a second's thought to any of us on this board - even if he was still alive. So insulting people that you actually have real contact with on a daily basis (if you're on these boards as often as I am) in an effort to save the reputation of a celebrity is self defeating. Barker won't care, but the person you are arguing with will care.


----------



## Blue Orange

Retreater said:


> My dad kicked me out of the house because I didn't support his favored political candidate. I slept in my car until I could find an apartment.
> My mom still doesn't talk to me because I don't follow her politics. She will likely die before we have any reconciliation. And keep in mind that I don't even bring up politics with her - she just knows that I don't vote for who she wants me to vote for.
> The point of all this is that some people are willing to do terrible things to their family and friends to show loyalty for celebrities and political figures who don't know that they exist.
> Those of you getting heated about this, I hope you realize that MAR Barker wouldn't give a second's thought to any of us on this board - even if he was still alive. So insulting people that you actually have real contact with on a daily basis (if you're on these boards as often as I am) in an effort to save the reputation of a celebrity is self defeating. Barker won't care, but the person you are arguing with will care.




Good point. Wow, that's scary, man. Glad you found your way!

I was just reading a NYT article where a woman asks if she can disinherit their daughters because they voted for Trump...









						May I Disinherit My Right-Wing Daughters?
					

The magazine’s Ethicist columnist on when tribalism tears a family apart.




					www.nytimes.com


----------



## Ibrandul

Just a point of correction (I presume it's OK to respond to a mod note if I'm not responding to the moderation part?): the Silver Legion wasn't a neo-Nazi group. They were a Nazi sympathizer group contemporaneous with Nazism itself. They officially disbanded after the USA entered WWII, though I'm sure most of their members didn't change their views overnight, if ever.

I'm not defending Barker here, whom—unless the revelations presented in this thread prove to be total fabrications (which won't happen, as the Tekumel foundation itself has confirmed the facts)—I feel comfortable classifying as a bigot. And I'm usually very reluctant to say such things if I think there's any room for a charitable interpretation of the facts. I don't think such room exists here.

I will say that to me the most astonishing revelation in this entire thread is the one about the academic  article from the venerable and well-regarded journal _The Muslim World_. I've been reading widely in scholarly publications for decades now, and I have literally never encountered a footnote like that one, where a researcher discovers a heretofore unknown and important fact about their research topic and then chooses 1) not to reveal what they have found, yet 2) instead to include a note stating that they have discovered something important but refusing to reveal precisely what it is and encouraging other scholars to figure it out for themselves.

Literary figure whose father was an anti-Semite turns out to also have been an anti-Semite? Dog bites man. Small foundation dedicated to that fellow's legacy sweeps scandal under rug for years, and that man's fandom takes more than a few days to fully digest the revelations? More dogs biting more men. But an academic researcher refuses to publicize their most important discovery and instead poses as some sort of public academic Deep Throat croaking "Follow the bigotry"? Now that's news.


----------



## billd91

Blue Orange said:


> Good point. Wow, that's scary, man. Glad you found your way!
> 
> I was just reading a NYT article where a woman asks if she can disinherit their daughters because they voted for Trump...



As extreme as it sometimes sounds, disinheriting people or ostracizing them/wrecking a relationship - there are some political issues that may cross very important lines and beliefs you hold. I would hope it's not something as mundane as the level of governmental spending where there can usually be a broad area of compromise. But how do you compromise on getting gender affirming therapy for your trans kids being investigated by the state as abuse? How do you compromise on inciting an attack on the Capitol? How do you compromise on teaching the legacy of racism being banned from the schools? How do you live with someone who wants your kids to be made miserable and subject to discrimination?


----------



## darjr

Gah this sucks. I feel terribly for Pauli.


----------



## MGibster

darjr said:


> Gah this sucks. I feel terribly for Pauli.



Yeah, we don't always talk about it, but these revelations can hurt quite a few people.  I immediately thought of Marion Zimmer Bradley who served as a mentor for many young women interested in writing science fiction/fantasy.  When Bradley's children stepped forward with allegations of abuse it must have been devastating for those who admired Bradley, were inspired by her, and especially for those whom she had mentored.  I've never played Tekumel, and even without this revelation it's unlikely I ever would have.  But it's pretty clear that it had an influence on players and game creators back in the 70s and I imagine many of them are feeling hurt, confused, sad, and maybe even a little angry about this.


----------



## Maletherin

domesude said:


> According to Chirine, former archivist for the Tekumel Foundation, some members were aware of Barker's views well before he died. I can see no reason to doubt his account.



And they remained, or did they leave? Remaining tells me all I need to know about them.


----------



## Ralif Redhammer

Antisemitism was back then (and for some, is now) unfortunately very much baked into many people's worldviews, even outside of full-on Nazism. M.A.R. Barker was born about only 5-10 years before my dad and uncle. And they've told me stories about hearing "You can't be Jewish, you're too nice" and even being asked if someone could _feel their head to check for horns_, because this person honestly believed that we had horns.



Dannyalcatraz said:


> *Mod Note:*
> 
> Here’s the deal: at least one other poster has already pointed out, M.A.R. Barker’s father was a member of the Silver Legion of America.  Here’s a note about the SLoA:
> 
> 
> 
> It is a FAR smaller leap to think his father (a member of a US-based neo-Nazi group) taught him his bigotry than relying on stereotypes impugning Islam in general.  Occam’s Razor and all that.
> 
> But you went there, sooooo…


----------



## Dire Bare

darjr said:


> Gah this sucks. I feel terribly for Pauli.



A good reminder that while for me, the discussion over Barker's sins is somewhat academic . . . I wasn't a Tekumel fan nor likely to become one anyway . . . but for others, this hits hard.

I can respect those who are able to separate the art from the author and continue to enjoy the world of Tekumel, but like Pauli Kidd, I have trouble doing so, for the reasons she mentions. Although, its less a conscious decision to deplatform a problematic artist for me, and more that I just can't enjoy the art anymore without thinking about how terrible the artist is.

I'm at this point with Dave Chappelle. I've enjoyed his comedy for years, I find him an amazingly talented and insightful comic, I recognize his importance both in comedy and as a black voice . . . . but his recent doubling down on his anti-trans humor has soured me, and I can no longer watch his comedy, his classic sketch comedy show (Chappelle's Show), his older specials, and his newer ones on Netflix. I'm not interested in "canceling" Dave Chappelle, I just can't enjoy his work anymore.

Before the news broke about Barker, I was mildly curious about Tekumel considering its status in the early days of our hobby. I was considering picking up digital copies of Barker's novels (the Tekumel novels, not Serpent's Wake) and game books. Now . . . my interest has dried up completely. Barker can be consigned to the dustbin of tabletop history for all I care.

But for others, this hits hard. For those of you who have been long-time Tekumel fans, you have my support as you grapple with how to deal with this news.


----------



## Retreater

Yeah, this is timely, considering I just signed up to play my first Empire of the Petal Throne game at GaryCon this week.


----------



## Random Task

Ralif Redhammer said:


> Antisemitism was back then (and for some, is now) unfortunately very much baked into many people's worldviews, even outside of full-on Nazism. M.A.R. Barker was born about only 5-10 years before my dad and uncle. And they've told me stories about hearing "You can't be Jewish, you're too nice" and even being asked if someone could _feel their head to check for horns_, because this person honestly believed that we had horns.




I find the full on Nazi Holocaust denial aspect is really what makes this instance stand apart.


----------



## Aldarc

Dire Bare said:


> Before the news broke about Barker, I was mildly curious about Tekumel considering its status in the early days of our hobby. I was considering picking up digital copies of Barker's novels (the Tekumel novels, not Serpent's Wake) and game books. Now . . . my interest has dried up completely. Barker can be consigned to the dustbin of tabletop history for all I care.
> 
> But for others, this hits hard. For those of you who have been long-time Tekumel fans, you have my support as you grapple with how to deal with this news.



Tekumel had some really interesting ideas that have influenced my own sense of settings. I'm thankful for the ideas therein, but I've absorbed and been affected by those main ideas and highlights already. Consuming his material further (or not, in this case) will not change that.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

On flawed creatives in general:  for the most part, I don’t have a problem continuing to  enjoy the output I liked before revelations of their darker natures.  So I still listen to old Bill Cosby comedy bits, watch early Woody Allen films, and read HPL.  But once I learn of reprehensible behavior, I make a choice about whether or not the new data means I shouldn’t consume new works by them. 

The same goes for creatives who are new…or new to me.

In this particular situation, Empire of the Petal Throne was a name I barely knew beyond the occasional ad in a gaming mag. Nobody I gamed with has ever mentioned playing it. MAR Barker wasn’t a name I readily associated with the hobby. So _for me_, this is a pretty easy case: I’m not going to be buying any EotPT material.


----------



## MGibster

Aldarc said:


> Tekumel had some really interesting ideas that have influenced my own sense of settings. I'm thankful for the ideas therein, but I've absorbed and been affected by those main ideas and highlights already. Consuming his material further (or not, in this case) will not change that.



And this is part of what makes these kinds of revelations difficult.  I was also going to use Bill Cosby as my example like @Dannyalcatraz did.  Growing up in the 80s, Bill Cosby was America's dad on one of the most popular sitcoms of the decade.  Cosby was also in another show in the 60s (before my time) called _I, Spy_ which was pretty good and depicted the black and white protagonist on the show as equals which was kind of a big deal at the time.  I enjoyed Cosby's work quite a bit and when I learned about his sexual assaults it didn't retroactively go back in time and make me not enjoy them.  But I've laid off his work since then.  One day I might be able to go back and watch them, but deep down inside I'll always know what kind of man Cosby really was.


----------



## Ralif Redhammer

Definitely. I said that not to in any way excuse him. If he came by it through generational, systemic hatred, he made the decision to actively serve as an amplifier. Writing Nazi-fan fic and serving on the board of a Holocaust-denying journal is way beyond just inherited bigotry.



Random Task said:


> I find the full on Nazi Holocaust denial aspect is really what makes this instance stand apart.


----------



## domesude

MGibster said:


> And this is part of what makes these kinds of revelations difficult.  I was also going to use Bill Cosby as my example like @Dannyalcatraz did.  Growing up in the 80s, Bill Cosby was America's dad on one of the most popular sitcoms of the decade.  Cosby was also in another show in the 60s (before my time) called _I, Spy_ which was pretty good and depicted the black and white protagonist on the show as equals which was kind of a big deal at the time.  I enjoyed Cosby's work quite a bit and when I learned about his sexual assaults it didn't retroactively go back in time and make me not enjoy them.  But I've laid off his work since then.  One day I might be able to go back and watch them, but deep down inside I'll always know what kind of man Cosby really was.



The Pudding Pop Rapist and his I Spy co-star Robert Culp were also in a fantastic early '70s detective flick called Hickey and Boggs (which Culp directed). Dynamite film, really good, but good luck getting anyone to watch it with you these days. I mean, I get it, it's just tainted now.


----------



## Blue Orange

billd91 said:


> As extreme as it sometimes sounds, disinheriting people or ostracizing them/wrecking a relationship - there are some political issues that may cross very important lines and beliefs you hold. I would hope it's not something as mundane as the level of governmental spending where there can usually be a broad area of compromise. But how do you compromise on getting gender affirming therapy for your trans kids being investigated by the state as abuse? How do you compromise on inciting an attack on the Capitol? How do you compromise on teaching the legacy of racism being banned from the schools? How do you live with someone who wants your kids to be made miserable and subject to discrimination?




I wouldn't treat those the same way, and looking at the responses to the quotes, I've started to realize just how out of step I am with the modern gaming public. Maybe it's time to realize I've just passed into that stage of life where you're an old conservative fart, and that's the end of that. What's that Mitchell and Webb quote? Are we the baddies? Well, maybe I am.

Maybe I need to find a new hobby. What do they say? Awareness is never gained without pain. 

Good luck and best wishes to everyone.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

billd91 said:


> But how do you compromise on getting gender affirming therapy for your trans kids being investigated by the state as abuse? How do you compromise on inciting an attack on the Capitol? How do you compromise on teaching the legacy of racism being banned from the schools? How do you live with someone who wants your kids to be made miserable and subject to discrimination?



*Mod Note:*

Let’s keep the amount of _extra_ politics in this politically charged topic to a minimum, thanks.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

jeremypowell said:


> I've been reading widely in scholarly publications for decades now, and I have literally never encountered a footnote like that one, where a researcher discovers a heretofore unknown and important fact about their research topic and then chooses 1) not to reveal what they have found, yet 2) instead to include a note stating that they have discovered something important but refusing to reveal precisely what it is and encouraging other scholars to figure it out for themselves.



That really is extraordinary from my POV as well.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

jeremypowell said:


> the Silver Legion wasn't a neo-Nazi group. They were a Nazi sympathizer group contemporaneous with Nazism itself.


----------



## Hussar

Blue Orange said:


> I wouldn't treat those the same way, and looking at the responses to the quotes, I've started to realize just how out of step I am with the modern gaming public. Maybe it's time to realize I've just passed into that stage of life where you're an old conservative fart, and that's the end of that. What's that Mitchell and Webb quote? Are we the baddies? Well, maybe I am.
> 
> Maybe I need to find a new hobby. What do they say? Awareness is never gained without pain.
> 
> Good luck and best wishes to everyone.



Well, that's kind of the point though.  As difficult as it might be to talk about, the point is to keep talking.  Yeah, there are always going to be people who go too far in their reactions.  And "too far" will always depend on the observer.  But, keep engaging is the point.  No one should ever be considered a bad person for liking Bill Cosby, for example.  I totally understand why someone would.  He's bloody funny.  Let's be fair here, he's one of the greatest comedians of the 20th century.  But, he's also a multiple rapist.  So, you have to decide - do you publicly state that you like listening to Bill Cosby or not?  You know that if you do, it will likely result in push back.  "How can you listen to that guy" isn't a totally unreasonable reaction.  So, do you engage or simply go on your day and get on with your business?

I mean, heck, I'm pretty far on the left here but I LOVE Jimmy Carr.  I do.  I find him and 8 out of 10 Cats to be unbelievably funny.  Yup, sometimes he goes too far.  Totally understand why people would react that way to him.  And I'm never going to defend him either.  He absolutely knows that what he does is going to land him in hot water.  Same goes for Jeremy Clarkson - another comedian/personality that I watch even though he does make me cringe as well.

I guess my advice is to separate yourself from the discussion and try to keep some perspective.  If you unreservedly declare your support for something like Lovecraft, as a good example, yes, people are going to judge you for that.  Absolutely you are going to be judged for that.  The question you have to ask yourself is, are you okay with that?  If you're not okay with being judged for liking Lovecraft, again, as a complete hypothetical, then some self-examination is in order.  Why does it bother you that someone might think you're a racist for liking something that lots of people think is racist?  

I don't propose to have answers here.  I'm just trying to have a conversation.  I don't know.  If I did know, I'd probably be making a lot more money that I do.    But, all we can do is sort of muddle on and keep engaging.


----------



## shannona

Dannyalcatraz said:


> That really is extraordinary from my POV as well.



I read that footnote to my wife with some disagree of exasperation and rhetorically asked, "How naughty word cowardly is that!?" 

Of course, I don't know anything about Amina Inloes or her situation c. 2017. At the age of 25 I likely would still have been susceptible to pressure not to ruin someone's reputation; at the age of 50, I'd write a footnote dragging anyone up and down the sidewalk until they were bloody if they tried to pressure me into withholding information for non-fiction I was writing.


----------



## aramis erak

mythago said:


> What religions adopt the Anglo-American criminal burden of proof as an obligation?
> 
> And it’s untrue that “basic human decency” means adopting this criminal burden of proof for all our interactions and decisions. Nobody does this on the regular. It’s a fake moral standard that gets whipped out when we don’t like what’s being said or we do like the person it’s being said about.



"Judge not lest ye be judged" is part of Christian theology, specifcally Matthew 7:2 



> 7
> 1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.
> 
> 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 4 How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? 5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.




 There are less explicit elements in several other places and contexts within the NT. I'm not digging them out; the point is clear enough above.

The Old Testament - especially in Isaiah, talks about Justice belonging to the LORD. Also in Psalms several times.

Not bearing false witness is in the Ten Commandments - which appear multiple places; If one is not at least to preponderance, one has no idea if they are bearing false witness or not in condemning someone.

Islam shares the same prohibition on false witness, but also gives formulation for proof acceptable - for what level . (I don't recall the specifications.)


----------



## Levistus's_Leviathan

aramis erak said:


> "Judge not lest ye be judged" is part of Christian theology, specifcally Matthew 7:2



That verse means "don't call the pot black if you're the kettle," not "you have to absolutely prove someone's guilt to a sin before you judge them for it."


----------



## Hussar

Guys. I’m not a mod but you guys are WAY over the board rules line of no religion here. Please stop


----------



## Umbran

mythago said:


> What religions adopt the Anglo-American criminal burden of proof as an obligation?






aramis erak said:


> "Judge not lest ye be judged" is part of Christian theology, specifcally Matthew 7:2




*Mod Note:*
Folks, we do have a bar on discussion real-world religion, and you are both engaged in it.  Please drop this line of discussion.


----------



## Jer

Dannyalcatraz said:


> On flawed creatives in general:  for the most part, I don’t have a problem continuing to  enjoy the output I liked before revelations of their darker natures.  So I still listen to old Bill Cosby comedy bits, watch early Woody Allen films, and read HPL.  But once I learn of reprehensible behavior, I make a choice about whether or not the new data means I shouldn’t consume new works by them.



One thing tho is that once you know about their behavior/beliefs it bleeds into enjoyment of their work.  Cosby's stand up work especially hits hard when you realize what a misogynistic undercurrent it has and what it means given what we know about him now.

But for me the consumption of work by a creator when I know they're a bigot/Nazi/rapist/etc. is part of me being careful about what I consume in media.  Most folks avoid eating poison, but don't think twice about consuming media that might be "poisonous" to their minds. We pick up things subconsciously from the media we consume and knowing that a creator was, say, a Nazi symp, helps to be on guard against consuming something poisonous from his works.  I always try to read critically these days anyway, but the extra background helps to understand what you're reading.

According to Shannon Appelcline over at RPG.net Barker's pseudonymous novel has been used as neo-Nazi indoctrination material and was published by the same publisher as the Turner Diaries.  Appelcline's article says everything I've been trying to articulate about this idea better than I'm able to so I'm going to drop a link to it here - I think Shannon is right about all of this.



			Advanced Designers & Dragons #63: The Fall of Tékumel - RPGnet


----------



## billd91

aramis erak said:


> religious stuff



Religious discussion aside, there's a good point to not being judgmental or hypocritical in the judgments we make. But that's a far cry from holding someone to account for the stuff we can show they did or associated with. And that evidence against Barker is pretty bad. The very idea that someone could look at the history of the Nazis and make a positive judgment about it to the point of writing in support of its ideology or serving on an anti-Semitic editorial board really is pretty damning.


----------



## darjr

billd91 said:


> Religious discussion aside, there's a good point to not being judgmental or hypocritical in the judgments we make. But that's a far cry from holding someone to account for the stuff we can show they did or associated with. And that evidence against Barker is pretty bad. The very idea that someone could look at the history of the Nazis and make a positive judgment about it to the point of writing in support of its ideology or serving on an anti-Semitic editorial board really is pretty damning.



I. Can’t. Believe. This. Needs. Stating.

but apparently it does.


----------



## heks

in the mid 90s, when i first started seriously getting into political theory and, in particular, antifascism, i made it a point to explore as much contemporary fascist work as i could to get a better understanding of what i was up against, so, having actually read the book, let me assure you- it is absolutely not, in any way, satirising white supremacy or neo-nazi views and barker was well known for his beliefs in certain circles.
(it feels a little strange to me, honestly, because i knew who he was due to that long before i was aware of his rpg work outside of simply knowing the name 'empire of the petal throne' as something from way before i got into gaming.)


----------



## pemerton

Jer said:


> According to Shannon Appelcline over at RPG.net Barker's pseudonymous novel has been used as neo-Nazi indoctrination material and was published by the same publisher as the Turner Diaries.  Appelcline's article says everything I've been trying to articulate about this idea better than I'm able to so I'm going to drop a link to it here - I think Shannon is right about all of this.
> 
> 
> 
> Advanced Designers & Dragons #63: The Fall of Tékumel - RPGnet



I read that blog. Here are the two paragraphs that stood out to me:

Fundamentally, anyone interested in world of Tékumel will now have to go through the setting with a careful eye. Though it's been noted that Barker's authoring of his pro-Nazi novel was much later than his main creative period for Tékumel, we have no way of knowing how the attitudes suggested in the book may have influenced Barker's fantasy world. Some have noted that fascist ethnostates of Tékumel could have drawn upon Nazi desires, others that its history may reflect the Nazi's "Kampf um Lebensraum" concept. It's almost impossible to say whether these were purposeful (or even subconscious) connections, especially given the common (yet potentially problematic) usage of fascist ethnostates in fantasy literature and gaming. But a knowledgeable gamer is unlikely to ever be able to look at Tékumel again without worrying about these issues.

The Tékumel Foundation's decision to, at the least, passively cover up Barker's authorship of a Nazi novel for a decade makes the whole situation even more problematic. They denied a decade's worth of players the agency to make a decision about whether it was ethical to play in the world of Tékumel, and worse they denied them the personal ability to assess whether there were Nazi tropes in the design or the world or not. In doing so, they also denied themselves the ability to control the narrative, such as by bringing in experts on Nazi indoctrination who could themselves have combed through Tékumel to spot any problematic elements.​
I have trouble with the idea that we need experts on Nazi indoctrination to tell us whether or not there are "problematic elements" in Tekumel. Or that the existence of such elements, and their possible effects on readers, is in some way conditional on the political views of its author, such that either (i) we couldn't spot them until we knew those views, or (ii) a given motif will have a different effect depending on the political views of its creator.

Tekumel is what it is. It stands, or falls, on its own terms as a work. Upthread I mentioned some features which are consistent with extreme reactionary and even racist politics. As Appelcline notes, those features don't distinguish Tekumel from many other fantasy worlds. The thematic connections between fantasy as a genre and reactionary politics have been discussed for a long time. This Barker revelation is a new data point as far as those connections are concerned, and it may be significant for those who are interested in the _origins_ of Tekumel and Barker's creative process. But the risk of Tekumel turning its readers, and those who play RPGs set in it, into Neo-Nazis is no greater today than it was yesterday. (Unless neo-Nazis develop a new enthusiasm for it in light of these revelations, and start recruiting by running RPGs set in Tekumel. But that would tell us nothing new about Tekumel - neo-Nazis could recruit just as easily running RPGs set in Greyhawk, or in Middle Earth.)

I also find the criticisms of the Tekumel Foundation a bit unfair. Nothing the Foundation did denied anyone the opportunity to assess the existence of Nazi tropes in Tekumel. You do that by reading Tekumel with an eye open for Nazi tropes; and people have been able to do that, if they wanted to, since 1975.

What they really did was kept secret a fact about MAR Barker. So they denied people the opportunity to form a fully-informed view of MAR Barker's character. Framing this as the denial of a capacity to critically examine his work, or to form a view about the ethics of engaging with it, strikes me as a round-about way of making the point.


----------



## MGibster

I'm sometimes fascinated by how someone's perception of a particular piece of fiction can radically change based on learning something about the writer.  Joss Whedon is a great example.  I know people who had nothing but positive things to say about Whedon's work in the 90s and early 2000s but some of those same people tell me he's a hack writer and tell me they see evidence of his creepiness in those works.  I'm not arguing that such perspectives are unwarranted.  Just that I find it fascinating.


----------



## Parmandur

MGibster said:


> I'm sometimes fascinated by how someone's perception of a particular piece of fiction can radically change based on learning something about the writer.  Joss Whedon is a great example.  I know people who had nothing but positive things to say about Whedon's work in the 90s and early 2000s but some of those same people tell me he's a hack writer and tell me they see evidence of his creepiness in those works.  I'm not arguing that such perspectives are unwarranted.  Just that I find it fascinating.



I thought Xander was a bit of a creep, but in hindsight the signs are more apparent.


----------



## darjr

never mind


----------



## Riley

Parmandur said:


> I thought Xander was a bit of a creep, but in hindsight the signs are more apparent.



I assumed that Xander was a bit of a juvenile creep so that we could watch him grow into a wiser, better character.

And then he didn’t.
That surprised and disappointed me at the time.


----------



## shannona

pemerton said:


> I also find the criticisms of the Tekumel Foundation a bit unfair. Nothing the Foundation did denied anyone the opportunity to assess the existence of Nazi tropes in Tekumel. You do that by reading Tekumel with an eye open for Nazi tropes; and people have been able to do that, if they wanted to, since 1975.
> 
> What they really did was kept secret a fact about MAR Barker. So they denied people the opportunity to form a fully-informed view of MAR Barker's character. Framing this as the denial of a capacity to critically examine his work, or to form a view about the ethics of engaging with it, strikes me as a round-about way of making the point.




Obviously, I disagree. 

A few reasons:

First, indoctrination can be subtle. It can be about suggesting a pattern of history: that it be about the actions of great men, that it depend on conflict. It can be about suggesting a norm for geopolitical states: that different races keep to themselves, that cruelty and extremism are required to maintain order. By suggesting these patterns and these norms, we move the Overton Window. Suddenly fascism or torture or ethnostates become ideas that are acceptable for discussion in the political sphere, worthwhile alternatives instead of abhorrent philosophies. 

Second, you can't separate the art from the artist, as I think you want to. Any art is of a piece with the artist's character: his interests, his likes, his dislikes, his passions, his hates, it's all going to be in there. It's what makes art art. I mean, I primarily write nonfiction, but I know my character is in there. Even if I successfully expunge it from my recitation of events, it's still in there in the way I recite. Barker's character is in Tékumel, and I think the only notable question is whether his character when he created Tékumel (in the 50s) or when he developed it into an RPG (in the 70s) was any different from his character when he wrote a neo-Nazi novel (in the 90s).

You put that together, and in my opinion that makes the actions of the Tékumel Foundation both inexcusable and deeply stupid. Oh, I understand they were in a horrific position. But they stole the choice from people who don't feel, like you, that art and artist can be separated. I've seen multiple people very suddenly ending long-running Tékumel games and I know that Jeff Dee is conflicted now by his authorship of Béthorm. That's real damage that they've done to real people and it's just the smallest reflection of the anxiety and discontent churning through a lot of peoples' souls right now. In denying people that choice, the choice as to whether they want to play a neo-nazi authored game, I think they also condemned the world they were supposed to guardian to the abyss.

And I say that all because personally I think Tékumel was redeemable. I've seen no evidence (yet) that there's anything in it that would be more appealing to neo-Nazis than some of the conservative tropes scattered across our FRPGs. But, I think the artist heavily influences the art and I think Tékumel is thus going to be heavily influenced by some version of M.A.R. Barker and I think there needs to be some real critical analysis of what that means. And I think that if the Tékumel Foundation had done that beforehand, and they hadn't left many playing a neo-Nazi's game for a decade, they might have saved the world.


----------



## pemerton

MGibster said:


> I'm sometimes fascinated by how someone's perception of a particular piece of fiction can radically change based on learning something about the writer.



Sure. I think we can see new things in a work when we learn new things about the creator. But that doesn't mean that the work has changed - it's our attitude towards it, and the salience to us of some of its features, that is changing.


----------



## pemerton

shannona said:


> Obviously, I disagree.



Thanks for the thoughtful reply, and for bringing your ideas into this thread.



shannona said:


> indoctrination can be subtle. It can be about suggesting a pattern of history: that it be about the actions of great men, that it depend on conflict. It can be about suggesting a norm for geopolitical states: that different races keep to themselves, that cruelty and extremism are required to maintain order. By suggesting these patterns and these norms, we move the Overton Window. Suddenly fascism or torture or ethnostates become ideas that are acceptable for discussion in the political sphere, worthwhile alternatives instead of abhorrent philosophies.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> 
> And I say that all because personally I think Tékumel was redeemable. I've seen no evidence (yet) that there's anything in it that would be more appealing to neo-Nazis than some of the conservative tropes scattered across our FRPGs. But, I think the artist heavily influences the art and I think Tékumel is thus going to be heavily influenced by some version of M.A.R. Barker and I think there needs to be some real critical analysis of what that means.



If the indoctrination has been taking place, it's been taking place since 1975. And as I said, is a function of the work, not the author of the work. My Tekumel knowledge is pretty modest - I've got a copy of the Different Worlds edition with the pink cover, and have read most of it but never played it - but I've never noticed anything in it that suggests _reactionary politics_ beyond what is fairly common in fantasy worlds. And I do regard myself as having a fairly good ability to read fiction for political and philosophical themes - I'm an academic lawyer and philosopher and I have taught Holocaust studies, though it's not my area of research; and Zygmunt Bauman's _Modernity and the Holocaust _has had a significant influence on how I think about, and approach, political philosophy.



shannona said:


> Second, you can't separate the art from the artist, as I think you want to. Any art is of a piece with the artist's character: his interests, his likes, his dislikes, his passions, his hates, it's all going to be in there. It's what makes art art. I mean, I primarily write nonfiction, but I know my character is in there. Even if I successfully expunge it from my recitation of events, it's still in there in the way I recite. Barker's character is in Tékumel, and I think the only notable question is whether his character when he created Tékumel (in the 50s) or when he developed it into an RPG (in the 70s) was any different from his character when he wrote a neo-Nazi novel (in the 90s).



It depends what sort of separation you have in mind. Obviously the art depends, causally, upon the artist. And the artist makes choices about what to include in, and how to present, the work. But the work then stands alone. Learning more about the artist can provide new avenues for inquiring into the work - eg maybe we learn that Barker embraced the ethnic and racial reification that is typical of fantasy fiction not because he was aping REH and JRRT but because it spoke to his political convictions. But the ethnic and racial reification is what it is - and the presence of that in Tekumel for one reason doesn't make Tekumel more or less likely to spread extreme right wing ideals any more than its presence in Greyhawk, or Middle Earth, for other reasons.



shannona said:


> You put that together, and in my opinion that makes the actions of the Tékumel Foundation both inexcusable and deeply stupid.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> And I think that if the Tékumel Foundation had done that beforehand, and they hadn't left many playing a neo-Nazi's game for a decade, they might have saved the world.



I agree that they were stupid, if for no other reason than that it was bound to come out and when it did the blowback would be terrible.

I doubt that Tekumel could have been saved, however. I think that the association with neo-Nazism would have been there, whether it came out ten years ago or now. And I think that association is likely to be fatal now and would equally have been as fatal then.



shannona said:


> I've seen multiple people very suddenly ending long-running Tékumel games and I know that Jeff Dee is conflicted now by his authorship of Béthorm. That's real damage that they've done to real people and it's just the smallest reflection of the anxiety and discontent churning through a lot of peoples' souls right now.



That's a fair point, with two parts. I'm more doubtful than you that there is a moral duty to tell those who engage with an artwork everything one might know about the character of its creator. But there is a moral duty not to hurt people, and you give a clear account in these sentences of hurt that they have done.


----------



## darjr

Jeff Grubb, who has written Tekumel content, has a few words.









						Tekumel: Ditlana
					

What happens when bad people make good things? The latest serious discussion on this subject involves M.A.R. "Phil" Barker and Empire of th...




					grubbstreet.blogspot.com


----------



## Professor Murder

pemerton said:


> I have trouble with the idea that we need experts on Nazi indoctrination to tell us whether or not there are "problematic elements" in Tekumel. Or that the existence of such elements, and their possible effects on readers, is in some way conditional on the political views of its author, such that either (i) we couldn't spot them until we knew those views, or (ii) a given motif will have a different effect depending on the political views of its creator.



As a professional, I have to take issue with this assumption. Most people assume they are much more media savvy than they actually are. Look how many people view Starship Troopers (the film) to be aspirational. Fascism is by design slick, stylish and seductive.


----------



## pemerton

Professor Murder said:


> As a professional, I have to take issue with this assumption. Most people assume they are much more media savvy than they actually are. Look how many people view Starship Troopers (the film) to be aspirational. Fascism is by design slick, stylish and seductive.



I don't know which way you go on Starship Troopers. I saw the film when it came out. I thought it was (i) bad and (ii) laden with right wing tropes. I have a copy of the novel but have never read it, but have heard that the film is not true to it.


----------



## Davies

pemerton said:


> I don't know which way you go on Starship Troopers. I saw the film when it came out. I thought it was (i) bad and (ii) laden with right wing tropes. I have a copy of the novel but have never read it, but have heard that the film is not true to it.



It's not, but there have been arguments against the book as well, from its first publication forward. But this is way off-topic.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

shannona said:


> Second, you can't separate the art from the artist, as I think you want to. Any art is of a piece with the artist's character: his interests, his likes, his dislikes, his passions, his hates, it's all going to be in there.



As an artist, I can’t say this is 100% true…or false.  I think it is extremely case specific- for both the artist and the art being produced.

You may be able to find evidence of misogyny in Bill Cosby’s later stuff, but it would be next to impossible to point to signs of it in most of the stand-up that brought him fame, like the routines involving his brother, his dentist, or feeding kids breakfast.

It would be even more difficult to detect my flaws and beliefs in my sketches, stories, jewelry designs or musical compositions.

OTOH, some artists are VERY keen on expressing their inner states through their creations.  Some art is provocative by design.


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Some art is provocative by design.



The most obviously provocative aspect of Tekumel - given where it was created and who its immediate audience was - is its departure from European and (post-Colombian) North American norms in its presentation of what it is to be a human being.

Which I think is part of what makes the current revelations about Barker puzzling and unsettling.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

pemerton said:


> I'm more doubtful than you that there is a moral duty to tell those who engage with an artwork everything one might know about the character of its creator. But there is a moral duty not to hurt people, and you give a clear account in these sentences of hurt that they have done.



IMHO, the greater harm was done by Barker releasing his pro-Nazi fiction under a pseudonym, not by the revelation of the fact.

Humans like to fill narrative gaps with conjecture.  Anyone aware of Barker’s duplicity could wonder if a given fan of Tekumel was unaware or a fellow sympathizer, and that speculation would be a factor in how they interact.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

pemerton said:


> Which I think is part of what makes the current revelations about Barker puzzling and unsettling.



It is possible that Barker was conflicted.  That he had doubts.  That he changed his opinions over time, first one way, then the other.

Perhaps Tekumel was the product of a mind not yet fully embracing the bigoted ethos of his father.


----------



## shannona

pemerton said:


> If the indoctrination has been taking place, it's been taking place since 1975. And as I said, is a function of the work, not the author of the work. My Tekumel knowledge is pretty modest - I've got a copy of the Different Worlds edition with the pink cover, and have read most of it but never played it - but I've never noticed anything in it that suggests _reactionary politics_ beyond what is fairly common in fantasy worlds. And I do regard myself as having a fairly good ability to read fiction for political and philosophical themes - I'm an academic lawyer and philosopher and I have taught Holocaust studies, though it's not my area of research; and Zygmunt Bauman's _Modernity and the Holocaust _has had a significant influence on how I think about, and approach, political philosophy.




It sounds like you have good faith in your ability to suss out whether there might be Nazi tropes in Tékumel. From your description of your resume, that sounds accurate. But most people don't have those advantages. I think I might feel confident in my own ability to run a Tékumel game and to have it (mostly) reflect the progressive tropes I was more interested in. But all people might not feel the same. And if I were a retailer, I'd be very reluctant to sell Tékumel at this time, not knowing it had the potential to do damage.

If Tékumel isn't already dead, as I said, I think some experts on facism and Nazis and cults and indoctrination reading through it could set some minds at ease (or reveal uncomfortable messaging). But, I honestly think it's already dead because it just hasn't been well-treated at the level required for ongoing success since 1975. (Yeah, maybe it was dead whenever this neo-Nazi revelation came out, no matter how successful it was, but I feel like the Foundation's cover-up _ensured_ that.)



Dannyalcatraz said:


> As an artist, I can’t say this is 100% true…or false.  I think it is extremely case specific- for both the artist and the art being produced.
> 
> You may be able to find evidence of misogyny in Bill Cosby’s later stuff, but it would be next to impossible to point to signs of it in most of the stand-up that brought him fame, like the routines involving his brother, his the dentist, or feeding kids breakfast.
> 
> It would be even more difficult to detect my flaws and beliefs in my sketches, stories, jewelry designs or musical compositions.
> 
> OTOH, some artists are VERY keen on expressing their inner states through their creations.  Some art is provocative by design.




Yeah, you're certainly right that there are some types of arts that make it easier to detect the biases of the creator and some where it's less. But I still think every piece of art is the embodiment of its creator in some way. Your music may touch back on what you found nostalgic in your youth or rebellious in your young adulthood; your jewelry may touch upon what you find beautiful, what stones or metals or patterns delight you; your sketches may highlight what you think is important in a scene or portrait, even if what you find important is just straight realism.

Similarly, Tékumel ultimately reflects what M.A.R. Barker found nostalgic, what he found rebellious, what he found beautiful, what delighted him, and what he found important. Those may or may not be Nazi ideals, depend on whether he was a different person when he designed Tékumel and when he wrote that book. They may or may not be meaningfully represented.

--

I should make it very clear that I feel like the decision to choose to enjoy an art even if the artist is repugnant is a personal one, particularly when the artist is dead, and so unable to profit.

I guess one of the biggest issues for me here is the collective nature of roleplaying. If I choose to run a Tékumel game, I'm sharing that worldview that Barker created in Tékumel with others. I'm not just giving it my stamp of approval, but I'm ultimately transmitting Barker's ideas. That's very different from me listening to _Thriller_ or reading a Harry Potter book that I already own.

I'd similarly have issue with reading _Ender's Game_ to young adults because I'd wonder about what messages it was sending, especially since I thought some scenes were a bit creepy, even before I knew about Card's homophobia. But still, it stayed in my collection along with _Speaker for the Dead_, even when I stopped buying new Card books and dumped another dozen or so.

(And generally, thanks for the thoughtful responses. That article was my first stab at how to discuss this historically.)


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> It is possible that Barker was conflicted.  That he had doubts.  That he changed his opinions over time, first one way, then the other.
> 
> Perhaps Tekumel was the product of a mind not yet fully embracing the bigoted ethos of his father.



Maybe. But did he subsequently renounce Tekumel? I've never heard of such an event.

There are strands in extreme right-wind ideology that emphasis "separateness" of the "races". But I understand that Barker's wife was not white. (And that the same thing is true of the protagonist of his novel.) How did that fit into his political outlook?

One of the unsettling features I had in mind, in my post that you replied to, is the following: it seems possible - even likely - that some enthusiasts for Tekumel found that its appeal, at least in part, consisted in its apparent displacement of some of the Eurocentrism that is dominant in FRPGing. Now they learn that its author was a supporter of National Socialism. That could pull the rug out from just about anyone, I think.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

shannona said:


> But I still think every piece of art is the embodiment of its creator in some way. Your music may touch back on what you found nostalgic in your youth or rebellious in your young adulthood; your jewelry may touch upon what you find beautiful, what stones or metals or patterns delight you; your sketches may highlight what you think is important in a scene or portrait, even if what you find important is just straight realism.



I’m not saying my artistic choices are divorced from my character.  My personal aesthetics are _clearly_ on display.

I’m saying the morally laudable or despicable aspects of myself are not usually going to be conveyed via my jewelry designs, my still-lifes, my sci-fi/fantasy illustrations, or surf/metal/jazz/etc. instrumentals.  Far more likely is that those seeking to find my “inner soul” in such will instead be looking at mirrors and listening to echo chambers.  They’ll perceive themselves, not me.


----------



## pemerton

shannona said:


> I should make it very clear that I feel like the decision to choose to enjoy an art even if the artist is repugnant is a personal one, particularly when the artist is dead, and so unable to profit.



It can be fairly complicated.

I don't like Heidegger, and never have. Part of this is technical disagreement with his philosophical doctrines. Part of this is because of his unconcealed alliance with the National Socialist government. But Heidegger continues to be taught and studied, and remains very influential, in the contemporary academy, and more so among left wing than right wing scholars at least in the English speaking context.

When I encounter people with a casual interest in inter-war German-language philosophy, I try to encourage them to look into the Vienna Circle and associates. I make the point that many of these philosophers were socialists or liberals who were victims of National Socialism and became refugees in the US, the UK or (briefly, in Popper's case) NZ. But my intellectual sympathies for logical positivism have sometimes made me suspect among left wing philosophers, because they associate "positivism" with right-wing sociology and economics.

I have good friends, who I regard as morally good people, who engage intellectually with Heidegger's work. That's their prerogative. Even I will concede that there's stuff in Heidegger that's interesting.


----------



## S'mon

shannona said:


> It sounds like you have good faith in your ability to suss out whether there might be Nazi tropes in Tékumel. From your description of your resume, that sounds accurate. But most people don't have those advantages.




I'm very wary of the idea that there are people smart enough to read and be influenced by material, who are yet not smart enough to form an independent opinion, and need an authoritative source to tell them what it really means. Much of what we do as academics is developing the capacity of students to read critically and form their own considered opinions. I really don't like the idea of telling people "You're not smart enough to understand - look to X to tell you what to think about this".


----------



## pemerton

S'mon said:


> I'm very wary of the idea that there are people smart enough to read and be influenced by material, who are yet not smart enough to form an independent opinion, and need an authoritative source to tell them what it really means. Much of what we do as academics is developing the capacity of students to read critically and form their own considered opinions. I really don't like the idea of telling people "You're not smart enough to understand - look to X to tell you what to think about this".



I'm conflicted.

(1) I'm an opinionated intellectual, who devotes hours of each day to cultivating and refining and changing those opinions, by reading new material and re-reading and reflecting on old material.

(2) What I've described in (1) wouldn't be possible if there weren't _other_ people capable of forming and communicating interesting and sometimes complex ideas, that force me to reflect on and sometimes change mine.

I think the likelihood of Tekumel pushing someone towards National Socialism, while that person remains ignorant of any reactionary political themes or ideas in the work, is low. Maybe by presenting ethnic and racial identities as "real things" it might help validate such a conception in someone: but then it would do that whether Barker himself was a Nazi, a communist or a liberal.


----------



## Hussar

MGibster said:


> I'm sometimes fascinated by how someone's perception of a particular piece of fiction can radically change based on learning something about the writer.  Joss Whedon is a great example.  I know people who had nothing but positive things to say about Whedon's work in the 90s and early 2000s but some of those same people tell me he's a hack writer and tell me they see evidence of his creepiness in those works.  I'm not arguing that such perspectives are unwarranted.  Just that I find it fascinating.



I think what happens is that people learn about an artist then go back and start looking at the work a little more closely with that new information in mind.  What was passed off earlier as maybe just "a bit creepy" or "sign of the times" or just ignored completely sometimes jumps out as "Ooooh, that's why that's there" once you start learning more about the artists.  

Let's be honest here, most people are not watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and diving into deep critical analysis.  You watch it, and then largely forget it.  

I remember rewatching Star Trek Next Generation a couple of years ago and marveling at just how cringe inducing the first two or three seasons really are.  Flat out mind boggling bigotry and racism.  Stuff that I certainly never thought about when I watched it as a young teen.


----------



## S'mon

I do think that knowing what an author is like can definitely make one not enjoy their work. The slightly creepy elements in Joss Whedon's _oeuvre_ certainly seem amplified in retrospect. I'm even less likely to look at Tekumel now than I was before - I have previously used some Tekumel stuff such as the gods in my own settings. I made a fair bit of use of Barker's essay on creating fantasy religions discussed at [Meta Gaming] M. A. R. Barker, ‘Create a Religion in your Spare Time for Fun and Profit’ - there's nothing Nazi in that essay (I assure doubters with the full weight of my academic authority _/sarcasm_)  - but I suspect I'll not have much desire to refer back to it in future.


----------



## Hussar

There are lots of authors I’ve dropped over the years. I was a HUGE Piers Anthony fan way back when. Then I read his kiddy porn novel and never read anything by him again. 

Same goes for David Eddings.

It’s always a choice. But you can’t choose if you don’t know.


----------



## Retreater

pemerton said:


> I don't know which way you go on Starship Troopers. I saw the film when it came out. I thought it was (i) bad and (ii) laden with right wing tropes. I have a copy of the novel but have never read it, but have heard that the film is not true to it.



I thought I read that Starship Troopers was legitimately a satire of that ideology. I don't have a lot of knowledge about it, just reading articles here and there. Maybe someone else knows more?


----------



## Professor Murder

Retreater said:


> I thought I read that Starship Troopers was legitimately a satire of that ideology. I don't have a lot of knowledge about it, just reading articles here and there. Maybe someone else knows more?



Starship Troopers (The Film) is a scathing satire of Fascism. Unfortunately, it has the weakness of any satire: If people are into what you are mocking, the mockery may go completely over their heads.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

pemerton said:


> Sure. I think we can see new things in a work when we learn new things about the creator. But that doesn't mean that the work has changed - it's our attitude towards it, and the salience to us of some of its features, that is changing.



But certainly that is the thing that actually matters? Art truly exists only when someone is experiencing it. If art happens in a forest and no one is around to see it, is it really art?


----------



## MGibster

Hussar said:


> I think what happens is that people learn about an artist then go back and start looking at the work a little more closely with that new information in mind. What was passed off earlier as maybe just "a bit creepy" or "sign of the times" or just ignored completely sometimes jumps out as "Ooooh, that's why that's there" once you start learning more about the artists.



That is fair.  Our perceptions do change and what was acceptable in fiction at one point is no longer acceptable today.  See most teen comedies from the 80s for reference. 



Hussar said:


> Let's be honest here, most people are not watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and diving into deep critical analysis. You watch it, and then largely forget it.



You're right, most people aren't doing that.  But enough people _were _doing that in the late 90s and early 2000s during and after _Buffy _came to a conclusion that it was even mentioned in the recent "Undoing of Joss Whedon" article.  As the article notes, in 2002 there was an academic conference with 160 scholars who attended at the University of East Anglia.  Buffy was a show that was thoroughly analyzed online by its fandom, with the participation of Joss himself at the time, and Wikipedia even has an article about Buffy studies.  And while there were people who didn't care for Whedon's work back then, I don't think anyone was calling him a hack. But if we don't like someone we tend to react unfavorably to anything they do.  Even something we'd normally be inclined to like.  



Hussar said:


> I remember rewatching Star Trek Next Generation a couple of years ago and marveling at just how cringe inducing the first two or three seasons really are. Flat out mind boggling bigotry and racism. Stuff that I certainly never thought about when I watched it as a young teen.



What?  You didn't think "Code of Honor" was any good? 



Professor Murder said:


> Starship Troopers (The Film) is a scathing satire of Fascism. Unfortunately, it has the weakness of any satire: If people are into what you are mocking, the mockery may go completely over their heads.



Starship Troopers just isn't a good movie.  And I'm not saying that because I'm too stupid to get it or upset because it lampoons fascism.  It's just a bad movie.


----------



## pemerton

Professor Murder said:


> Starship Troopers (The Film) is a scathing satire of Fascism. Unfortunately, it has the weakness of any satire: If people are into what you are mocking, the mockery may go completely over their heads.





MGibster said:


> Starship Troopers just isn't a good movie.  And I'm not saying that because I'm too stupid to get it or upset because it lampoons fascism.  It's just a bad movie.



I don't remember much about it, but do remember it being bad. I don't remember finding its satire particularly scathing.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> I don't remember much about it, but do remember it being bad. I don't remember finding its satire particularly scathing.




Well, there are probably two issues in the way:

1) Poe's Law.
2) Just because it is built to be satire, doesn't mean that it is entirely _effective_ satire.  

The second is a major point with Starship Troopers - these days, we strongly associate satire with comedy, and Starship Troopers is not a comedy.  Much of the coding commonly used to clue the audience in to the point is missing, so it doesn't really work very well.


----------



## pemerton

Umbran said:


> Well, there are probably two issues in the way:
> 
> 1) Poe's Law.
> 2) Just because it is built to be satire, doesn't mean that it is entirely _effective_ satire.
> 
> The second is a major point with Starship Troopers - these days, we strongly associate satire with comedy, and Starship Troopers is not a comedy.  Much of the coding commonly used to clue the audience in to the point is missing, so it doesn't really work very well.



The connection between satire and comedy seems more than contingent, insofar as _satire_ involves, even entails, _holding up to ridicule_, and to ridicule something is to poke fun at it.

Trying to poke fun at something simply by portraying it, and supposing that its absurdity will speak for itself, is possible but not necessarily easy to pull off.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> The connection between satire and comedy seems more than contingent, insofar as _satire_ involves, even entails, _holding up to ridicule_, and to ridicule something is to poke fun at it.




The base definition of ridicule is to subject the target to contempt. Ridicule makes the target look foolish or stupid.  We often do that by way of comedy, but that's not the only form of ridicule available.

I am not, by the way, claiming it is a good movie - the fact that folks cannot generally tell if it is satire or not points to it being _ineffective_ at whatever it is trying to do.  Good movies are not ineffective.


----------



## Mallus

Professor Murder said:


> Starship Troopers (The Film) is a scathing satire of Fascism. Unfortunately, it has the weakness of any satire: If people are into what you are mocking, the mockery may go completely over their heads.



Was Doogie Howser in full SS-drag not clear enough?!

I'm still processing M.A.R. Barker being a Holocaust denier and Nazi fanfic author. It's just... puzzling. No end to the depths of human contradiction. How could someone who spent much of their career as a scholar of non-European cultures/languages wind up believing such ahistorical, not to mention outright evil, nonsense?

Then again, Orson Scott Card wrote a book about empathy once...


----------



## Umbran

Mallus said:


> Then again, Orson Scott Card wrote a book about empathy once...




I have no authoritative source on this, but it seems to me that Card is an example of a person changing their views over time, and having it bleed into their work, such that their early and later works have much different perspectives.


----------



## Willie the Duck

Dannyalcatraz said:


> You may be able to find evidence of misogyny in Bill Cosby’s later stuff, but it would be next to impossible to point to signs of it in most of the stand-up that brought him fame, like the routines involving his brother, his the dentist, or feeding kids breakfast.



The feeding the kids breakfast routine is part of a long line of jokes casting his wife as an irrational anger machine. I certainly didn't notice it when I heard it back in the day, but after all the allegations blew up, looking back I could certainly see it. Oh, and the Spanish Fly routine. 



Professor Murder said:


> Starship Troopers (The Film) is a scathing satire of Fascism. Unfortunately, it has the weakness of any satire: If people are into what you are mocking, the mockery may go completely over their heads.



It's strange. Every six months or so I will see an article on Reddit or a comment on a facebook page or something like that with someone kinda bragging/self-back-patting about 'getting' that Starship Troopers is a satire. Clearly some people must consider it a subtle satire. 

As for the book-movie dichotomy -- they are pretty far apart. Not just in a Zack Snider's Watchmen way where the director missed/chose-to-overlook the actual primary messages, but in actual different effective story.  They are the same base premise and the characters have the same names, and that's about it. The book is also a uncomfortable political allegory that undoubtedly went over many heads, but not just 'fascism is bad (you get that's what we're saying, right?).'


----------



## Ravensworth

Hussar said:


> There are lots of authors I’ve dropped over the years. I was a HUGE Piers Anthony fan way back when. Then I read his kiddy porn novel and never read anything by him again.
> 
> Same goes for David Eddings.
> 
> It’s always a choice. But you can’t choose if you don’t know.



David Eddings wrote a Kiddy Porn Novel? When? Sorry but this shocks the hell out of me.


----------



## Ravensworth

Hussar said:


> There are lots of authors I’ve dropped over the years. I was a HUGE Piers Anthony fan way back when. Then I read his kiddy porn novel and never read anything by him again.
> 
> Same goes for David Eddings.
> 
> It’s always a choice. But you can’t choose if you don’t know.


----------



## Ibrandul

I think the whole conversation about Starship Troopers isn’t very pertinent here, because that film is a case of an avowedly leftist and anti-fascist artist who had at least a passing familiarity with left intellectual theories of avant-garde art (Brecht) making a work of art that’s too easily understood as conveying the opposite message from the one he intended. As others have pointed out, there are innumerable other examples of this dilemma throughout at least the past 100 years.

My own view is that ST is a fantastic example of not-at-all-subtle pop-Brechtian art (in contrast to the overly subtle Brechtianism of early Kathryn Bigelow, for example), but that the last lingering shreds of any potential efficacy of a Brechtian approach had vanished at least fifteen years before ST was released. Thomas Elsaesser already recognized in 1990 that Brechtian techniques had become totally defunct due to transformations in cultural codes and audience expectations. ST is one of the best films of its kind—the elements that people are saying are "just bad," such as the non-naturalistic acting style, are precise executions of Brecht's original prescriptions—but it nonetheless arrived DOA in the context of the late 1990s; by that time, it was simply no longer possible to produce an "alienation effect" (pun intended) in the way ST attempts to do.

But Barker's is essentially the precise opposite to this situation: rather than a leftist artist producing a work that seems to be right-wing, but is actually legible as left-wing, in this case an artist we now know to have embraced far-right politics created a work that seems on its face, at least in the context of its 1970s origins, to have some merit from a left perspective (non-European cultural influences assigned to more than just Orientalist villain socieities, gender politics more complex than the classic fantasy approach that casts women as distressed damsels and/or chain-bikini babes, etc.), and now people are searching within it for right-wing content. Or at any rate some of the people posting in this thread seem to be fearful that right-wing content might be latent within the work.


----------



## RealAlHazred

Hussar said:


> There are lots of authors I’ve dropped over the years. I was a HUGE Piers Anthony fan way back when. Then I read his kiddy porn novel and never read anything by him again.



When I was a teenager, the Public Library was practically my second home. I read a lot of books, mostly fantasy and science-fiction. I eventually decided there was a spectrum of, let's say, sex-heaviness in books. Isaac Asimov sits at one end of that see-saw, for example; I'd be hard-pressed to point to a single incident of human reproduction mentioned in any of his books or short stories I have read. Sitting just on the other side of the mid-point line is Piers Anthony; his _Xanth_ novels have a lot of men trying to get a glimpse teenage girls' underwear, for example, and the _Bio of a Space Tyrant_ series is *extremely* rough. Sitting closer to the middle of that side of the line is Jack Chalker, whose _GOD, Inc._ series is, uh, full of questionable content. Anchoring the line at that end is John Norman. I can think of reasons to reread _GOD, Inc._ or _Xanth_; nothing will compel me to take _Bio of a Space Tyrant _or the _Gor_ books off the shelf again.


Hussar said:


> Same goes for David Eddings.



Eddings and his wife didn't do child pornography, they physically and mentally abused their adopted son and daughter. Which, I don't know, I'm not about to sit here and try to figure out which reprehensible action is worse on some completely subjective scale, I'll just conclude the Eddings' are terrible people and leave it at that.


----------



## Umbran

Ravensworth said:


> David Eddings wrote a Kiddy Porn Novel? When? Sorry but this shocks the hell out of me.




No.  But in the 1970s he and his wife spent a year in jail for abusing their adopted children.


----------



## RealAlHazred

Umbran said:


> No.  But he and his wife spent a year in jail for abusing their foster children.



Yeah, the funny thing is it reads like the kind of thing a villain in a David Eddings novel would do: keeping the hero locked in a cage in the basement as a child, etc.


----------



## Umbran

Liane the Wayfarer said:


> Yeah, the funny thing is it reads like the kind of thing a villain in a David Eddings novel would do: keeping the hero locked in a cage in the basement as a child, etc.




I... don't find that funny.  Sorry.


----------



## RealAlHazred

Umbran said:


> I... don't find that funny.  Sorry.



I meant more, like, "funny/strange" than "funny/haha," but I take your point.


----------



## Mallus

Umbran said:


> I have no authoritative source on this, but it seems to me that Card is an example of a person changing their views over time, and having it bleed into their work, such that their early and later works have much different perspectives.



That sounds right. I like to think Orson Scott Card the author once knew things Orson Scott Card the man eventually forgot.


----------



## Hussar

Ravensworth said:


> David Eddings wrote a Kiddy Porn Novel? When? Sorry but this shocks the hell out of me.




Naw. Sorry. Endings just tortured his adopted children. Anthony wrote kiddy porn.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Willie the Duck said:


> The feeding the kids breakfast routine is part of a long line of jokes casting his wife as an irrational anger machine.



He also did a host of jokes about his OWN anger towards the kids.  And casting the spouse as irrational and angry (and other negative attributes) is a long-standing comedic trend for comedians of BOTH genders.


----------



## Jer

Dannyalcatraz said:


> He also did a host of jokes about his OWN anger towards the kids.  And casting the spouse as irrational and angry (and other negative attributes) is a long-standing comedic trend for comedians of BOTH genders.



Which is why when you don't know about his actual actions towards women it sounds like something any comic might say, but when you know about who he actually is and the stuff he actually did it takes on a completely different context.  I can't listen to those routines anymore knowing the dark side of those bits. Especially the Spanish Fly routine.


----------



## Mallus

Dannyalcatraz said:


> He also did a host of jokes about his OWN anger towards the kids.  And casting the spouse as irrational and angry (and other negative attributes) is a long-standing comedic trend for comedians of BOTH genders.



Phyllis Miller used to refer to her husband as 'Fang'.


----------



## S'mon

Umbran said:


> The base definition of ridicule is to subject the target to contempt. Ridicule makes the target look foolish or stupid.  We often do that by way of comedy, but that's not the only form of ridicule available.
> but
> I am not, by the way, claiming it is a good movie - the fact that folks cannot generally tell if it is satire or not points to it being _ineffective_ at whatever it is trying to do.  Good movies are not ineffective.



I got the impression when I first saw it that Verhoeven was mocking the bulk of his audience - "Ha ha dumb people! You are too stupid to see it is YOU who are the monsters!" while appealing to a few eggheads like me. He did similar even less successfully in _Showgirls_ - I liked all the allusions to Frazier's_ The Golden Bough _but to the average critic it was a stupid t&a movie.


----------



## darjr

S'mon said:


> I got the impression when I first saw it that Verhoeven was mocking the bulk of his audience - "Ha ha dumb people! You are too stupid to see it is YOU who are the monsters!" while appealing to a few eggheads like me. He did similar even less successfully in _Showgirls_ - I liked all the allusions to Frazier's_ The Golden Bough _but to the average critic it was a stupid t&a movie.



It was also a stupid T&A movie.


----------



## Jer

darjr said:


> It was also a stupid T&A movie.



The genre of "I'm going to satirize a thing by doing that thing but ironically" is a really, really hard one to pull off.


----------



## Myrdin Potter

Professor Murder said:


> Starship Troopers (The Film) is a scathing satire of Fascism. Unfortunately, it has the weakness of any satire: If people are into what you are mocking, the mockery may go completely over their heads.



It was an attempt at a scathing satire that unfortunately used a book that is completely anti-Fascist (was really a democracy / libertarian society vs. communists story) as the foundation.

What happened is that you had really good looking actors saying well thought out dialog from the book with the in your face obvious Nazi uniforms and “do you want to know more” propaganda all intermixed.

As a sf adventure movie, it had amazing effects for the time (they still hold up) and a decent telling of the book itself plus a badly executed satire.

The real crime of that movie was white washing the Filipino hero into an aryan dream boy ….


----------



## Fifth Element

pemerton said:


> Trying to poke fun at something simply by portraying it, and supposing that its absurdity will speak for itself, is possible but not necessarily easy to pull off.



"The Mobile Infantry made me the man I am today", spoken sincerely by a guy with no legs. It doesn't simply portray it, the film pokes at it.


----------



## Fifth Element

Myrdin Potter said:


> (was really a democracy / libertarian society



...where only certain people are allowed to vote - such as those who go into military service.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Jer said:


> Which is why when you don't know about his actual actions towards women it sounds like something any comic might say, but when you know about who he actually is and the stuff he actually did it takes on a completely different context.  I can't listen to those routines anymore knowing the dark side of those bits. Especially the Spanish Fly routine.



In a sense, it’s akin to confirmation bias.  Now that you KNOW he was a sexual predator, you can see it in the routines.

…but what does it say about those with similar routines who have not been so exposed?  The odds of them ALL being like him is nonzero, but likewise, the probability of them ALL being like him is not that high.

I‘m not going to say the revelations about his character haven’t changed my perception of his comedy, but it hasn’t diminished it to the point of revulsion or even mere non-enjoyment.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Mallus said:


> Phyllis Miller used to refer to her husband as 'Fang'.



Phyllis _Diller_.


----------



## Myrdin Potter

Fifth Element said:


> ...where only certain people are allowed to vote - such as those who go into military service.



Yes.

Federal service, actually, with military service being the prime one, but did not have to be military service.

Also made it clear in the book that the protections of freedom applied to everyone regardless of if they completed federal service and the service to vote was available to everyone.

At best a modified universal suffrage model. Certainly was a functioning democracy with political parties as such in the book.

The society gave everyone a choice - want to vote? Complete the service requirement. If you are disabled or have objections to military service, we will come up with something to accommodate you.


----------



## Fifth Element

Myrdin Potter said:


> Yes.
> 
> Federal service, actually, with military service being the prime one, but did not have to be military service.



And yet, in the book it was equated with the military by the people who lived under that system, as when Rico's father stated that it didn't make sense for him to join the service since there wasn't a war on.

So the non-military aspect of the service seems to be lip service, really.

I won't get into the rest because that would require me getting into real-world politics.


----------



## Mallus

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Phyllis _Diller_.



Damn autocorrect…


----------



## Myrdin Potter

Fifth Element said:


> And yet, in the book it was equated with the military by the people who lived under that system, as when Rico's father stated that it didn't make sense for him to join the service since there wasn't a war on.
> 
> So the non-military aspect of the service seems to be lip service, really.
> 
> I won't get into the rest because that would require me getting into real-world politics.



I disagree.

His father (who later joined up when there was an actual war going on and his wife had been killed so was at least being consistent) was arguing that voting was not worth it and he was wasting his time joining the military as it interrupted his father’s plans for him to go to college and then join the family business.

That federal service did not have to be military service was not lip service in the book at all. Until their colonists provoked the bugs and causes the war, the military service was usually just a peacetime tour.


----------



## Umbran

Dannyalcatraz said:


> …but what does it say about those with similar routines who have not been so exposed?  The odds of them ALL being like him is nonzero, but likewise, the probability of them ALL being like him is not that high.




But, what are the odds that they are supporting the cultural attitudes that made Cosby's actions viable?


----------



## billd91

Myrdin Potter said:


> That federal service did not have to be military service was not lip service in the book at all. Until their colonists provoked the bugs and causes the war, the military service was usually just a peacetime tour.



A peacetime tour that was, nevertheless, harsh in its training (even sadistic) and where a majority of enlistees seemed to wash out and in a militarized society developed to control juvenile delinquency by turning lazy, immoral civilians into <insert fanfare> veterans. All to gain the franchise, the preeminent right in a democracy - the right to select your representation.
So, yeah, there's a lot of fair criticism aimed right at it - and that includes the militarism that would have thrilled any number of historical fascist movements.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Umbran said:


> But, what are the odds that they are supporting the cultural attitudes that made Cosby's actions viable?



Damn if I know!

There’s a danger in “just jokes/not just jokes” discussions.  A lot of times, you have no clue as to which UNLESS you know something about the jokester in question.


----------



## Myrdin Potter

billd91 said:


> A peacetime tour that was, nevertheless, harsh in its training (even sadistic) and where a majority of enlistees seemed to wash out and in a militarized society developed to control juvenile delinquency by turning lazy, immoral civilians into <insert fanfare> veterans. All to gain the franchise, the preeminent right in a democracy - the right to select your representation.
> So, yeah, there's a lot of fair criticism aimed right at it - and that includes the militarism that would have thrilled any number of historical fascist movements.



The book addresses that as well. The training is made tough because it is meant to dissuade people trying for an easy ride to voting. Plus, they are actually in the military. Johnny also picked the MI which is one of the physically toughest choices. He was a star athlete, he felt up to the challenge.

The fact that a fascist state would like the military service is narrow in insinuating that a democracy would not like it or communists would not. Real world evidence says that real military is wanted by many types of governments.


----------



## Umbran

Dannyalcatraz said:


> There’s a danger in “just jokes/not just jokes” discussions.  A lot of times, you have no clue as to which UNLESS you know something about the jokester in question.




In some cases, yes.  But like, if _comedy in general_ is loaded with misogyny... well, maybe that's not just jokes, and is instead a bit of a pervasive issue.


----------



## AnotherGuy

Umbran said:


> In some cases, yes.  But like, if _comedy in general_ is loaded with misogyny... well, maybe that's not just jokes, and is instead a bit of a pervasive issue.



Jimmy Carr addresses this fairly on in his Netflix special, but I am not going to repeat it here as it is a sensitive topic.
Shock value is part of much comedy. Bill Burr does a whole skit about the "no reason to hit a woman" bit.


----------



## Dire Bare

billd91 said:


> A peacetime tour that was, nevertheless, harsh in its training (even sadistic) and where a majority of enlistees seemed to wash out and in a militarized society developed to control juvenile delinquency by turning lazy, immoral civilians into <insert fanfare> veterans. All to gain the franchise, the preeminent right in a democracy - the right to select your representation.
> So, yeah, there's a lot of fair criticism aimed right at it - and that includes the militarism that would have thrilled any number of historical fascist movements.



It's been a while since I've read Starship Troopers, or anything by Heinlein. But presenting a problematic society in a science-fiction novel isn't the same as promoting the ideals of such a society in the real world.

From what I remember of Troopers, the human society in the book wasn't presented as a utopia or ideal society, just a possible future. It had fascist elements, but wasn't a full on fascist society. Verhoeven didn't pull his movie's satire from thin air, of course. The war with the bugs highlighted some of the problems of this future society.

I remember Starship Troopers as being classic sci-fi, an exploration of ideas and possible futures, both positive and negative. But like I said, it's been decades since I've read it.

_EDIT: It probably wouldn't work out well IRL, but I've always liked the idea of full citizenship being reserved for those willing to serve the community._


----------



## MGibster

Myrdin Potter said:


> Johnny also picked the MI which is one of the physically toughest choices. He was a star athlete, he felt up to the challenge.



In the book, Johnny did his best to avoid Mobile Infantry.  He tried working with canines and they said, “You wouldn’t even sneak your dog into your room as a child to let it sleep in your bed.”


----------



## Mallus

Dire Bare said:


> _EDIT: It probably wouldn't work out well IRL, but I've always liked the idea of full citizenship being reserved for those willing to serve the community._



Wasn't the requirement in the book 'Federal service', not necessarily in the military?


----------



## Dire Bare

Mallus said:


> Wasn't the requirement in the book 'Federal service', not necessarily in the military?



Yes.


----------



## Ancalagon

jasper said:


> DId he get paid? If so good. I know some well know fantasy authors wrote soft porn in late 60s and 70s.



Are you somehow equating writing soft porn/erotica with pro-nazi texts and holocaust denialism? 

I'm not saying that is what meant, but is _sounds_ that way... so what were you trying to convey? 

edit: I am honestly trying to give you a chance to clarify here, I'm not trying "accuse you".


----------



## Ancalagon

MGibster said:


> I immediately thought of Marion Zimmer Bradley who served as a mentor for many young women interested in writing science fiction/fantasy.  When Bradley's children stepped forward with allegations of abuse it must have been devastating for those who admired Bradley, were inspired by her, and especially for those whom she had mentored.  I've never played Tekumel, and even without this revelation it's unlikely I ever would have.  But it's pretty clear that it had an influence on players and game creators back in the 70s and I imagine many of them are feeling hurt, confused, sad, and maybe even a little angry about this.




David Edding's work held a fond place in my heart as I read so many of his books as a teenager.  Then horrible things came out about him


----------



## Sepulchrave II

I guess I'm lucky, insofar as I've never regarded David Eddings, Piers Anthony, Orson Scott Card, Marion Bradley, Woody Allen, Bill Cosby or Robert Heinlein with any particular fondness, so I haven't been disappointed.

I'd be mortified if Gene Wolfe or Mervyn Peake turned out to be a Nazi, an abuser or a pedo, but I think it's pretty unlikely at this stage.

I only know MAR Barker from other people saying or writing about how seminal and influential his work was; I've never read anything Tekumel-related.

I have a signed book by Rolf Harris, where he drew a rolfaroo for me. Unfortunately, he turned out to be a pedo, so that was disappointing.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

A few pages back there were a few posters expressing disbelief that Barker could hold these beliefs while being an educated and intelligent man, with a lot of exposure and interest in foreign cultures.

Please don't fall into the trap and think that believing in terrible things is incompatible with being an educated, intelligent cosmopolitan. Its a comforting delusion, sustained by the belief "if they educate themselves, they'll see the truth."

Sure, you can have the uneducated thug, but you also have people like Houston Stewart Chamberlain, an educated polyglot who was a member of the British Liberal party but nevertheless eventually laid the ideological foundation for Nazi theory.

Intelligent and educated extremists can be more dangerous since they are capable of intellectually justifying the things they believe (even if they didn't come to those beliefs originally in such a way). There were countless smart and educated people who really came to believe in Stalinism and continued to justify it well after the point that its cruelty had become clear.


----------



## Dire Bare

Dire Bare said:


> It's been a while since I've read Starship Troopers, or anything by Heinlein. But presenting a problematic society in a science-fiction novel isn't the same as promoting the ideals of such a society in the real world.
> 
> From what I remember of Troopers, the human society in the book wasn't presented as a utopia or ideal society, just a possible future. It had fascist elements, but wasn't a full on fascist society. Verhoeven didn't pull his movie's satire from thin air, of course. The war with the bugs highlighted some of the problems of this future society.
> 
> I remember Starship Troopers as being classic sci-fi, an exploration of ideas and possible futures, both positive and negative. But like I said, it's been decades since I've read it.
> 
> _EDIT: It probably wouldn't work out well IRL, but I've always liked the idea of full citizenship being reserved for those willing to serve the community._



Heh, just realized that this could be taken as a defense of Barker. Its not intended to be.

While authors can write about problematic sci-fi or fantasy societies without actually endorsing the ideas behind them . . . that's not what Barker did. Barker's "Serpent's Wake" is a neo-Nazi utopian fantasy, and he deserves the disdain he's getting for it.


----------



## Baron Opal II

QuentinGeorge said:


> A few pages back there were a few posters expressing disbelief that Barker could hold these beliefs while being an educated and intelligent man, with a lot of exposure and interest in foreign cultures.
> 
> Please don't fall into the trap and think that believing in terrible things is incompatible with being an educated, intelligent cosmopolitan. Its a comforting delusion, sustained by the belief "if they educate themselves, they'll see the truth."



You know, I know that. I've seen it before. And, yet, it was still a surprise and still very disappointing.


----------



## Umbran

Dire Bare said:


> Yes.




Heinlein's depiction of this is a bit inconsistent.  While he and the books claim that civil service is also an option to gain the franchise, the characters within the book largely speak and act as if military service is the usual way the franchise is earned.


----------



## Dire Bare

Umbran said:


> Heinlein's depiction of this is a bit inconsistent.  While he and the books claim that civil service is also an option to gain the franchise, the characters within the book largely speak and act as if military service is the usual way the franchise is earned.



Now I want to go read it again! It's been so long . . .

I'm not really arguing with you, I'm assuming you've read it more recently or have better recall of the story. But, the main characters all chose the military option, its a military sci-fi story, so the military aspect of civil service is going to be emphasized.


----------



## MGibster

Umbran said:


> Heinlein's depiction of this is a bit inconsistent. While he and the books claim that civil service is also an option to gain the franchise, the characters within the book largely speak and act as if military service is the usual way the franchise is earned.



Well the book does follow the people who join the military so that's probably part of it.  And while they do emphasize they'll do what they can to find everyone _something _they can do for their service, including counting the hairs on caterpillars, I agree that it appeared as though military service was the most common way to earn enfranchisement.  While I in no way endorse such a form of enfranchisement, I can see the logic behind only allowing people willing to have served the state the opportunity to run it.


----------



## pemerton

MGibster said:


> I can see the logic behind only allowing people willing to have served the state the opportunity to run it.



The "logic" of it rests on some pretty strong premises that (presumably) MAR Barker was sympathetic to, but that I would have thought many people reject.


----------



## MGibster

pemerton said:


> The "logic" of it rests on some pretty strong premises that (presumably) MAR Barker was sympathetic to, but that I would have thought many people reject.




In my freshman year at university, my anthropology 101 professor said, "When I say something [the rules of a society] makes sense, that doesn't mean I agree with it or even like it.  It means that when you take into account what they believe and what they're trying to accomplish, even rules that seem outlandish to us will make more sense."  We were talking about the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path of Buddhism but it pretty much applies to any belief system.   

And while I don't see many people clamoring for a system of enfranchisement that resembles anything from either the book or movie adaptation of _Starship Troopers.  _I don't think you need to worry about people embracing such a system any time soon.


----------



## jasper

Ancalagon said:


> Are you somehow equating writing soft porn/erotica with pro-nazi texts and holocaust denialism?
> 
> I'm not saying that is what meant, but is _sounds_ that way... so what were you trying to convey?
> 
> edit: I am honestly trying to give you a chance to clarify here, I'm not trying "accuse you".



Writers write for money.  So yes soft porn = pro nazi = star wars porn = whatever. 
*I amused y'all are griping about a DEAD man. *


----------



## billd91

jasper said:


> Writers write for money.  So yes soft porn = pro nazi = star wars porn = whatever.
> *I amused y'all are griping about a DEAD man. *



To the point where you're griping about other people griping about a dead man?


----------



## jasper

billd91 said:


> To the point where you're griping about other people griping about a dead man?



Yes. Yes. Indeed. Have to do something while waiting on doing the medical taxi cab this week.


----------



## Willie the Duck

jasper said:


> Writers write for money.  So yes soft porn = pro nazi = star wars porn = whatever.
> *I amused y'all are griping about a DEAD man. *



I am utterly amazed at the posts that seem to find the fact that Barker is dead even remotely relevant. Back when I was reading EPT in the 80s, the fact that Barker was _alive_ made very little difference to me either. As I posited to the last person who did this, should we also be withholding praise for dead authors, or does this only apply to gripes? Or heck, can you just provide a simple argument for why the author being dead has any bearing on the discussion, its' appropriateness, or why that makes you so amused? As it stands, it just seems like a non sequitur.


----------



## jasper

Willie the Duck said:


> I am utterly amazed at the posts that seem to find the fact that Barker is dead even remotely relevant. Back when I was reading EPT in the 80s, the fact that Barker was _alive_ made very little difference to me either. As I posited to the last person who did this, should we also be withholding praise for dead authors, or does this only apply to gripes? Or heck, can you just provide a simple argument for why the author being dead has any bearing on the discussion, its' appropriateness, or why that makes you so amused? As it stands, it just seems like a non sequitur.



He is dead. Why did the OP post about a dead person who works are no longer being used or well liked? The OP posted to get responses, I will post an amusing response.  Anything else I could have post would not be nice.


----------



## darjr

I’m certain that if they had a critique of a dead authors work they’d not let that stop them.


----------



## darjr

The link to this was posted privately in Facebook. It’s an attempt at a defense of M.A.R. Barker.
However it actually makes it worse for me. He knew how bad this book was so much so he kept it secret to not upset people. And it was written in the 80s as he took a while shopping it around.









						Was Professor M A R Barker a Nazi?
					

No, of course he wasn't a Nazi. But if you were unlucky enough to get caught in the stampede of denunciation this week you might have got th...




					fabledlands.blogspot.com


----------



## AnotherGuy

darjr said:


> The link to this was posted privately in Facebook. It’s an attempt at a defense of M.A.R. Barker.
> However it actually makes it worse for me. He knew how bad this book was so much so he kept it secret to not upset people. And it was written in the 80s as he took a while shopping it around.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Was Professor M A R Barker a Nazi?
> 
> 
> No, of course he wasn't a Nazi. But if you were unlucky enough to get caught in the stampede of denunciation this week you might have got th...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> fabledlands.blogspot.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Was he a Nazi? I do suspect it and frankly that’s really bad.



Well according to the letter he described some Jewish friends of his as _nice people._
The summary of the book, at least as described in this linked post, sounds terribly uninteresting and frankly rubbish from my perspective. Then again I'm not familiar with his work.


----------



## billd91

darjr said:


> The link to this was posted privately in Facebook. It’s an attempt at a defense of M.A.R. Barker.



The idea that he "infiltrated" the editorial board of a marginal, anti-Semitic, pseudoscientific journal strikes me as farcical.


----------



## Ancalagon

jasper said:


> Writers write for money.  So yes soft porn = pro nazi = star wars porn = whatever.
> *I amused y'all are griping about a DEAD man. *



ooooh boy.

First, writers write for money yes... or do they?  A lot of people write for free. (edit: Barker was a tenure professor, did he really need the money?)

Second, writers _choose_ what they write (usually).  Baker _chose_ to write and edit antisemitic material.

Lastly, I would contend that no equivalence can be drawn between soft porn erotica and antisemitic/neo-nazi material. 

I am glad I asked you to clarify, I didn't want to rush to judgement.  I think I have enough data now however...


----------



## Dire Bare

darjr said:


> The link to this was posted privately in Facebook. It’s an attempt at a defense of M.A.R. Barker.
> However it actually makes it worse for me. He knew how bad this book was so much so he kept it secret to not upset people. And it was written in the 80s as he took a while shopping it around.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Was Professor M A R Barker a Nazi?
> 
> 
> No, of course he wasn't a Nazi. But if you were unlucky enough to get caught in the stampede of denunciation this week you might have got th...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> fabledlands.blogspot.com



The author of that blog is definitely reaching . . . he complains about how Barker is being treated currently, and then spins a yarn to try and find a narrative that fits into the "Barker is OK" position.

But he does bring up good points. One of the reasons why the news of "Serpent's Walk" is so troubling and surprising to many Barker fans is it seems incongruous with other aspects of Barker's life. There is more unknown about Barker's engagement with Nazism than there is known.

Barker is gone, we can't ask him WHY he wrote "Serpent's Walk". Was it to explore his own Nazi sympathies? Or just a story that sprung from the recesses of his mind? A literary hoax? A sci-fi novel that explores Nazi characters and themes without the author endorsing those ideas?

But still . . . the disappointment, anger, and sadness aimed at Barker is legitimate and fair. As @darjr said, Barker was well aware of the problematic nature of his novel, and decided to not only publish it anyway, but to go through the whole "literary hoax" idea of creating an alternate persona, engaging with an anti-Semitic journal . . . ugh. Barker went through a lot of work to publish a very problematic novel, all fully aware of what he was doing. And yet, to choose a pseudonym so close to his own name . . . I don't think Barker would be surprised at the reactions he's getting today.

Barker was either a Nazi sympathizer, or as put forth way earlier in this thread, Barker was "that guy". An intellectual so detached from society that he thought writing and publishing this novel was a fine idea for a "literary hoax". I have little sympathy for the man or his legacy.


----------



## BookTenTiger

Dire Bare said:


> The author of that blog is definitely reaching . . . he complains about how Barker is being treated currently, and then spins a yarn to try and find a narrative that fits into the "Barker is OK" position.
> 
> But he does bring up good points. One of the reasons why the news of "Serpent's Walk" is so troubling and surprising to many Barker fans is it seems incongruous with other aspects of Barker's life. There is more unknown about Barker's engagement with Nazism than there is known.
> 
> Barker is gone, we can't ask him WHY he wrote "Serpent's Walk". Was it to explore his own Nazi sympathies? Or just a story that sprung from the recesses of his mind? A literary hoax? A sci-fi novel that explores Nazi characters and themes without the author endorsing those ideas?
> 
> But still . . . the disappointment, anger, and sadness aimed at Barker is legitimate and fair. As @darjr said, Barker was well aware of the problematic nature of his novel, and decided to not only publish it anyway, but to go through the whole "literary hoax" idea of creating an alternate persona, engaging with an anti-Semitic journal . . . ugh. Barker went through a lot of work to publish a very problematic novel, all fully aware of what he was doing. And yet, to choose a pseudonym so close to his own name . . . I don't think Barker would be surprised at the reactions he's getting today.
> 
> Barker was either a Nazi sympathizer, or as put forth way earlier in this thread, Barker was "that guy". An intellectual so detached from society that he thought writing and publishing this novel was a fine idea for a "literary hoax". I have little sympathy for the man or his legacy.



It reminds me of how LGBTQIA+ fans of Harry Potter found a lot of themes to relate to throughout the books, and even made fan groups based on those interpretations... Only for Rowling to then clarify her own views. Sometimes an author's work and their own perspectives seem miles apart! It's always quite shocking and disappointing.


----------



## dragoner

darjr said:


> The link to this was posted privately in Facebook. It’s an attempt at a defense of M.A.R. Barker.
> However it actually makes it worse for me. He knew how bad this book was so much so he kept it secret to not upset people. And it was written in the 80s as he took a while shopping it around.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Was Professor M A R Barker a Nazi?
> 
> 
> No, of course he wasn't a Nazi. But if you were unlucky enough to get caught in the stampede of denunciation this week you might have got th...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> fabledlands.blogspot.com



I'm part Jewish, and probably Romani so that even if I had fun with EPT in the 80's it is fully spoiled and I won't touch it again, and having nothing good to say, so I really have nothing to say at all... However, what has become self evident is how many people knew, since at least the 80's and said nothing. I mean crafting a "response" for ten years? Then only saying anything after the news has broken, makes me unsettled to say the least.


----------



## RealAlHazred

Look, we can ask some still-living authors why they wrote problematic things (Glenn Rahman comes to mind, in a somewhat superficially similar situation), and they can provide whatever defense they wish (if they wish), but at the end of the day, everybody has to make their own decision what they will support with their purchases. In the Information Age, pleading ignorance of what your purchases support is becoming rapidly no longer a valid defense. Authorship should be enough to taint a work, yes, but maybe not a whole brand. Buying anything Harry Potter related supports JKR and keeps her creation in the public eye. Is that a bad thing? Yes and no. It's personally painful to provide even incidental support for an abhorrent viewpoint, but I also know LGBTQ+ people who found themes they related to in HP. I don't want to cheapen what they got out of it. Where is the line?


----------



## Fifth Element

Liane the Wayfarer said:


> I don't want to cheapen what they got out of it. Where is the line?



As you already noted, it's an individual decision. Hopefully one that's informed by considering other peoples' opinions on the matter to see if they make convincing points, which is the purpose of having discussions about it.


----------



## Jer

Liane the Wayfarer said:


> Where is the line?



There isn't a single line.  Everyone will have their own line in all of this kind of stuff.

What matters is that the information gets out there so that people can make their own judgments about where it falls on their own line.  For me Barker's work was mostly historical curiosity anyway so not supporting it means very little both in the bigger picture and in my personal "what lines am I willing to cross" small picture.  (Though the stewards of his work have already done a lot of damage in that respect anyway - even if I wanted to buy his books I'm not sure I actually could - AFAIK only a few of his books are readily available these days outside of very expensive used copies).


----------



## Fifth Element

jasper said:


> The OP posted to get responses, I will post an amusing response.



When will you do that?


----------



## Dire Bare

BookTenTiger said:


> It reminds me of how LGBTQIA+ fans of Harry Potter found a lot of themes to relate to throughout the books, and even made fan groups based on those interpretations... Only for Rowling to then clarify her own views. Sometimes an author's work and their own perspectives seem miles apart! It's always quite shocking and disappointing.



True. But with Barker, its not just his known work on Tekumel that seems incongruous with "Serpent's Wake", but details of his life. He was a convert to Islam, married a non-white woman, had many friends and colleagues who are shocked he wrote "Serpent's Walk".

People are complicated and weird, that's for sure.


----------



## Parmandur

Dire Bare said:


> True. But with Barker, its not just his known work on Tekumel that seems incongruous with "Serpent's Wake", but details of his life. He was a convert to Islam, married a non-white woman, had many friends and colleagues who are shocked he wrote "Serpent's Walk".
> 
> People are complicated and weird, that's for sure.



His wife is Pakistani, from an area historically settled by...the Aryans (the real ones, not the Nazi propaganda ones, but still "white" by white supremacist lights), and not to get into real world religion or politics too deeply...but there was a strong strain if attraction to a certain romanticized idea of Islam in European Fascist circles. Enough that being a Nazi sympathizer might be why someone might study South Asian culture and religions...

So I don't find sny of that incongruous, if you examine the kooky principles he apparently held.


----------



## Dire Bare

dragoner said:


> I'm part Jewish, and probably Romani so that even if I had fun with EPT in the 80's it is fully spoiled and I won't touch it again, and having nothing good to say, so I really have nothing to say at all... However, what has become self evident is how many people knew, since at least the 80's and said nothing. I mean crafting a "response" for ten years? Then only saying anything after the news has broken, makes me unsettled to say the least.



It is disappointing that the author of that blog @darjr posted, Dave Morris, sat on his knowledge of "Serpent's Wake" for a decade. I don't know who Dave Morris is . . . a fan? A writer? Someone in the tabletop gaming industry? 

But I do know that if someone I knew personally revealed to me that they wrote a neo-Nazi fantasy novel they were having trouble shopping around . . . . I'm not sure what I'd do with that information. I would certainly express my disgust to them. But would I "out" them? And exactly how would I go about it? Especially if I wasn't convinced that the existence of this novel made this person a Nazi sympathizer.

This does speak to a larger problem in certain spaces . . . a neutral acceptance of Nazism and other horrors of history. I get the impression that the blog author, Morris, isn't sympathetic to Nazi views himself, but does view that exploring these issues is a legitimate literary exercise. And that he extends this to Barker's motivations. It reminds me of some of the things Gygax is quoted saying, showing that Gygax admired certain historical figures that were responsible for some pretty awful stuff, not that Gygax approved of the awfulness itself, but could admire the effectiveness from a "neutral", historical point of view. It seems that more than a few folks who came out of the "old school" wargaming scene that predated D&D share this amoral viewpoint on history and historical figures. A weird perspective I can't get behind, personally, and one of the reasons why I'm not a huge Gygax fan.


----------



## Parmandur

Dire Bare said:


> It is disappointing that the author of that blog @darjr posted, Dave Morris, sat on his knowledge of "Serpent's Wake" for a decade. I don't know who Dave Morris is . . . a fan? A writer? Someone in the tabletop gaming industry?
> 
> But I do know that if someone I knew personally revealed to me that they wrote a neo-Nazi fantasy novel they were having trouble shopping around . . . . I'm not sure what I'd do with that information. I would certainly express my disgust to them. But would I "out" them? And exactly how would I go about it? Especially if I wasn't convinced that the existence of this novel made this person a Nazi sympathizer.
> 
> This does speak to a larger problem in certain spaces . . . a neutral acceptance of Nazism and other horrors of history. I get the impression that the blog author, Morris, isn't sympathetic to Nazi views himself, but does view that exploring these issues is a legitimate literary exercise. And that he extends this to Barker's motivations. It reminds me of some of the things Gygax is quoted saying, showing that Gygax admired certain historical figures that were responsible for some pretty awful stuff, not that Gygax approved of the awfulness itself, but could admire the effectiveness from a "neutral", historical point of view. It seems that more than a few folks who came out of the "old school" wargaming scene that predated D&D share this amoral viewpoint on history and historical figures. A weird perspective I can't get behind, personally, and one of the reasons why I'm not a huge Gygax fan.



Yeah, the old school wargamers had q pretty cynical outlook on history.


----------



## John Dallman

Dire Bare said:


> I don't know who Dave Morris is . . . a fan? A writer? Someone in the tabletop gaming industry?



First known for adventure gamebooks, published a TTRPG, a lot of fiction, and some computer game material.


----------



## billd91

Parmandur said:


> Yeah, the old school wargamers had q pretty cynical outlook on history.



I don't know that I'd call it cynical. It's compartmentalized. Most WWII-era war games are concerned with the battlefield and, sometimes, logistics (at least with respect to supporting things on the battlefield). Some, like Advanced Third Reich, also delve into high level views of wartime diplomacy. But they usually don't deal with other aspects of the war - massacres of civilians in Eastern Europe, intentional mass starvation of Soviet POWs, and the Holocaust. Non-WWII games also tend to skip over the epidemics, famines, and other mass depopulations that wars typically inflict.
Most of those wouldn't be good topics for games (though there is a scenario for Advanced Squad Leader that involves an uprising in a Warsaw ghetto) and so get glossed over in the tabletop wargames. That may give the impression of cynicism, but I really don't think that's the right description.


----------



## Jer

John Dallman said:


> First known for adventure gamebooks, published a TTRPG, a lot of fiction, and some computer game material.



Wait  - it's THAT Dave Morris?  Fabled Lands/Blood Sword/Dragon Warriors Dave Morris?

Well ... ouch.


----------



## darjr

Jer said:


> Wait  - it's THAT Dave Morris?  Fabled Lands/Blood Sword/Dragon Warriors Dave Morris?
> 
> Well ... ouch.



The very same.


----------



## Umbran

jasper said:


> He is dead. Why did the OP post about a dead person who works are no longer being used or well liked? The OP posted to get responses, I will post an amusing response.  Anything else I could have post would not be nice.




So, your contribution to the discussion is that the discussion shouldn't happen?  

Maybe you should find a thread in which you can say something constructive or useful to others, hm?


----------



## darjr

From Grognardia.



	
		I wish it were otherwise. I wish it were easier to disentangle my love for Tékumel from my revulsion at Barker's repugnant other interests. Consequently, I am in no position to judge anyone else's response to these revelations; each of us will have to grapple with it in our own way and on our own schedule. I know of long-time Tékumel fans who have simply decided to walk away from the setting entirely, just as I know others who do not feel that would be the right response, given how much genuine pleasure and joy the setting has brought them, despite the secret villainy of its creator. This latter group takes inspiration from Ted Johnstone, an early contributor to _Alarums & Excursions_, who famously wrote that "_D&D _is too important to leave to Gary Gygax."
		
	






						Shock and Betrayal
					

By now, I assume most anyone reading this will have heard the revelations about M.A.R. Barker. If you have not, I reproduce here a statement...




					grognardia.blogspot.com


----------



## darjr

Wait? Midkemia was loosely based on Tekumel?

and that author excised things out

edit to add I’m not placing anything on midkemia, I just didn’t know


----------



## darjr

The more I think about what Dave Morris posted the angrier I get.


----------



## Parmandur

darjr said:


> Wait? Midkemia was loosely based on Tekumel?



Strictly speaking, no, Kelewan was: the Riftwar was the result of a homemade crossover between standard OD&D (Midkemia) and Tekumel (Kelewan) through portals.

Kelewan is probably how most people have primarily experienced Tekumel.


----------



## dragoner

Dire Bare said:


> It is disappointing that the author of that blog @darjr posted, Dave Morris, sat on his knowledge of "Serpent's Wake" for a decade. I don't know who Dave Morris is . . . a fan? A writer? Someone in the tabletop gaming industry?
> 
> But I do know that if someone I knew personally revealed to me that they wrote a neo-Nazi fantasy novel they were having trouble shopping around . . . . I'm not sure what I'd do with that information. I would certainly express my disgust to them. But would I "out" them? And exactly how would I go about it? Especially if I wasn't convinced that the existence of this novel made this person a Nazi sympathizer.
> 
> This does speak to a larger problem in certain spaces . . . a neutral acceptance of Nazism and other horrors of history. I get the impression that the blog author, Morris, isn't sympathetic to Nazi views himself, but does view that exploring these issues is a legitimate literary exercise. And that he extends this to Barker's motivations. It reminds me of some of the things Gygax is quoted saying, showing that Gygax admired certain historical figures that were responsible for some pretty awful stuff, not that Gygax approved of the awfulness itself, but could admire the effectiveness from a "neutral", historical point of view. It seems that more than a few folks who came out of the "old school" wargaming scene that predated D&D share this amoral viewpoint on history and historical figures. A weird perspective I can't get behind, personally, and one of the reasons why I'm not a huge Gygax fan.



To be honest, I am the kind of person who punches nazis, such as at thunder bay, a berkeley ca dance club on industrial dance night, someone who I vaguely knew, confessed to me they were a nazi and I laid them out, caused a mini riot between mine and another crew. Granted this was the early 90's, and about Barker or Gygax, I have nothing good to say, except they were a product of their times, but death has evened the score, so I don't care anymore. It's the other people, people around now that knew.

I am a game designer too, and sure, I guess my left politics are on display in my setting, and whether or not someone thinks it is "woke space" or not, I don't care; mostly I have got good reviews. I am not a white night, by any means; and from what I have seen in Tekumel, and Greyhawk, I think Gygax wasn't quite as off the hook as Barker; except neither setting do I consider myself an expert on. 

With war games, there has always been that certain set, now they get called "wehraboos" though Marc Miller of Traveller fame wrote an article about the boy who loved panzers, and personally I sort of understand it, as there was a lot of propaganda around the military, and some don't parse it well. 

All things said and done, covering up for, or being apologist for a nazi, is pretty bad.


----------



## Jer

dragoner said:


> With war games, there has always been that certain set, now they get called "wehraboos"



Not being in wargaming circles I've never heard this term and now I'll be thinking about it for the rest of the day.

Wehraboos...


----------



## Dire Bare

billd91 said:


> I don't know that I'd call it cynical. It's compartmentalized. Most WWII-era war games are concerned with the battlefield and, sometimes, logistics (at least with respect to supporting things on the battlefield). Some, like Advanced Third Reich, also delve into high level views of wartime diplomacy. But they usually don't deal with other aspects of the war - massacres of civilians in Eastern Europe, intentional mass starvation of Soviet POWs, and the Holocaust. Non-WWII games also tend to skip over the epidemics, famines, and other mass depopulations that wars typically inflict.
> Most of those wouldn't be good topics for games (though there is a scenario for Advanced Squad Leader that involves an uprising in a Warsaw ghetto) and so get glossed over in the tabletop wargames. That may give the impression of cynicism, but I really don't think that's the right description.



Compartmentalization. Yup, that's what I was searching for. The tendency for some old school wargamers to compartmentalize history. I think that might partly explain Barker's Nazi novel . . . but still, I think it goes beyond that.


----------



## Staffan

darjr said:


> Wait? Midkemia was loosely based on Tekumel?



With some degrees of separation. Midkemia itself was based on some kind of extremely house-ruled D&D, which among other things involved planar travel to an Asian-inspired setting called Kelewan. Kelewan had its roots in Tekumel, but I don't know to what degree. I know Feist has talked about how much of the flavor of the book version of Kelewan comes from his collaboration with Janny Wurts on the Daughter of the Empire series.


----------



## Bilharzia

Jer said:


> Wait  - it's THAT Dave Morris?  Fabled Lands/Blood Sword/Dragon Warriors Dave Morris?
> 
> Well ... ouch.



Yes, but since these days Dave is flogging crypto currencies, perhaps the thinking was that he may as well defend Barker to attract as much ill-feeling as humanly possible.


----------



## jasper

Fifth Element said:


> When will you do that?



Ouch. MEDIC MEDIC.


----------



## AnotherGuy

jasper said:


> Ouch. MEDIC MEDIC.



Please state the nature of the medical emergency


----------



## pemerton

Dire Bare said:


> This does speak to a larger problem in certain spaces . . . a neutral acceptance of Nazism and other horrors of history. I get the impression that the blog author, Morris, isn't sympathetic to Nazi views himself, but does view that exploring these issues is a legitimate literary exercise. And that he extends this to Barker's motivations. It reminds me of some of the things Gygax is quoted saying, showing that Gygax admired certain historical figures that were responsible for some pretty awful stuff, not that Gygax approved of the awfulness itself, but could admire the effectiveness from a "neutral", historical point of view. It seems that more than a few folks who came out of the "old school" wargaming scene that predated D&D share this amoral viewpoint on history and historical figures. A weird perspective I can't get behind, personally, and one of the reasons why I'm not a huge Gygax fan.



The separation of political/moral from aesthetic value is at the core of fantasy as a genre.

JRRT's world is arch-reactionary, racist, and celebrates authoritarian government. The legend of King Arthur is much the same. REH's Conan is a celebration of a murderer and freebooter. In Star Wars we cheer when thousands of enemy crew die in massive explosions with no quarter seeming to be offered.

These are all fundamental elements of the fantasy genre: "LG" paladins who serve righteous kings; "heroes" whose principle mode of resolving conflicts is to deploy interpersonal violence; peoples divided along reified ethnics and racial lines (elves, dwarves, orcs, etc).

And even RPGs and settings that, in principle, might be able to express different outlooks - eg Traveller - tend not to. The default setting for Traveller is an Imperium; and the default conflict resolution framework in Traveller is one-on-one or small unit combat.


----------



## Parmandur

Dire Bare said:


> Compartmentalization. Yup, that's what I was searching for. The tendency for some old school wargamers to compartmentalize history. I think that might partly explain Barker's Nazi novel . . . but still, I think it goes beyond that.



I read elsewhere a breakdown of how Tekumel can actually be read as crypto-Nazi, with the Humans being white colonizers pushing out "primitive" races that cannot ever be assimilated into the superior human culture...I don't know the setting very well, but given what we are learning it passes the smell test.


----------



## Dire Bare

Parmandur said:


> I read elsewhere a breakdown of how Tekumel can actually be read as crypto-Nazi, with the Humans being white colonizers pushing out "primitive" races that cannot ever be assimilated into the superior human culture...I don't know the setting very well, but given what we are learning it passes the smell test.



Eh. Most folks I've talked to familiar with Tekumel say the opposite. The fact we're only talking about Tekumel as a possible secret Nazi campaign setting now, tells me it isn't really so. Barker wrote a campaign setting populated mostly by brown people, and heavily influenced by Southeast Asian cultures AND he wrote a Nazi utopian fantasy novel. It's a weird juxtaposition, but one that I can believe in without looking for secret Nazi coding in Tekumel.


----------



## Dire Bare

pemerton said:


> The separation of political/moral from aesthetic value is at the core of fantasy as a genre.
> 
> JRRT's world is arch-reactionary, racist, and celebrates authoritarian government. The legend of King Arthur is much the same. REH's Conan is a celebration of a murderer and freebooter. In Star Wars we cheer when thousands of enemy crew die in massive explosions with no quarter seeming to be offered.
> 
> These are all fundamental elements of the fantasy genre: "LG" paladins who serve righteous kings; "heroes" whose principle mode of resolving conflicts is to deploy interpersonal violence; peoples divided along reified ethnics and racial lines (elves, dwarves, orcs, etc).
> 
> And even RPGs and settings that, in principle, might be able to express different outlooks - eg Traveller - tend not to. The default setting for Traveller is an Imperium; and the default conflict resolution framework in Traveller is one-on-one or small unit combat.



Meh.

There are certainly problematic elements of our favorite fantasy and sci-fi stories if you dig too deep (sometimes, just below the surface). And we certainly do compartmentalize to a degree when cheering the destruction of the Death Star or the return of the king to Gondor.

But the compartmentalization we're talking about here is on another level. Gygax proudly quoting Chivington's horrid "nits make lice" reasoning for slaughtering innocents as good tactics comes to mind. Barker's ability to write a fairly progressive seeming fantasy setting and also write Nazi fan-fic is perhaps another.

To me, a difference between these two ways of looking at history is that "mainstream" fantasy/sci-fi doesn't ignore the morality of autocratic rulership, but rather romanticizes it. Aragorn is esteemed because he's a righteous king and is returning Gondor to the light after a long period of decline. All those imperial deaths off-screen are easily forgotten, both because they are off-screen but also because they are the bad guys.

The old school wargamer compartmentalization we're talking about here is different. It celebrates horrific real world people, ideologies, and actions by separating, _compartmentalizing_, the morality and horror from the military effectiveness. From a coldly analytical point-of-view, Chivington has a point. He was also a horribly racist individual and a purveyor of genocidal atrocities against Native American peoples.

Of course, this isn't meant to stereotype old school wargamers. I'm sure plenty of them, perhaps even most of them, didn't engage in this sort of troubling compartmentalization. And I'm also sure others, non-gamers, have taken a similarly compartmentalized view of history. But Gygax was definitely of the sort, as were several of his companions from the early Lake Geneva days. Perhaps Barker was similarly afflicted, I don't know.


----------



## Mallus

pemerton said:


> The separation of political/moral from aesthetic value is at the core of fantasy as a genre.



It’s at the core of many genres. My favorite example is the cozy mystery. These frequently involve trivializing the murder of a human being (usually for money).


----------



## MGibster

Parmandur said:


> I read elsewhere a breakdown of how Tekumel can actually be read as crypto-Nazi, with the Humans being white colonizers pushing out "primitive" races that cannot ever be assimilated into the superior human culture...I don't know the setting very well, but given what we are learning it passes the smell test.




Let's be honest, you can interpret just about any work through whatever lens you want.  Sometimes the lens we choose can offer us some additional insight.  Other times it's just a big pile of baloney.  Would you like to read my latest interpretation of _Moby  Dick _entitled "The Whale is Red:  A Neo Marxist Interpretation of _Moby Dick?_"


----------



## Parmandur

MGibster said:


> Let's be honest, you can interpret just about any work through whatever lens you want.  Sometimes the lens we choose can offer us some additional insight.  Other times it's just a big pile of baloney.  Would you like to read my latest interpretation of _Moby  Dick _entitled "The Whale is Red:  A Neo Marxist Interpretation of _Moby Dick?_"



It' a bit different if we discovered an extended Marxist treatise from Melville (chronologically impressive, but that's the analogy present).


----------



## Parmandur

Dire Bare said:


> Eh. Most folks I've talked to familiar with Tekumel say the opposite. The fact we're only talking about Tekumel as a possible secret Nazi campaign setting now, tells me it isn't really so. Barker wrote a campaign setting populated mostly by brown people, and heavily influenced by Southeast Asian cultures AND he wrote a Nazi utopian fantasy novel. It's a weird juxtaposition, but one that I can believe in without looking for secret Nazi coding in Tekumel.



based on what I know of Tekumel and it's imperialistic racial hierarchy, not that weird at all. Literally, I don't see any contradiction in Barker being a Nazi and fetishizing a romantic take on Islam or India (both were common among the Nazis), or writing a setting with racially superior humans suppressing racially inferior space aliens. It's all of one piece, a seamless garment of Fascism.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

AnotherGuy said:


> Well according to the letter he described some Jewish friends of his as _nice people._



Mod Note:

Utterly meaningless.  I was on my HS football team.  Our starting RB yelled, “Stop that n****r!” in reference to a player who was destroying our defense.  Standing right behind him, I yelled the same thing.  He immediately realized it was me, turned around, and said, “He’s not like you.  You’re different.”  And walked off.

Bigots have an amazing capacity to compartmentalize their targets into “good ones” and “bad ones”, and to present masks of normality to those who wouldn’t approve of their hate.  It’s why you can find Klansmen with black friends (who don’t know their “friend” is in a white supremacist organization).

So, let’s not present things like this as redemptive or mitigating evidence.


----------



## Hussar

billd91 said:


> I don't know that I'd call it cynical. It's compartmentalized. Most WWII-era war games are concerned with the battlefield and, sometimes, logistics (at least with respect to supporting things on the battlefield). Some, like Advanced Third Reich, also delve into high level views of wartime diplomacy. But they usually don't deal with other aspects of the war - massacres of civilians in Eastern Europe, intentional mass starvation of Soviet POWs, and the Holocaust. Non-WWII games also tend to skip over the epidemics, famines, and other mass depopulations that wars typically inflict.
> Most of those wouldn't be good topics for games (though there is a scenario for Advanced Squad Leader that involves an uprising in a Warsaw ghetto) and so get glossed over in the tabletop wargames. That may give the impression of cynicism, but I really don't think that's the right description.



Yeah, "compartmentalization" is probably the right word.

You see it in gaming discussions all the time.  People absolutely lose their poop over the Wall of the Faithless - the game telling players to make characters with religious leanings - but have zero problem with the whole feudal life thing that D&D is set in.  Let's be honest here, millions of people died to end feudalism.  Feudalism is about as evil as it gets.  There are very good reasons for ending feudalism and absolute monarchies.  

Yet, most players of D&D will have absolutely no problems with feudalism in the game.  Never minding colonialism which is only recently becoming an issue.  People think slavery is a problem in the game?  How about political systems where you have no rights, no freedoms, frequently different systems of law and the overwhelming majority of the populace isn't even considered people?

So, yeah, we'll play a game about the Eastern Front that in no way references the unbelievable horror of the time and call it a fun afternoon.  Hell, we'll play a game about millions dying in a global pandemic (bit on the nose right now) and call it a fun afternoon.

Never underestimate people's abilities to ignore things that might make them uncomfortable.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

Staffan said:


> With some degrees of separation. Midkemia itself was based on some kind of extremely house-ruled D&D, which among other things involved planar travel to an Asian-inspired setting called Kelewan. Kelewan had its roots in Tekumel, but I don't know to what degree. I know Feist has talked about how much of the flavor of the book version of Kelewan comes from his collaboration with Janny Wurts on the Daughter of the Empire series.



In the original gaming sessions Midkemia was invaded by the actual Tsolyani of the Tekumel setting. Feist changed it to Tsurani for publication for copyright reasons but you can read Magician and notice little changed except the names. Later novels made it more of a distinct thing.


----------



## darjr

I think I’ll need to read those again.


----------



## MGibster

Hussar said:


> You see it in gaming discussions all the time. People absolutely lose their poop over the Wall of the Faithless - the game telling players to make characters with religious leanings - but have zero problem with the whole feudal life thing that D&D is set in. Let's be honest here, millions of people died to end feudalism. Feudalism is about as evil as it gets. There are very good reasons for ending feudalism and absolute monarchies.



I didn't specialize in medieval history in school, but a lot of history books I've read on the subject start out with just what a problematic term feudalism really is.  A lot of scholars don't even agree with what defines feudalism with some historians seeing it as a mainly military and legal relationship limited to the nobles, others arguing that even serfs were part of the system, and a growing number of historians arguing that feudalism is a fictitious concept that has little to do with the reality of life in the medieval world.  Feudalism, however we choose to define it today, was present in numerous societies spread out over a long period of time and and how it was practiced varied wildly based on the kingdom and the year.  Tsarist Russia in the late 16th century wasn't the same as England in 1086 which wasn't the same as Bavaria in 1300.  

And while I certainly wouldn't care to live under a feudalistic system (however we define it), I'm hard pressed to categorize it among the ranks of as evil as it gets.  Depending on the time period and the kingdom, even being a serf wasn't necessarily a miserable existence.


----------



## pemerton

MGibster said:


> And while I certainly wouldn't care to live under a feudalistic system (however we define it), I'm hard pressed to categorize it among the ranks of as evil as it gets.  Depending on the time period and the kingdom, even being a serf wasn't necessarily a miserable existence.



@Hussar wasn't just pointing to the burden on welfare ("miserable existence"). He was pointing to a host of features of the social system, including a lack of equality before the law, a lack of free choice of occupation, an absence of speech rights, political decision-making linked confined by reference to inherited class/caste/status, little or no access (via markets) to significant parts of the economy, etc.

It's true that the details of those features, and their intensity, has been different in different times and places. But it's also true that a lot of human effort has gone into overturning them. Even where people are unhappy with the liberal social forms that have replaced "feudal" ones, few of them advocate for a reversion to those past forms.


----------



## Parmandur

MGibster said:


> I didn't specialize in medieval history in school, but a lot of history books I've read on the subject start out with just what a problematic term feudalism really is.  A lot of scholars don't even agree with what defines feudalism with some historians seeing it as a mainly military and legal relationship limited to the nobles, others arguing that even serfs were part of the system, and a growing number of historians arguing that feudalism is a fictitious concept that has little to do with the reality of life in the medieval world.  Feudalism, however we choose to define it today, was present in numerous societies spread out over a long period of time and and how it was practiced varied wildly based on the kingdom and the year.  Tsarist Russia in the late 16th century wasn't the same as England in 1086 which wasn't the same as Bavaria in 1300.
> 
> And while I certainly wouldn't care to live under a feudalistic system (however we define it), I'm hard pressed to categorize it among the ranks of as evil as it gets.  Depending on the time period and the kingdom, even being a serf wasn't necessarily a miserable existence.



As someone who did specialize in Medieval Studies, the characterization is inaccurate, and you are right.


----------



## pemerton

Hussar said:


> Yeah, "compartmentalization" is probably the right word.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Never underestimate people's abilities to ignore things that might make them uncomfortable.



In the context of scholarship, including historical inquiry, there is also the element of trying to discover and reveal what took place, and what led to what. You don't have to be amoral to undertake such inquiry. But making moral judgements isn't at the core of it.

Of course history is disputed, and moral views can influence interpretations. Still, the goal should be to aim at truth, even if that is hard. This can require a certain sort of dispassion.

EDIT: Examples I'm thinking of are eg Caroline Ekins, _Britain's Gulag_; and Aly and Heim, _Architects of Annihilation_. (Perhaps fittingly, in the context of this thread, Aly himself has expressed racist views (a warning: this link goes to a blog discussion of very racist remarks.) But his histories of Nazism and the Holocaust remain important despite that.)


----------



## Random Task

" Both the author and the publisher would become the target of many rude remarks, letter-bombs, hand grenades, and visits from Mossad. I mentioned this book just to show you that I am not completely dead -- yet. Still alive and working. I don't expect you to want to publish it... "

Someone on RPG.net did point out that with this sentence and the preceding paragraph of plot description, Barker is pitching the novel to the publisher in a deniable way.  Also the visit from Mossad is suggestive.


----------



## Hussar

MGibster said:


> I didn't specialize in medieval history in school, but a lot of history books I've read on the subject start out with just what a problematic term feudalism really is.  A lot of scholars don't even agree with what defines feudalism with some historians seeing it as a mainly military and legal relationship limited to the nobles, others arguing that even serfs were part of the system, and a growing number of historians arguing that feudalism is a fictitious concept that has little to do with the reality of life in the medieval world.  Feudalism, however we choose to define it today, was present in numerous societies spread out over a long period of time and and how it was practiced varied wildly based on the kingdom and the year.  Tsarist Russia in the late 16th century wasn't the same as England in 1086 which wasn't the same as Bavaria in 1300.
> 
> And while I certainly wouldn't care to live under a feudalistic system (however we define it), I'm hard pressed to categorize it among the ranks of as evil as it gets.  Depending on the time period and the kingdom, even being a serf wasn't necessarily a miserable existence.



Well, let's look at this way.  Show me another system where I, as a member of a higher strata of society, can, completely legally, murder someone of a lower strata, without any sort of repercussions as we would see in Feudal Japan?  We spend the better part of a thousand years ending feudal systems, to the cost of millions of lives.  And, even some of the most repressive regimes of the 20th century aren't even close to the horrors of feudal systems in history.  Ghengiz Khan anyone?  Feudal China?  

There may be social organizations that are more responsible for death, misery and incredible hardship, but, they're pretty few and far between.

"Not necessarily a miserable existence" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement here.  

But, my point is, at no point EVER do D&D players step back and declare, "Nope, I'm going to play a Marxist revolutionary!  Death to tyrants!!!"  It's always, "Hey, isn't it grand that we're playing in a setting filled with horror and misery, but, we'll just lampshade all of those uncomfortable bits".


----------



## Aldarc

Hussar said:


> *But, my point is, at no point EVER do D&D players step back and declare, "Nope, I'm going to play a Marxist revolutionary!  Death to tyrants!!!"*  It's always, "Hey, isn't it grand that we're playing in a setting filled with horror and misery, but, we'll just lampshade all of those uncomfortable bits".



Let me tell you the story of my revolutionist dwarven forge cleric dedicated to a gender-fluid god of labor / goddess of agriculture, wielding hammer and sickle while trying to establish labor unions, overthrow tyrants, and liberate slaves on a penal colony. 

IME, this was all fairly consistent when playing D&D with fellow grad students.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

Hussar said:


> Well, let's look at this way.  Show me another system where I, as a member of a higher strata of society, can, completely legally, murder someone of a lower strata, without any sort of repercussions as we would see in Feudal Japan?  We spend the better part of a thousand years ending feudal systems, to the cost of millions of lives.  And, even some of the most repressive regimes of the 20th century aren't even close to the horrors of feudal systems in history.  Ghengiz Khan anyone?  Feudal China?
> 
> There may be social organizations that are more responsible for death, misery and incredible hardship, but, they're pretty few and far between.
> 
> "Not necessarily a miserable existence" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement here.
> 
> But, my point is, at no point EVER do D&D players step back and declare, "Nope, I'm going to play a Marxist revolutionary!  Death to tyrants!!!"  It's always, "Hey, isn't it grand that we're playing in a setting filled with horror and misery, but, we'll just lampshade all of those uncomfortable bits".



Genghis Khan wasn't "feudal" in any sense or form. Neither was China. And even Japan is debatable. And we didn't spend "thousands of years" ridding ourselves of feudalism, it was practically dead before the end of the Middle Ages in Europe. (As soon as Kings decided they'd prefer to collect scutage than "call in the banners", so to speak).

Nothing in history compares to the industrial age of slaughter (ie the 19th-20th century) as modern technology made murder and misery so much more efficient. And Marxist revolutionaries have created as many tyrants as they have overthrown (I can regale you with stories from my Ethiopian friend's life under the Derg), so I'm not really going to entertain the idea that they are a harbinger of a brighter future.


----------



## AnotherGuy

@Danny apologies as I was not clear - my excerpt of his "nice people" was italicized more of a rolling of the eyes.
Whenever someone describes a select few of a particular group (while announcing that particular group as a point of interest) as _nice people _it is always going to stink.

EDIT: You can say the same thing as a friendly dig but this wasn't a comedic situation.


----------



## AnotherGuy

QuentinGeorge said:


> In the original gaming sessions Midkemia was invaded by the actual Tsolyani of the Tekumel setting. Feist changed it to Tsurani for publication for copyright reasons but you can read Magician and notice little changed except the names. Later novels made it more of a distinct thing.



Whose gaming sessions? Feist's?


----------



## Zubatcarteira

The meme is that all adventuring parties will at some point: kill the king/emperor/nobility, then try to kill god/the gods.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

AnotherGuy said:


> Whose gaming sessions? Feist's?



Feist was a member (not the founder) of a long established D&D group called the Friday Nighters.

From the linked article:

_Feist was studying for a communications degree at California University during the mid-seventies, when he first decided to write a fantasy novel centring upon a young boy who becomes a great magician. While the concept itself was by no means original, the process that breathed life into the Midkemian universe and its myriad of characters certainly strayed from the norm.

Steve Abrams, met Conan Lamot and Jon Everson through the Triton Wargaming Club at the University of California. In 1975 Lamot returned from a trip away with the newly released fantasy war game, Dungeons and Dragons. Unhappy with the limitations of the game, the three modified the rules based on their own knowledge of medieval history. Lamot produced a guideline of the new rules which he named ‘The Tome of Midkemia’.

They met one night a week to play the game. Midkemia gradually grew as new cities and new players were introduced into the game. One of these new players was Raymond Feist.

Feist asked the other ‘Friday nighters’ (as they had begun referring to themselves as), if he could use Midkemia as the background for the book he was writing. “I had no grasp on how to tell a story”, he said in an interview with Examiner.com in 2013. “Using our gaming world as a background for the story made it easy for me to concentrate on the narrative, and not fret about world-building.”

Having received the group’s approval, Feist began introducing his characters into the world of Midkemia. Two years later he submitted a, “very lengthy novel”, to Double Day, who agreed to publish the book on the proviso that he shorten it by some 50,000 words. Feist did so, and in 1982 Magician hit store shelves._

Abrams, Lamot and Everson were the original creators of Midkemia (and actually manage the IP through "Midkemia Press". Feist's novels are effectively the backstory for the campaign world - his books are set ~1000 years before the college gaming sessions, detailing the "Riftwars" which were set in Midkemia's past. One of these Riftwars, the first, was the invasion of Midkemia by Tsolyani (in effect, D&D crossing over with Tekumel. When the novels got written, Tsolyani became Tsurani and Tekumel became Kelewan.


----------



## Staffan

AnotherGuy said:


> Whose gaming sessions? Feist's?



My understanding was that Feist's books were based on the backstory of the campaign he and his friends were playing back in the day, but not on the actual gaming sessions. To make a modern-day analogy, it would be as if Matt Mercer or one of his players released a bunch of novels set during the Calamity rather than novelizing the current-day antics of Vox Machina.


----------



## Umbran

pemerton said:


> Even where people are unhappy with the liberal social forms that have replaced "feudal" ones, few of them advocate for a reversion to those past forms.




I dunno.  There's several places we could name that were happy to have a despot step in when the elected government turned out to be a complete trash fire.  The despot may also have been a trash fire, but... more honest about it, I guess?


----------



## AnotherGuy

Thanks for the link!



QuentinGeorge said:


> Abrams, Lamot and Everson were the original creators of Midkemia (and actually manage the IP through "Midkemia Press". Feist's novels are effectively the backstory for the campaign world - his books are set ~1000 years before the college gaming sessions, detailing the "Riftwars" which were set in Midkemia's past. One of these Riftwars, the first, was the invasion of Midkemia by Tsolyani (in effect, D&D crossing over with Tekumel. When the novels got written, Tsolyani became Tsurani and Tekumel became Kelewan.



So I got into the Riftwar series through the back.
Weirdly enough I had a friend who never read but did read, to my surprise, _Magician_ and kept recommending it to me. I didn't get around to it but some years later I read Janny Wurts's _Cycle of Fire Trilogy_ and quite liked her writing style. So I picked up the _Empire_ series and loved Kelewan. Pug makes an appearance in the 3rd novel and I remembered that name from my friend - and so made the link. I still haven't read it, but its on my ever-growing to-do list.


----------



## MGibster

Hussar said:


> Well, let's look at this way. Show me another system where I, as a member of a higher strata of society, can, completely legally, murder someone of a lower strata, without any sort of repercussions as we would see in Feudal Japan?



And I'd have to remind you that feudal Japan, however we define feudal, is not feudal England in the 12th century or France in the 10th.  Even in Japan itself, what they were doing in the 11th century wasn't necessarily the same as it was in the 14th century.  Looking at Japan or any other kingdom/country and holding them up as the feudal standard is just an exercise in futility.  



Hussar said:


> We spend the better part of a thousand years ending feudal systems, to the cost of millions of lives.




I've got two questions.  Who is this "we" you're talking about?  Feudalism, however we define it, was scattered throughout many different cultures, geographic locations, and time periods. And you make it sound like there was some concerted organized effort to end feudalism that took the better part of a thousand years.  While I didn't specialize in medieval history, I would have expected to have heard of such a movement. What was the movement and who was involved?  You also make it seem as though history is heading towards some great progressive goal and that just simply isn't the case.  



Hussar said:


> And, even some of the most repressive regimes of the 20th century aren't even close to the horrors of feudal systems in history. Ghengiz Khan anyone? Feudal China?




I'd rather live in ancient China than today's North Korea, Stalin's Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany.  



Hussar said:


> "Not necessarily a miserable existence" isn't exactly a ringing endorsement here.




Through no effort of my own, I have it pretty good living in the modern era so I don't give ringing endorsements for any period in the past.  I would not be happy to suddenly be transported back to 19th century America, 13th century England, or 8th century BCE Greece.  I'm no so keen on looking at the past through rose colored glasses, but at the same time I think it's a mistake to look at it as a crummy place where misery abounded (though that happened sometimes).  They were human beings and they had joy, they had fun, they had seasons in the sun even if the stars they could reach were just starfish on the beach.  



Hussar said:


> But, my point is, at no point EVER do D&D players step back and declare, "Nope, I'm going to play a Marxist revolutionary! Death to tyrants!!!" It's always, "Hey, isn't it grand that we're playing in a setting filled with horror and misery, but, we'll just lampshade all of those uncomfortable bits".



Yeah, you're right.  I've never participated in a D&D game where the object was to overthrow the monarchy and install a dictatorship of the proletariat.  But then in most "good" kingdoms, the people enjoy the same rights we expect in western liberal democracies.  It's fantasy after all.


----------



## Parmandur

Umbran said:


> I dunno.  There's several places we could name that were happy to have a despot step in when the elected government turned out to be a complete trash fire.  The despot may also have been a trash fire, but... more honest about it, I guess?



Aristotle spent a lot of time thinking about that, and used his experience as a medical doctor to look at politics as beijg like the ebbs and flows of bodily health and sickness.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

So what this feudalism discussion has to do with anything? That fantasy worlds are not perfect utopias is not a problem, that their creator is a nazi however is.


----------



## Cordwainer Fish

Crimson Longinus said:


> So what this feudalism discussion has to do with anything? That fantasy worlds are not perfect utopias is not a problem, that their creator is a nazi however is.



And as a follow-on, "is there icky subtext in this world that I don't have the right eyes to see?".

(See also the Suck Fairy, who visits the books you loved when you were younger and adds sexism and racism that you discover when you return to them as an adult.)


----------



## darjr

Cordwainer Fish said:


> And as a follow-on, "is there icky subtext in this world that I don't have the right eyes to see?".
> 
> (See also the Suck Fairy, who visits the books you loved when you were younger and adds sexism and racism that you discover when you return to them as an adult.)








						Tékumel :: The World of the Petal Throne
					

Tékumel: The World of the Petal Throne.



					www.tekumel.com


----------



## BookTenTiger

Crimson Longinus said:


> So what this feudalism discussion has to do with anything? That fantasy worlds are not perfect utopias is not a problem, that their creator is a nazi however is.



It's a futile feudal fight.


----------



## Parmandur

BookTenTiger said:


> It's a futile feudal fight.



Forsooth, a frivolous feud?


----------



## MGibster

Crimson Longinus said:


> So what this feudalism discussion has to do with anything? That fantasy worlds are not perfect utopias is not a problem, that their creator is a nazi however is.



It started with our ability to compartmentalize and went off from there.  Like many threads, once you reach a few hundred posts the conversation will go where it wants to.


----------



## Umbran

Parmandur said:


> Forsooth, a frivolous feud?




Forsooth, you fuel the frivolous and futile feudal feud.


----------



## Thourne

MGibster said:


> And I'd have to remind you that feudal Japan, however we define feudal, is not feudal England in the 12th century or France in the 10th.  Even in Japan itself, what they were doing in the 11th century wasn't necessarily the same as it was in the 14th century.  Looking at Japan or any other kingdom/country and holding them up as the feudal standard is just an exercise in futility.
> 
> 
> 
> I've got two questions.  Who is this "we" you're talking about?  Feudalism, however we define it, was scattered throughout many different cultures, geographic locations, and time periods. And you make it sound like there was some concerted organized effort to end feudalism that took the better part of a thousand years.  While I didn't specialize in medieval history, I would have expected to have heard of such a movement. What was the movement and who was involved?  You also make it seem as though history is heading towards some great progressive goal and that just simply isn't the case.
> 
> 
> 
> I'd rather live in ancient China than today's North Korea, Stalin's Soviet Union, or Nazi Germany.
> 
> 
> 
> Through no effort of my own, I have it pretty good living in the modern era so I don't give ringing endorsements for any period in the past.  I would not be happy to suddenly be transported back to 19th century America, 13th century England, or 8th century BCE Greece.  I'm no so keen on looking at the past through rose colored glasses, but at the same time I think it's a mistake to look at it as a crummy place where misery abounded (though that happened sometimes).  They were human beings and they had joy, they had fun, they had seasons in the sun even if the stars they could reach were just starfish on the beach.
> 
> 
> Yeah, you're right.  I've never participated in a D&D game where the object was to overthrow the monarchy and install a dictatorship of the proletariat.  But then in most "good" kingdoms, the people enjoy the same rights we expect in western liberal democracies.  It's fantasy after all.



Dear god man! 
Did you just go Terry Jacks on us?!?


----------



## MGibster

Thourne said:


> Did you just go Terry Jacks on us?!?



I have it on good authority that it's not technically a violation of the board's rules.  But it's still very, very naughty.


----------



## Baron Opal II

Parmandur said:


> based on what I know of Tekumel and it's imperialistic racial hierarchy, not that weird at all. Literally, I don't see any contradiction in Barker being a Nazi and fetishizing a romantic take on Islam or India (both were common among the Nazis), or writing a setting with racially superior humans suppressing racially inferior space aliens. It's all of one piece, a seamless garment of Fascism.



Ah, no. In the setting Humans are not superior; the are one species among many. Some of the other species are allies, some foes, and most are generally neutral. Some of the foes are such due to a profound incompatibility with biology or society, some are so due to an explicit wrong done to them by Humanity. It is not a "seamless garment of Fascism".

The game is centered in a human society because the players are humans.


----------



## Hussar

Ah. I see my mistake. I misused the term feudal. My bad. 

How about this instead?

DnD often lampshades the fact that your character lives in a totalitarian regime with horrific laws and no personal rights. Because of this, we treat the setting like it’s modern day USA and never actually bring up this fact.


----------



## Mark Hope

Hussar said:


> ...we treat the setting like it’s modern day USA...



Plenty of us don't. You know, not being from the USA and all...


----------



## Hussar

Mark Hope said:


> Plenty of us don't. You know, not being from the USA and all...




Yes because that’s the point.


----------



## Mark Hope

Hussar said:


> Yes because that’s the point.



It is exactly the point. Modern gamers are more diverse than that, just as pre-modern societies were more diverse than your broad-strokes interpretation suggested.


----------



## John Dallman

Returning to the original subject, here's a pretty sensible blog post from Jeff Grub.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

Hussar said:


> Ah. I see my mistake. I misused the term feudal. My bad.
> 
> How about this instead?
> 
> DnD often lampshades the fact that your character lives in a totalitarian regime with horrific laws and no personal rights. Because of this, we treat the setting like it’s modern day USA and never actually bring up this fact.



"Totalitarian regime with horrific laws and no personal rights" is not an accurate description of the polities that have existed historically (most medieval societies were pretty clear on certain rights, and the nature of medieval societies made it virtually impossible for anyone to be totalitarian) nor D&D's nations. Personal rights are not something invented by John Q. American in 1776. You seem to be fixated on certain misunderstandings very redolent of "whig history".


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Hussar said:


> DnD often lampshades the fact that your character lives in a totalitarian regime with horrific laws and no personal rights.



It does?



Hussar said:


> Because of this, we treat the setting like it’s modern day USA



We do? I don't. I mean, I'm fine with my fantasy having some dystopian elements, but I'd rather have ones that feel more period appropriate.


----------



## MGibster

Hussar said:


> Ah. I see my mistake. I misused the term feudal. My bad.



I don't think you did.  I've certainly heard people describe ancient China as having a feudal system.  



Hussar said:


> DnD often lampshades the fact that your character lives in a totalitarian regime with horrific laws and no personal rights. Because of this, we treat the setting like it’s modern day USA and never actually bring up this fact.



A totalitarian government is characterized by its attempts to control all aspects of its citizens lives and features a very strong central government.  Not all "feudalistic" societies had a strong central government and most of them didn't try to control all aspects of their subjects' lives.  I do think you have a valid point.  While I wouldn't describe most kingdoms as totalitarian regimes, D&D does treat many of their settings like modern day USA.  But I suspect that's one of the things that makes D&D so popular.


----------



## Umbran

MGibster said:


> While I wouldn't describe most kingdoms as totalitarian regimes, D&D does treat many of their settings like modern day USA.  But I suspect that's one of the things that makes D&D so popular.




Moreover, how many GMs actually have the deep understanding of history and geopolitics to reasonably model other systems?  Most of us have what, high-school social studies level of understanding?

And, beyond that - D&D is still basically an action-adventure game, not a socio-politics game.  There's not much call to specify a ton of socio-politics that the characters aren't going to interact with.  So government, much like economy, by and large is simplified with a sketch, and left mostly in the background in a way that allows the heroes to gallivant around facing off with monsters.

That last is terribly important.  Game government that gets in the way of the players having fun in adventures is pretty much a non-starter.  Which probably means _realistic_ governance is pretty much a non-starter.


----------



## darjr

It’s hard to have a feudal system when Jane Doe gong farmer can find a hole in the ground and emerge as a 20th level demi god who’s defeated either Tiamat or Bahamut in the span of a couple months.


----------



## J.Quondam

darjr said:


> It’s hard to have a feudal system when Jane Doe gong farmer can find a hole in the ground and emerge as a 20th level demi god who’s defeated either Tiamat or Bahamut in the span of a couple months.



But more to the point, now you're on the hook to do actual play stream called "Jane Doe: Gong Farmer!" And then animate it, because i'd totally watch that.


----------



## Riley

John Dallman said:


> Returning to the original subject, here's a pretty sensible blog post from Jeff Grub.



That’s a good post. Jeff Grubb (and Jeff Dee) have some good thoughts there:



> So, what to do?
> 
> Nine years ago in this space, in the midst of another tempest involving another author, I wrote about Lovecraft, who was definitely problematic. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that while we cannot fully separate creation from creator, we can TAKE the creation away from the creator. We recognize Lovecraft's racism, and will not excuse or bury it. But moving forward, we take the good parts and evolve them fully, and leave the worst behind. In RPGs, in the modern interactive tradition, that can be done more easily than in other media. RPGs are ultimately a group activity, and the bad actors can be overwhelmed by the common good.
> 
> I wrote that in 2013. How has it worked out in Lovecraft's case? Well. in 2017 the award winning RPG product _Harlem Unbound_ showed up, which deals with marginalized populations in Lovecraft's universe. Originally from Darker Hue studios, the book has been expanded upon and republished with Chaosium, publisher of _Call of Cthulhu_ putting an official mark on it. The novel _Lovecraft Country_ deals with this in fiction, and has not only been a best-seller but turned into a TV series in 2020. And Alan Moore produced a decidedly creepy comic called _Providence_ dealing with sexual issues within the straight-laced original stories. None of this would have met the approval of the original dead racist.
> 
> So yeah, take the ball and run with it. Jeff Dee, who wrote an excellent set of recent rules set in Tekumel, _Bethorm_, has posted the suggestion to OCCUPY TEKUMEL[.] Challenge or remove the violent, authoritarian, and unchanging nature of the empires. Give it a cleansing scrub. I think this would work. I get the feeling that, much like our own histories, the illusion of a continuous civilization is misleading, as looking at it hard reveals civil wars, uprisings, revolutions both quiet and violent. Yan Kor not only wins its war but inspires other breakaway chunks of Tsolyanu to find their own paths. Let the PCs lead a revolution for a city state within one of the Empires, and forge their own destinies.
> 
> The interesting thing is, Tekumel has a couple things already hard-wired into it that encourages this approach. There is the custom of _ditlana_, a renewal process where cities are literally razed, buried, and new structures place atop them…




There is, however, the challenge that while much of Lovecraft has entered the public domain, Tekumel has not.


----------



## dragoner

John Dallman said:


> Returning to the original subject, here's a pretty sensible blog post from Jeff Grub.



Lovecraft and Barker are different, it seems that people bringing up HPL are going out of their way to try to defend Barker. While HPL was wrong in a lot of what he thought, it is also important to remember that he could have been mentally ill, and psychology papers have been written on such. HPL suffered under delusions, as well as in homelessness, indigence, and after being bedridden, death. Some think he actually believed Cthulhu to be real. His delusional racism, was also punishing, to be forced to live in paranoid fear of other people. Mental health officials will say that some issues of persecution of a religious, or racial issues are not uncommon. Ultimately as far as we can despise his feelings, we also simply don't know their origin, and it is wrong to demonize the mentally ill.

Barker is completely different, he chose to be a nazi, in the full grasp of his faculties.


----------



## Staffan

dragoner said:


> Lovecraft and Barker are different, it seems that people bringing up HPL are going out of their way to try to defend Barker. While HPL was wrong in a lot of what he thought, it is also important to remember that he could have been mentally ill, and psychology papers have been written on such. HPL suffered under delusions, as well as in homelessness, indigence, and after being bedridden, death. Some think he actually believed Cthulhu to be real. His delusional racism, was also punishing, to be forced to live in paranoid fear of other people. Mental health officials will say that some issues of persecution of a religious, or racial issues are not uncommon. Ultimately as far as we can despise his feelings, we also simply don't know their origin, and it is wrong to demonize the mentally ill.
> 
> Barker is completely different, he chose to be a nazi, in the full grasp of his faculties.



Another important point is that for better or worse, Lovecraft casts a *long* shadow over popular culture in general and gaming in particular. Some of the earliest D&D supplements had stats for Lovecraft stuff, and there's been numerous RPGs either based on the Cthulhu Mythos or incorporating aspects of it. Given how deeply embedded the Mythos is in gaming, there's a pretty good case for figuring out a way to use the good parts while leaving out the bad.

But Tekumel? While Empire of the Petal Throne is certainly of historic interest as one of the first RPG settings, the particulars of it have hardly been a big influence. There are almost certainly more people exposed to it by way of Midkemia/Kelewan novels than the actual Petal Throne material. There's basically nothing lost by leaving the Empire of the Petal Throne as a footnote in gaming history. Plus, unlike the Mythos, the Empire of the Petal Throne is still under copyright so even if one wanted to do something with it, one would need permission from whomever holds the rights and that's not something I'd be comfortable with.


----------



## dragoner

Staffan said:


> Another important point is that for better or worse, Lovecraft casts a *long* shadow over popular culture in general and gaming in particular. Some of the earliest D&D supplements had stats for Lovecraft stuff, and there's been numerous RPGs either based on the Cthulhu Mythos or incorporating aspects of it. Given how deeply embedded the Mythos is in gaming, there's a pretty good case for figuring out a way to use the good parts while leaving out the bad.
> 
> But Tekumel? While Empire of the Petal Throne is certainly of historic interest as one of the first RPG settings, the particulars of it have hardly been a big influence. There are almost certainly more people exposed to it by way of Midkemia/Kelewan novels than the actual Petal Throne material. There's basically nothing lost by leaving the Empire of the Petal Throne as a footnote in gaming history. Plus, unlike the Mythos, the Empire of the Petal Throne is still under copyright so even if one wanted to do something with it, one would need permission from whomever holds the rights and that's not something I'd be comfortable with.



Personally I am not as big of a fan of cthulhu after all these years precisely because it casts such a long shadow, cthulhu _everything_ becomes tiring. EPT I did like, until one points out the nastier elements, that become more self evident after knowing the creator's leanings. Sadly enough, what has been seen, now can't be unseen. I do think it will become a footnote, not undeservedly, though it was already headed in that direction anyways, and this just seals its fate.


----------



## Parmandur

Yeah, the "public domain" versus "owned by people who knew the author, and covered up his being a Nazi" is a pretty significant difference. Nobody doubts where Lovecraft stood on anything, and no estate benefits from cribing and modifying his fiction.


----------



## MGibster

Umbran said:


> Moreover, how many GMs actually have the deep understanding of history and geopolitics to reasonably model other systems? Most of us have what, high-school social studies level of understanding?




I don't believe a GM needs a deep understanding of history or geopolitics to reasonably model other systems for a game.   i.e.  You don't have to be an expert on life in Stalin's Soviet Union to use it as inspiration to create a setting where the PCs live under a totalitarian regime.  In my experience, the more a setting is built with the expectations that player characters view the world in a radically different manner from what they're used to it's a lot more difficult to get player buy in.  (And just to be clear, that's fine.  People are free to put in as much or as little effort into doing something they enjoy.)  I happen to think one of the things that makes D&D so popular is that people don't have to put in a lot of effort to live out their adolescent power fantasies.  



Umbran said:


> And, beyond that - D&D is still basically an action-adventure game, not a socio-politics game. There's not much call to specify a ton of socio-politics that the characters aren't going to interact with. So government, much like economy, by and large is simplified with a sketch, and left mostly in the background in a way that allows the heroes to gallivant around facing off with monsters.




Bingo.  Which is why I don't really mind that most D&D settings resemble theme parks.


----------



## darjr

The disturbing thing I’m seeing now is folks looking for the novel and tekumel info with a suspicious level of newfound enthusiasm.


----------



## Parmandur

darjr said:


> The disturbing thing I’m seeing now is folks looking for the novel and tekumel info with a suspicious level of newfound enthusiasm.



Yeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaah


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

darjr said:


> The disturbing thing I’m seeing now is folks looking for the novel and tekumel info with a suspicious level of newfound enthusiasm.



That was, unfortunately, inevitable.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Staffan said:


> There are almost certainly more people exposed to it by way of Midkemia/Kelewan novels than the actual Petal Throne material.



Never heard of those books, either.


----------



## Parmandur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Never heard of those books, either.



Riftwar, by Raymond Feist? Or the Krondor games?


----------



## Parmandur

From the Wikipedia page:

"Feist acknowledges that the Tekumel setting from M. A. R. Barker's Empire of the Petal Throne was the source for much of Kelewan. The original D&D campaign which he based his books on had an invasion of the Midkemia world by Tekumel. As a result, much of the background of Kelewan - the Tsurani Empire, the lack of metals and horses, the Cho'ja, the pantheons of 10 major and 10 minor gods - comes from Tekumel. Feist claims to have been unaware of this origin when he wrote Magician."






						The Riftwar Cycle - Wikipedia
					






					en.m.wikipedia.org


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Parmandur said:


> Riftwar, by Raymond Feist? Or the Krondor games?



OK, heard of _Riftwar_ by Feist…but only just that.  That it exists and he wrote it.  No clue as to content, including key names, like that of the setting’s world.  Krondor means nothing to me.  Big zero.


----------



## Parmandur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> OK, heard of _Riftwar_ by Feist…but only just that.  No clue as to content, including key names, like that of the setting’s world.  Krondor means nothing to me.  Big zero.



It was a novelization of his college game groups RPG campaign, which was OD&D extensively household, and the Greyhawkish world was straight up invaded by dimensional portals to the Empire of the Petal Throne...which was the Riftwar. Feist alleges that he did know that, and came to some sort if arrangement over the IP he took from Baker (even TSR could sue for the generic D&D stuff, though).

About 30 books in the past 40 years, with millions of copies sold: a bit more of a cultural penetratiob than Barker's own work.


----------



## MGibster

Dannyalcatraz said:


> OK, heard of _Riftwar_ by Feist…but only just that. That it exists and he wrote it. No clue as to content, including key names, like that of the setting’s world. Krondor means nothing to me. Big zero.



I'm only familiar with it because of the PC RPG Betrayal at Krondor that came out almost thirty years ago.  I remember almost nothing about it except you could only have three people in your party at one time.  Oh, and there's a scene where you arrive at an inn only to find everyone has been poisoned.


----------



## MGibster

darjr said:


> The disturbing thing I’m seeing now is folks looking for the novel and tekumel info with a suspicious level of newfound enthusiasm.



I wonder if it's akin to slowing down at a car wreck on the highway to see what they can see.


----------



## Parmandur

MGibster said:


> I'm only familiar with it because of the PC RPG Betrayal at Krondor that came out almost thirty years ago.  I remember almost nothing about it except you could only have three people in your party at one time.  Oh, and there's a scene where you arrive at an inn only to find everyone has been poisoned.



The books are pretty mediocre, though historically a bit ahead of the curve in the genre towards Bildungsroman-meets-D&D, predating Dragonlance and such.


----------



## Parmandur

MGibster said:


> I wonder if it's akin to slowing down at a car wreck on the highway to see what they can see.



Nooooo, he means people who definitely agree with the philosophy of this Barker novel unironically being excited about finding a new literary role model...


----------



## MGibster

Parmandur said:


> The books are pretty mediocre, though historically a bit ahead of the curve in the genre towards Bildungsroman-meets-D&D, predating Dragonlance and such.



That's pretty much my assessment of fantasy books in general.  They might be a fun way to pass the time, but most of them aren't all that memorable.


----------



## shannona

Parmandur said:


> From the Wikipedia page:
> 
> "Feist acknowledges that the Tekumel setting from M. A. R. Barker's Empire of the Petal Throne was the source for much of Kelewan. The original D&D campaign which he based his books on had an invasion of the Midkemia world by Tekumel. As a result, much of the background of Kelewan - the Tsurani Empire, the lack of metals and horses, the Cho'ja, the pantheons of 10 major and 10 minor gods - comes from Tekumel. Feist claims to have been unaware of this origin when he wrote Magician."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Riftwar Cycle - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> en.m.wikipedia.org



As far as I know, no, Feist has _not_ acknowledged that "Empire of the Petal Throne was the source for much of Kelewan".

One of the two articles referenced on that paragraph is my own, which states:



> Midkemia's unique creation has also resulted in one bit of controversy: according to Feist, the original Midkemian Campaign run by Abrams and Everson contained some minor elements borrowed from Tékumel, as described in TSR's _Empire of the Petal Throne_ (1975). Those elements were, of course, not brought into any of Midkemia Press' published books. However, Feist wasn't aware of this genesis, so some of these elements _did_ find their way into the world of Kelewan — which opposed Midkemia in the Riftwar. Feist says the ultimate impact of Tékumel on the novels is "superficial", with other sources like Alan Dean Foster's Thranx and Jack Vance's _Big Planet_ being just as important.




The other referenced article says "According to people who claim to have corresponded with Feist, he's admitted that Kelewan was heavily, _heavily_ inspired by Tekumel". You couldn't get much flakier than "According to people who claim to have corresponded with Feist". That's a reference to unattributed hearsay.

There's no doubt that Kelewan was influenced by Tékumel to some degree, but as far as I'm aware (and I looked into it a fair amount), Feist has been very careful about what he said in that regard. The Wikipedia article unfortunately lies about what Feist said and holds up references which either don't say that or aren't reliable.


----------



## Baron Opal II

Parmandur said:


> Yeah, the "public domain" versus "owned by people who knew the author, and covered up his being a Nazi" is a pretty significant difference. Nobody doubts where Lovecraft stood on anything, and no estate benefits from cribing and modifying his fiction.



Indeed.

This might, weirdly, turn into a silver lining for the Tekumel Foundation Board. If Mr. Victor Raymond, Jeff Dee, and a couple others worked together they might be able to publish a "Reclaim Tekumel" sourcebook or something. A portion of the proceeds to go to appropriate charities and organizations, a slice to content creators, and some to the Board. The only estate remaining is whatever retirement Mrs. Barker is living off of.

This would require someone with some marketing savvy, which the Board wholly lacks, and a will to get the project done. Some wrongs addressed, anyway.

Not that I think that would ever happen.


----------



## Parmandur

shannona said:


> As far as I know, no, Feist has _not_ acknowledged that "Empire of the Petal Throne was the source for much of Kelewan".
> 
> One of the two articles referenced on that paragraph is my own, which states:
> 
> 
> 
> The other referenced article says "According to people who claim to have corresponded with Feist, he's admitted that Kelewan was heavily, _heavily_ inspired by Tekumel". You couldn't get much flakier than "According to people who claim to have corresponded with Feist". That's a reference to unattributed hearsay.
> 
> There's no doubt that Kelewan was influenced by Tékumel to some degree, but as far as I'm aware (and I looked into it a fair amount), Feist has been very careful about what he said in that regard. The Wikipedia article unfortunately lies about what Feist said and holds up references which either don't say that or aren't reliable.



Touche. However, it really is a pretty apparent influence, legal side-stepping aside.


----------



## Parmandur

MGibster said:


> That's pretty much my assessment of fantasy books in general.  They might be a fun way to pass the time, but most of them aren't all that memorable.



Well, by definition, any healthy artistic culture is going to be mostly mediocre. The exceptional is always an exception, but when lots of workman mediocrity is being produced and consumed, the exceptional work is more likely to be attempted.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Parmandur said:


> Tiftwar



Almost an awesomely disastrous typo!


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

MGibster said:


> I'm only familiar with it because of the PC RPG Betrayal at Krondor that came out almost thirty years ago.  I remember almost nothing about it except you could only have three people in your party at one time.  Oh, and there's a scene where you arrive at an inn only to find everyone has been poisoned.



Mac user, so that’s not part of my CRPG history.


----------



## Parmandur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Mac user, so that’s not part of my CRPG history.



Not the best CRPG ever, but it was a major milestone for use of plot and character  in Western RPGs.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Baron Opal II said:


> Indeed.
> 
> This might, weirdly, turn into a silver lining for the Tekumel Foundation Board. If Mr. Victor Raymond, Jeff Dee, and a couple others worked together they might be able to publish a "Reclaim Tekumel" sourcebook or something. A portion of the proceeds to go to appropriate charities and organizations, a slice to content creators, and some to the Board. The only estate remaining is whatever retirement Mrs. Barker is living off of.
> 
> This would require someone with some marketing savvy, which the Board wholly lacks, and a will to get the project done. Some wrongs addressed, anyway.
> 
> Not that I think that would ever happen.



Most importantly, you’d need a really skilled game design team.  You can’t reclaim the game if the game itself isn’t worth reclaiming.


----------



## Faolyn

Hussar said:


> Let's be honest here, most people are not watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and diving into deep critical analysis.  You watch it, and then largely forget it.



There were legitimate college classes taught about Buffy. 





__





						Buffy studies - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


----------



## overgeeked

I didn't see this posted and don't see a date attached, but the Tekumel Foundation finally put out a statement.






						Tékumel :: The World of the Petal Throne
					

Tékumel: The World of the Petal Throne.



					www.tekumel.com
				




A few months ago I had an interest in running a Tekumel game. I got bogged down in the setting details and the languages so it never came about. I'm kinda glad it never started.


----------



## Parmandur

overgeeked said:


> I didn't see this posted and don't see a date attached, but the Tekumel Foundation finally put out a statement.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Tékumel :: The World of the Petal Throne
> 
> 
> Tékumel: The World of the Petal Throne.
> 
> 
> 
> www.tekumel.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A few months ago I had an interest in running a Tekumel game. I got bogged down in the setting details and the languages so it never came about. I'm kinda glad it never started.



Doesn't really answer who know what, and when.


----------



## overgeeked

Parmandur said:


> Doesn't really answer who know what, and when.



I doubt anyone outside a very small circle will ever know. They can only make themselves look worse by admitting to exactly how long they sat on it. There’s no upside for them letting that out. So it likely won’t happen.


----------



## Parmandur

overgeeked said:


> I doubt anyone outside a very small circle will ever know. They can only make themselves look worse by admitting to exactly how long they sat on it. There’s no upside for them letting that out. So it likely won’t happen.



Yup. Says enough by itself, though.


----------



## darjr

overgeeked said:


> I doubt anyone outside a very small circle will ever know. They can only make themselves look worse by admitting to exactly how long they sat on it. There’s no upside for them letting that out. So it likely won’t happen.



I’m certain a particular archivist or fellow RPG creator thought the very same thing.


----------



## Hussar

MGibster said:


> Bingo. Which is why I don't really mind that most D&D settings resemble theme parks.



Which, isn't that exactly what I just said?  That we lampshade the icky bits in service to the game?

Sure, I might have said it a bit stronger than that, but, frankly, I'm not sure why I'm getting much push back here.  The basic point was that fantasy as a genre tends to overlook the icky bits so we can have fun.  Doesn't change anything, but, it is good to recognize that fact.  I'd almost go a step further and say that the reason that so many people push back whenever these types of issues - Lovecraft, now Barker, whatever- come up is because of a lack of self reflection as to just how much we do elide over when we play these games.


----------



## Hussar

dragoner said:


> Lovecraft and Barker are different, it seems that people bringing up HPL are going out of their way to try to defend Barker. While HPL was wrong in a lot of what he thought, it is also important to remember that he could have been mentally ill, and psychology papers have been written on such. HPL suffered under delusions, as well as in homelessness, indigence, and after being bedridden, death. Some think he actually believed Cthulhu to be real. His delusional racism, was also punishing, to be forced to live in paranoid fear of other people. Mental health officials will say that some issues of persecution of a religious, or racial issues are not uncommon. Ultimately as far as we can despise his feelings, we also simply don't know their origin, and it is wrong to demonize the mentally ill.
> 
> Barker is completely different, he chose to be a nazi, in the full grasp of his faculties.



I'd say the basic point still remains.  The notion of "Occupy Tekumel" is a good one.  Let's take the good ideas, and then consign the creators to a footnote.  I mean, how many people enjoy Lovecraftian horror, which is a pretty broad genre, that have probably never read Lovecraft?  And that's a good thing.


----------



## Hussar

Faolyn said:


> There were legitimate college classes taught about Buffy.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Buffy studies - Wikipedia
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> en.wikipedia.org



Still going to stand by the "most people" part of my statement.


----------



## MGibster

Hussar said:


> Sure, I might have said it a bit stronger than that, but, frankly, I'm not sure why I'm getting much push back here. The basic point was that fantasy as a genre tends to overlook the icky bits so we can have fun.



The only pushback you're getting from me is equating feudalism with totalitarianism.  And the reason you're getting pushback is because I've noticed a rather cynical trend in online circles pushing the narrative that everything in the past was just terrible or that people were trash.  And looking through the past with such a cynical lens distorts it just as much as looking at it through rose colored lenses.  

And I don't mind saying that I tend to overlook the icky bits of just about every period of time in my games.  While I don't exactly ignore racism and sexism in my 1920s _Call of Cthulhu_ games, it's also not as prevalent in my games as it was in the United States during the era.  i.e.  I tone it down quite a bit.


----------



## dragoner

Hussar said:


> I'd say the basic point still remains.  The notion of "Occupy Tekumel" is a good one.  Let's take the good ideas, and then consign the creators to a footnote.  I mean, how many people enjoy Lovecraftian horror, which is a pretty broad genre, that have probably never read Lovecraft?  And that's a good thing.



For me, no, it's ruined. So I would disagree.


----------



## Hussar

MGibster said:


> The only pushback you're getting from me is equating feudalism with totalitarianism.  And the reason you're getting pushback is because I've noticed a rather cynical trend in online circles pushing the narrative that everything in the past was just terrible or that people were trash.  And looking through the past with such a cynical lens distorts it just as much as looking at it through rose colored lenses.
> 
> And I don't mind saying that I tend to overlook the icky bits of just about every period of time in my games.  While I don't exactly ignore racism and sexism in my 1920s _Call of Cthulhu_ games, it's also not as prevalent in my games as it was in the United States during the era.  i.e.  I tone it down quite a bit.



Fair enough.  We got to the point eventually.  

I mean, I've been watching the discussion around lots of the board games we've been playing as well.  The point is, the past is a pretty dark place sometimes and that is generally not reflected in our games.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Parmandur said:


> Well, by definition, any healthy artistic culture is going to be mostly mediocre. The exceptional is always an exception, but when lots of workman mediocrity is being produced and consumed, the exceptional work is more likely to be attempted.


----------



## Parmandur

Dannyalcatraz said:


> View attachment 154353



Precisely: and the next logical step is, the more of something there is overall, the larger that 10% will be in absolute terms.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Parmandur said:


> Precisely: and the next logical step is, the more of something there is overall, the larger that 10% will be in absolute terms.



Yep.  

Which is _also_ envisioned by the nature of a pie graph.  As the pie gets larger, that outer edge increases, but it’s percentage of the circumference remains constant.


----------



## Baron Opal II

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Most importantly, you’d need a really skilled game design team.  You can’t reclaim the game if the game itself isn’t worth reclaiming.



True, but right now I think the problematic elements are few. Present, but few.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Baron Opal II said:


> True, but right now I think the problematic elements are few. Present, but few.



Maybe.  Like I said, I know virtually nothing about the setting.  

But a rereleased EotPT might be well served by not only having its inherently problematic aspects modified or excised, but also refreshed from top to bottom with (potentially) better writing, art, etc.  A complete overhaul, if you will. It might even be expanded & fleshed out.


----------



## humble minion

Dannyalcatraz said:


> View attachment 154353



But when it comes to artistic and creative endeavours, good luck finding any two people in the whole field (no matter how big the pie happens to be) who would draw the line between 'crap' and 'not crap' in the same place.  People like season 6 of Buffy.  People were fanatical Twilight fans.  People thought the Snyder cut made Justice League into something other than a bad movie.   All these people are objectively wrong, but they're out there!  ;p  There's no accounting for taste.  Some of the 90% that's crap to me might be the exceptional life-changing artistic lightning bolt that burns its name into someone else's soul.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

humble minion said:


> But when it comes to artistic and creative endeavours, good luck finding any two people in the whole field (no matter how big the pie happens to be) who would draw the line between 'crap' and 'not crap' in the same place.  People like season 6 of Buffy.  People were fanatical Twilight fans.  People thought the Snyder cut made Justice League into something other than a bad movie.   All these people are objectively wrong, but they're out there!  ;p  There's no accounting for taste.  Some of the 90% that's crap to me might be the exceptional life-changing artistic lightning bolt that burns its name into someone else's soul.



Sturgeon’s Law does not account for taste, true.

OTOH, I, _knowing_ Sturgeon’s Law, fully accept that there are things I love which may be in/that are in that 90%, and I’m fine with that. I can probably even point _some_ them out to others if they think I’m deceiving myself.

Hell- if I’m honest, some of them I use to nettle those who cop superior attitudes in a given area.


----------



## Mallus

humble minion said:


> People thought the Snyder cut made Justice League into something other than a bad movie.



Hey, the Snyder cut is one of the best superhero films ever, well, filmed!


----------



## Parmandur

Mallus said:


> Hey, the Snyder cut is one of the best superhero films ever, well, filmed!



I am skeptical, but I'm not ever going to watch it to find out one way or the otehr.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

humble minion said:


> People thought the Snyder cut made Justice League into something other than a bad movie.



I haven't seen it, but I have seen the original and I must assume that Snyder cut must be better, as I literally cannot imagine how it would be humanly possible to make that film any worse! Granted, this doesn't necessarily mean that it would still actually be good!


----------



## humble minion

Mallus said:


> Hey, the Snyder cut is one of the best superhero films ever, well, filmed!



QED.    

I'm not going to harsh on anyone's squee, but clearly we draw Sturgeon's line in different places!


----------



## Mallus

humble minion said:


> QED.
> 
> I'm not going to harsh on anyone's squee, but clearly we draw Sturgeon's line in different places!



Ha, definitely. I give Snyder a lot of credit for his gift with composition. And for approaching comic book movies with the ludicrous grandiosity of a 12 year-old stuffed full of Wagner, Fritz Lang, Pop Tarts, and cocaine.


----------



## Umbran

Dannyalcatraz said:


> Sturgeon’s Law does not account for taste, true.




I'd say, instead, that it does, in that the definition of "crap" is not objective.  Even from the point of view of your personal taste, 90% of everything is crap.  It just happens that your 10% likely overlaps someone else's 90%.


----------



## the Jester

Hussar said:


> But, my point is, at no point EVER do D&D players step back and declare, "Nope, I'm going to play a Marxist revolutionary!  Death to tyrants!!!"  It's always, "Hey, isn't it grand that we're playing in a setting filled with horror and misery, but, we'll just lampshade all of those uncomfortable bits".



I've seen something very close to that, and I have played a character who is very close to a Marxist revolutionary. So I don't think this is as true as you suggest.


----------



## overgeeked

Hussar said:


> But, my point is, at no point EVER do D&D players step back and declare, "Nope, I'm going to play a Marxist revolutionary!  Death to tyrants!!!"  It's always, "Hey, isn't it grand that we're playing in a setting filled with horror and misery, but, we'll just lampshade all of those uncomfortable bits".





the Jester said:


> I've seen something very close to that, and I have played a character who is very close to a Marxist revolutionary. So I don't think this is as true as you suggest.



We’ve done that, too. Played in a campaign setting with several despotic rulers and after a TPK decided our next batch of zero-to-hero characters would lead a revolution. This was in the old days with actual risk of character death, building castles, domain management, etc. We pulled it off, the first time, at home, but our armies were crushed when two neighboring despots joined forces. Absolutely wonderful game.


----------



## Mallus

Our 4e campaign had a Marxist Dwarven avenger who swore the Oath of Dialectical Materialism and a Dragonborn who wrote propaganda for the goblin labor movement. The party’s battlecry was ”Universal Healthcare“ (which shouldn’t be construed as Marxist, but we live in the US...).

Dungeons & Marxism. It happens.

(occasionally)


----------



## pemerton

Well, a Marxist revolutionary in the typical D&D world would be even more confused about the material basis for the revolution than our real world ones circa 1917.


----------



## Hussar

Sigh, you'd think I'd know better by now than to say things like never or always.  Inevitably someone will say, "Well, this one time, in the 40 years I've been gaming" we did this so, that totally debunks your point.  We'll ignore the other 38 years where we didn't do that because it's so much better to be technically right.


----------



## pemerton

@Hussar, do you know the Scourge of the Slavelords "supermodule"? It has a NPC called Targil the Red. It's a long time since I used that module - I'm thinking back to 1990 or 91 - but my recollection is that we took "the Red" at face value and assumed him to be some sort of revolutionary. I can't remember now how we reconciled that with him being an agent for the Slavelords, but it's always possible to rationalise seemingly contradictory commitments (witness the main topic of this thread!).


----------



## MGibster

Hussar said:


> Sigh, you'd think I'd know better by now than to say things like never or always. Inevitably someone will say, "Well, this one time, in the 40 years I've been gaming" we did this so, that totally debunks your point. We'll ignore the other 38 years where we didn't do that because it's so much better to be technically right.



When you made the post, I immediately thought of a post from one of the various alignment threads were a person wrote  they considered it Chaotic Good to rob from a wealthy merchant to distribute the gold to the poor.  They may or may not have used a Marxist justification for that kind of thing.  But, yeah, being technically correct is like 98% of the internet.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

@Hussar I just don't get what your point is. Fantasy worlds are not ideal modern democracies, or often not even flawed ones. Yes, everyone knows that, so what? It is hella difficult to have adventures in a well working utopia. Sure, Star Trek kinda manages it, but even there corrupt admirals are so common that it is a trope and of course worlds outside the Federation are far from utopian. Imperfection is conductive for adventure.

Furthermore, when emulating some past era, one by necessity brings along at least some of its expectations, even though they might not perfectly align with modern values.


----------



## billd91

Hussar said:


> Sigh, you'd think I'd know better by now than to say things like never or always.  Inevitably someone will say, "Well, this one time, in the 40 years I've been gaming" we did this so, that totally debunks your point.  We'll ignore the other 38 years where we didn't do that because it's so much better to be technically right.



Well, what did you expect? It's like declaring a trend in D&D's art direction based on a small dataset. You get a lot of people chiming in with counterexamples.


----------



## Retreater

So I wrote earlier about my apprehension about playing my first Empire of the Petal Throne game at GaryCon in light of the recent controversy. The GM was Victor Raymond, who was knowledgeable about the setting (as people might expect) and a good GM.
Mr. Raymond spoke candidly about the issue after the game. He seemed sincere in his disappointment about Barker's actions and desire to figure out how to make amends through the Foundation.
It was certainly an interesting perspective on this issue.


----------



## Smackpixi

Hussar said:


> But, my point is, at no point EVER do D&D players step back and declare, "Nope, I'm going to play a Marxist revolutionary! Death to tyrants!!!" It's always, "Hey, isn't it grand that we're playing in a setting filled with horror and misery, but, we'll just lampshade all of those uncomfortable bits".




You’ve since qualified about “ever” but i rather think it’s COMMON for players to have an ambition of remaking the fantasy world into a happier less repressive place.  These sentiments are a rollable option for Ideals and Bonds on several backgrounds.  Maybe not with Marxist reasoning, but do not lots of players these days value changing the game world over gaining meaningless loot?


----------



## Myrdin Potter

Retreater said:


> So I wrote earlier about my apprehension about playing my first Empire of the Petal Throne game at GaryCon in light of the recent controversy. The GM was Victor Raymond, who was knowledgeable about the setting (as people might expect) and a good GM.
> Mr. Raymond spoke candidly about the issue after the game. He seemed sincere in his disappointment about Barker's actions and desire to figure out how to make amends through the Foundation.
> It was certainly an interesting perspective on this issue.



I played briefly in a campaign that Victor Raymond ran after an earlier online GaryCon. The campaign was really not for me (was billed as an intro to the world but I was the only one who had not played for years and the play sessions were deeply lore based in content and table discussion) but he ran the games well enough.

There was zero discussion of anything that could be even remotely construed as naziism. I am disappointed they sat on the news of Barker’s novel but there was an extremely high regard for Barker expressed in every game session and an attachment to having played in Barker’s actual group. I am sure that at least partially influenced their decision not to publicize the bad with the good.


----------



## Retreater

Myrdin Potter said:


> I played briefly in a campaign that Victor Raymond ran after an earlier online GaryCon. The campaign was really not for me (was billed as an intro to the world but I was the only one who had not played for years and the play sessions were deeply lore based in content and table discussion) but he ran the games well enough.



Our Con game started with about 45 minutes of lore dump. One of the players who came with my group was very interested in this aspect, though I could have taken or left it as it didn't really come up in play very much. For players who like lore and world building, I guess that's the enjoyable part of the game - more than actually exploring dungeons and fighting monsters (though that happened too). 


Myrdin Potter said:


> There was zero discussion of anything that could be even remotely construed as naziism.



Slavery definitely came up as a concept in the world. In that respect I guess it was no different than Dark Sun. For me personally in my games and writing, that's something that I wouldn't put in casually. 


Myrdin Potter said:


> I am disappointed they sat on the news of Barker’s novel but there was an extremely high regard for Barker expressed in every game session and an attachment to having played in Barker’s actual group. I am sure that at least partially influenced their decision not to publicize the bad with the good.



If I were in the same situation, I honestly don't know how I'd deal with it. I got the idea that the GM knew Barker personally and counted him among his friends. Then was building his gaming-career and writing around the work of that friend. 
Would I try to salvage the good of what my colleague/friend/etc. had done? Or would I cast it (and my career of the past 20 years) aside? It's a difficult decision for some. Can more good be done to speak out against these awful beliefs and actions and then attempt to make it better, using the entire experience as an example of how to address the painful past of our hobby? Or do you sweep it under the rug in shame, never to speak of it again?


----------



## Myrdin Potter

Retreater said:


> Our Con game started with about 45 minutes of lore dump. One of the players who came with my group was very interested in this aspect, though I could have taken or left it as it didn't really come up in play very much. For players who like lore and world building, I guess that's the enjoyable part of the game - more than actually exploring dungeons and fighting monsters (though that happened too).
> 
> Slavery definitely came up as a concept in the world. In that respect I guess it was no different than Dark Sun. For me personally in my games and writing, that's something that I wouldn't put in casually.
> 
> If I were in the same situation, I honestly don't know how I'd deal with it. I got the idea that the GM knew Barker personally and counted him among his friends. Then was building his gaming-career and writing around the work of that friend.
> Would I try to salvage the good of what my colleague/friend/etc. had done? Or would I cast it (and my career of the past 20 years) aside? It's a difficult decision for some. Can more good be done to speak out against these awful beliefs and actions and then attempt to make it better, using the entire experience as an example of how to address the painful past of our hobby? Or do you sweep it under the rug in shame, never to speak of it again?



He played in Professor Barker’s games for many years and did count him as a close friend. Another person that joined the games also played in that play group.


----------



## Hussar

Crimson Longinus said:


> @Hussar I just don't get what your point is. Fantasy worlds are not ideal modern democracies, or often not even flawed ones. Yes, everyone knows that, so what? It is hella difficult to have adventures in a well working utopia. Sure, Star Trek kinda manages it, but even there corrupt admirals are so common that it is a trope and of course worlds outside the Federation are far from utopian. Imperfection is conductive for adventure.
> 
> Furthermore, when emulating some past era, one by necessity brings along at least some of its expectations, even though they might not perfectly align with modern values.



My point is that we lampshade all that.  Not that we need to play in worker utopias.

We play in worker utopias because we ignore all the unbelievably horrible implications of the setting.  We ignore the child labor.  We ignore the complete and total lack of personal freedom.  Oh, did your character clean out the Caves of Chaos?  Thanks chum.  Now hand over all your gold and treasure because that's my property.  Why is it?  Because I'm the lord of that land and I say so.  Don't like it?  Don't care.  Welcome to a land with zero rights.  

We ignore all this sort of stuff.  Of course we do.  I totally agree hat one by necessity brings along at least some of the expectations.  We absolutely should.  But, we don't.  We lampshade all of it so that we can play our pretend elf games.


----------



## Hussar

Smackpixi said:


> You’ve since qualified about “ever” but i rather think it’s COMMON for players to have an ambition of remaking the fantasy world into a happier less repressive place.  These sentiments are a rollable option for Ideals and Bonds on several backgrounds.  Maybe not with Marxist reasoning, but do not lots of players these days value changing the game world over gaining meaningless loot?



Really?  Which bonds or backgrounds talk about creating equitable laws?  Or democratic selection of leaders?  Or personal rights or freedoms for all beings?  Property rights?  Legal rights like innocent until proven guilty?  Worker protections?  Religious freedom?  

I mean, I suggested that it was okay for the DM to insist that all characters have a religion, and that an atheist character in a Fantasy Setting would be treated quite badly and people absolutely lost their poop.  

Look, I'm not saying that I don't do it too.  Of course I do.  I have pretty much zero interest in that level of historical accuracy.  It would be not so much fun.  

But, I don't try to pretend that I'm not ignoring it either.


----------



## pemerton

@Hussar, I basically agree with you but look at it through a slightly different lens. I'll try to explain.

Without going full Marxist - I'm not a Marxist, though would consider myself at least a bit of a Marx scholar - there are fairly significant relationships between technology, living standards, modes of government etc. Eg if your economy is predominantly subsistence and agricultural, with most people having to grow their own food through predominantly manual labour and reliant on natural conditions for successful harvests, then there will be famine from time to time, because sometimes there will be floods or droughts or locusts or whatever that affect the harvest. And there will be members of extractive hierarchies (eg owners of land on which the agricultural production takes place) who will probably _not_ be the first to miss out. Conversely, the more the economy has the sort of technological capacity to make the production of food a specialist activity, with a high degree of control over degrees of surplus and the distribution of surpluses, the less it will look like Ye Olde <whatever> and the more it will look like a modern market economy.

The same sorts of systems of social norms that tend to justify hierarchies in a society with little social mobility - which a predominantly peasant society is likely to be - will also tend to push against norms of political equality, free choice of occupation, etc. While our FRPG worlds are full of guilds and the like, just as you say we pay little attention to their role in controlling access to economically desirable social roles - although breaking up guilds and related monopolies was one of the central elements of the French Revolution!

I can't comment on Icelandic democracy, which I know little about. But Athenian democracy rested at least in part on the relative independence of the citizenry. And this flowed, at least in part, from economic independence which was made possible by (i) individual citizens themselves owning slaves to help them with their work, and (ii, and probably more important) wealthy actors in the economy being able to satisfy their labour needs by way of slavery and hence not bringing the poorer, but nevertheless independent, citizenry fully under their control. And the mechanisms that substituted various sorts of non-slave peasant labour in much of Europe after the end of the Roman Empire tended to produce both the social relations and the social legitimation frameworks that I mentioned in my previous paragraphs. (On Athens, I'm relying on MI Finley's work.)

But in typical FRPG worlds we posit peasant societies with romanticised versions of their social hierarchies (noble knights, benevolent kings and prelates, etc) without slavery, where the legitimation frameworks and economics systems value individuals, and seem to permit free choice of occupation, etc. And to the extent that anything more "feudal" is mentioned, we just pretend that it won't make people suffer ie we just ignore the implications of unfree labour, extractive hierarchies, dependence upon natural conditions for sufficient food supply, etc. In this respect we follow soundly in the footsteps of JRRT, the Arthurian storytellers, certain romanticised conceptions of American frontier yeoman democracy, etc. But there is a tendency to ignore that these imaginary worlds are at least as unrealistic and impossible as spells and dragons!


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Hussar said:


> My point is that we lampshade all that.  Not that we need to play in worker utopias.
> 
> We play in worker utopias because we ignore all the unbelievably horrible implications of the setting.  We ignore the child labor.  We ignore the complete and total lack of personal freedom.  Oh, did your character clean out the Caves of Chaos?  Thanks chum.  Now hand over all your gold and treasure because that's my property.  Why is it?  Because I'm the lord of that land and I say so.  Don't like it?  Don't care.  Welcome to a land with zero rights.
> 
> We ignore all this sort of stuff.  Of course we do.  I totally agree hat one by necessity brings along at least some of the expectations.  We absolutely should.  But, we don't.  We lampshade all of it so that we can play our pretend elf games.



I feel that your take on historical societies is seriously unnuanced (and your idea of modern world uncritical, given the example you used earlier) and you probably underestimate the amount of GMs who weave the structure of the society as the part of the narrative of the game. Sure, the depiction of the world will probably often be somewhat adjusted for modern participants, but that's not same than ignoring these matters completely. And also dragons, so it's not like anyone expects 100% accurate depiction of a medieval society.


----------



## pemerton

Crimson Longinus said:


> I feel that your take on historical societies is seriously unnuanced (and your idea of modern world uncritical, given the example you used earlier) and you probably underestimate the amount of GMs who weave the structure of the society as the part of the narrative of the game. Sure, the depiction of the world will probably often be somewhat adjusted for modern participants, but that's not same than ignoring these matters completely. And also dragons, so it's not like anyone expects 100% accurate depiction of a medieval society.



The difference, it seems to me - and I think this may be at least in part what @Hussar has in mind - that fictions about dragons and fireballs probably don't serve an ideological or legitimation function. Whereas romanticised fictions about what is socially possible can do so.

That's not a reason to have no fantasy worlds. But I think it is a reason to be fairly self-conscious about the fact that they are imaginary and not really possible. And to bring this back to this thread, I think if FRPGers are similarly self-conscious when they approach Tekumel, then it is unlikely to lead them towards National Socialism.


----------



## Hussar

Remember, this whole sidebar came about as a point about wargames and how we tend to elide the ickier parts of those as well.  My point was that fantasy as a genre has a very large blind spot when it comes to the setting.  

Again, @Crimson Longinus - we live at a time when we spent centuries fighting for the rights that we have.  The right to self determination, various human rights, a pretty long shopping list of rights and freedoms that have never really existed (certainly not for the overwhelming majority of the population) in history.  

Have you ever forced a PC to marry?  After all, that wasn't terribly unheard of in lots of societies.  Stripped a PC of all possessions simply by decree?  Executed a PC for hunting deer in the wrong place?  On and on and on.  History is a very, very bad place.  Fantasy as a genre romanticizes unbelievable inhumanity.  

But, my point is, I've never heard of a campaign where the PC's are elected by popular vote to become leaders of the community.  Instead, it's nothing but despotic tyrants and warlords.  "Oh, but, he's a good king or a just knight!"  As @Permerton put it very perfectly:



			
				@Pemerton said:
			
		

> But in typical FRPG worlds we posit peasant societies with romanticised versions of their social hierarchies (noble knights, benevolent kings and prelates, etc) without slavery, where the legitimation frameworks and economics systems value individuals, and seem to permit free choice of occupation, etc. And to the extent that anything more "feudal" is mentioned, we just pretend that it won't make people suffer ie we just ignore the implications of unfree labour, extractive hierarchies, dependence upon natural conditions for sufficient food supply, etc. In this respect we follow soundly in the footsteps of JRRT, the Arthurian storytellers, certain romanticised conceptions of American frontier yeoman democracy, etc. But there is a tendency to ignore that these imaginary worlds are at least as unrealistic and impossible as spells and dragons!


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

I'm going to put up a longer thread about this later, but it is fascinating how myopic these conversations can be.

Yes, the modern world has moved far beyond MONARCHIES. Um .... yeah .... not so much.

And my goodness, who in the modern world has ever heard of an arranged marriage? That would be unthinkable ... truly, but it still persist in many cultures.

You know what would be awful? If property rights weren't protected, and some autocrat of dictator just took your property. Can't imagine that ever happening anywhere today ... oh, um, never mind.

I say this not to be snarky (despite appearances) but simply to point out that the issue isn't really with ridiculous fantasy settings.


----------



## Zubatcarteira

You can definitely try to marry off a PC against their will, or steal all their property, or try to force them into slavery, the issue is that they're highly armed individuals who'll definitely murder anyone who tries unless they're completely outmatched. Reading some discussions about it, a lot of DMs really dislike players messing with the law of the world they built, so fighting the local lord means an army of guards converging on you, the whole kingdom branding you as an outlaw, and being kicked out from society at large. 

If the DM does show the local government being awful, and not being so powerful that they're unbeatable, I think fighting them would be a pretty normal response, from what I've seen. If they're stronger than the dark lord, then why bother?


----------



## Alzrius

Zubatcarteira said:


> You can definitely try to marry off a PC against their will, or steal all their property, or try to force them into slavery, the issue is that they're highly armed individuals who'll definitely murder anyone who tries unless they're completely outmatched.



The issue with this, as with so many things (which I say with reference to the idea that the campaign will eventually move from looting dungeons to domain management) is that you have to present these things as being a springboard to new opportunities for adventure. A different _kind_ of adventure, perhaps; and you definitely want to make sure that your players are interested in the style of adventures that you're presenting, but at the end of the day those sorts of events should be grist for the adventuring mill, and that should be made clear to the players so that they don't think that it's just you pulling a power-trip on them.


----------



## Faolyn

pemerton said:


> But in typical FRPG worlds we posit peasant societies with romanticised versions of their social hierarchies (noble knights, benevolent kings and prelates, etc) without slavery, where the legitimation frameworks and economics systems value individuals, and seem to permit free choice of occupation, etc. And to the extent that anything more "feudal" is mentioned, we just pretend that it won't make people suffer ie we just ignore the implications of unfree labour, extractive hierarchies, dependence upon natural conditions for sufficient food supply, etc. In this respect we follow soundly in the footsteps of JRRT, the Arthurian storytellers, certain romanticised conceptions of American frontier yeoman democracy, etc. But there is a tendency to *ignore that these imaginary worlds are at least as unrealistic and impossible as spells and dragons!*



So, I'm _not _a political scholar or historian, _but_, I think that the impossibility is built in to the game. You really _can't _have a realistic feudal society in a setting with spells and dragons.

Take monsters. You have all your menfolk go off to fight the monsters, no more menfolk. Do this enough time and you start getting women's rights as they have to step up and take over industries that the men can no longer do. Take spells and magic items. If your peasants starting getting access to them, you'll eventually start getting revolutions and peasant's rights, since the peasants will have access to more than just pitchforks and torches. You have non-human races that are more egalitarian in nature, then at least some humans will eventually start copying a few ideas off of them. And that's not even considering how magic will make life easier via agricultural and healing magic.

If you try to make a D&D setting that is strictly medieval in tone, then the only way you can do so is by the DM saying "no, you can't do these things because it would wreck the flavor." And that's just unfun all around.


----------



## Faolyn

Snarf Zagyg said:


> And my goodness, who in the modern world has ever heard of an arranged marriage? That would be unthinkable ... truly, but it still persist in many cultures.



Heck, there was a person in my college gaming group who eventually had to have one.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Faolyn said:


> Heck, there was a person in my college gaming group who eventually had to have one.




It is tragically more common than many people realize.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

I think it might be the best to take the non-Tekumel/Barker related discussion to Snarf's fantasy world building thread inspired by the tangents here.


----------



## pemerton

Faolyn said:


> So, I'm _not _a political scholar or historian, _but_, I think that the impossibility is built in to the game. You really _can't _have a realistic feudal society in a setting with spells and dragons.
> 
> Take monsters. You have all your menfolk go off to fight the monsters, no more menfolk. Do this enough time and you start getting women's rights as they have to step up and take over industries that the men can no longer do. Take spells and magic items. If your peasants starting getting access to them, you'll eventually start getting revolutions and peasant's rights, since the peasants will have access to more than just pitchforks and torches. You have non-human races that are more egalitarian in nature, then at least some humans will eventually start copying a few ideas off of them. And that's not even considering how magic will make life easier via agricultural and healing magic.
> 
> If you try to make a D&D setting that is strictly medieval in tone, then the only way you can do so is by the DM saying "no, you can't do these things because it would wreck the flavor." And that's just unfun all around.



I'm not advocating for "realistic" fantasy worlds. I'm pointing out that FRPGers tend to take for granted that their fantasy worlds will be impossible in a way that reactionaries would love. But not all FRPGers therefore take themselves to be advocates of reaction or being seduced into reactionary world views.

And I don't see why Tekumel would be any different in this respect, even if its author was radically right wing.


----------



## pemerton

Snarf Zagyg said:


> It is tragically more common than many people realize.



Why do you say that arranged marriages are tragic?


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

pemerton said:


> Why do you say that arranged marriages are tragic?




Because I believe in personal autonomy and consent. YMMV.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Because I believe in personal autonomy and consent. YMMV.



It's complicated.
Around half of all marriages are arranged.
Arranged marriage is not synonymous with forced marriage. In India, 93% of marriages are arranged; only 6% are forced.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Sepulchrave II said:


> It's complicated.
> Around half of all marriages are arranged.
> Arranged marriage is not synonymous with forced marriage. In India, 93% of marriages are arranged; only 6% are forced.




I understand the complications; however, I was asked the question and I answered. Without getting political, I will reiterate that-

1. I agree with you that arranged marriages are far more common than many people realize; and

2. I believe that arranged marriages vitiate consent and violate personal autonomy; I would further state that arranged marriages tend to be be a product of patriarchal societies that value certain things I do not appreciate, that arranged marriages privilege cisgender relationships over the preferences of individuals, and that arranged marriages tend to reify certain power structures within a family unit that might correlate strongly to violence (while also not allowing appropriate escape routes).


But again, my opinion only. YMMV.


----------



## MGibster

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Because I believe in personal autonomy and consent. YMMV.



First your hatred of Bards and now this?  You monster!


----------



## Sepulchrave II

Snarf Zagyg said:


> I believe that arranged marriages vitiate consent and violate personal autonomy;




Unfortunately, many things do; being raised Southern Baptist, having your genitals mutilated as an infant, forcibly being sent to military school. All tragic. All the product of culture.



Snarf Zagyg said:


> I would further state that arranged marriages tend to be be a product of patriarchal societies that value certain things I do not appreciate, that arranged marriages privilege cisgender relationships over the preferences of individuals, and that arranged marriages tend to reify certain power structures within a family unit that might correlate strongly to violence (while also not allowing appropriate escape routes).




I don't disagree. But the modern Western expectation of marriage is a relatively recent phenomenon. And arguably more deluded.


----------



## Hussar

Crimson Longinus said:


> I think it might be the best to take the non-Tekumel/Barker related discussion to Snarf's fantasy world building thread inspired by the tangents here.



Yes, I agree.  I'm really sorry for derailing this.  It was never my intent and I stepped on a bit of a rhetorical landmine there and very much did not help to defuse things.  My total bad.


----------



## Fifth Element

Sepulchrave II said:


> Unfortunately, many things do; being raised Southern Baptist, having your genitals mutilated as an infant, forcibly being sent to military school. All tragic. All the product of culture.



Yes, those also violate consent and autonomy. Did anyone suggest arranged marriage was the only thing to do so?


----------



## Umbran

Sepulchrave II said:


> Unfortunately, many things do; being raised Southern Baptist




*Mod Note:*
In the future, please keep your commentary on real-world religion to yourself, as we have a rule against it here.  Thanks.


----------



## Smackpixi

Hussar said:


> eally? Which bonds or backgrounds talk about creating equitable laws? Or democratic selection of leaders? Or personal rights or freedoms for all beings? Property rights? Legal rights like innocent until proven guilty? Worker protections? Religious freedom?



None of them do.  But, “I stood up to a tyrant’s agents” “everyone should be free to pursue his or her livelihood” or “ I fight for those who cannot fight for themselves” are just a few traits of a revolutionary, yeah?  You’re talking about ends, ends will be player specific but there’s dozens of options for a revolutionary inclined PC, so many that I think it’s a standard option.  In my game I have to tamp down these ambitions cause I’m not prepared to run such a game in the current campaign, “I just dunno what happens if you try to kill Dagult Neverember but please just don’t cause I don’t have the time to figure that out.”

I’m working toward providing options for that behavior in our next campaign now that I know what they want to be doing though.

it’s all player specific.  I’m just of the suspicion that there’s lots of players who would like to be the heros that remake their fantasy world into a workers paradise…or some variation on that.


----------



## Hussar

Smackpixi said:


> None of them do.  But, “I stood up to a tyrant’s agents” “everyone should be free to pursue his or her livelihood” or “ I fight for those who cannot fight for themselves” are just a few traits of a revolutionary, yeah?  You’re talking about ends, ends will be player specific but there’s dozens of options for a revolutionary inclined PC, so many that I think it’s a standard option.  In my game I have to tamp down these ambitions cause I’m not prepared to run such a game in the current campaign, “I just dunno what happens if you try to kill Dagult Neverember but please just don’t cause I don’t have the time to figure that out.”
> 
> I’m working toward providing options for that behavior in our next campaign now that I know what they want to be doing though.
> 
> it’s all player specific.  I’m just of the suspicion that there’s lots of players who would like to be the heros that remake their fantasy world into a workers paradise…or some variation on that.



But, think about what you're saying here - all these ends and goals mean that the initial setup is never a "worker's paradise".  The settings are never anything other than imperialistic, despotic tyrannies.  Which we completely lampshade.  

I mean, stop and think about the set up of Waterdeep.  The Masked Lords?  Anonymous rulers chosen in secret by other secret lords ruling the largest city state in the Sword Coast?  It's a nightmare.  It works because it's fantasy and we accept it because it sounds kinda cool.  But, yikes, imagine an actual city state ruled like that.  

We all do it.  I do and so do you.  It's the same reason people like to play Grand Theft Auto despite the horrific implications.  Or, heck, I LOVE 4x games.  I'm currently diving back into Stellaris.  Loving the heck out of it.

DOesn't change the fact that what I'm doing is horrific though when you stop and think about it.  That big old fourth X - Exterminate - isn't there for the heck of it.


----------



## pemerton

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Because I believe in personal autonomy and consent. YMMV.



You seem to be equating arranged marriages with forced marriages. That seems like a contentious equation.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

pemerton said:


> You seem to be equating arranged marriages with forced marriages. That seems like a contentious equation.




….not really. This isn’t the forum or the thread for this conversation, but societies with a culturual recognition of arranged marriages (which, again, are patriarchal and regressive and largely unfriendly to the rights of people I care about) tend to have mechanisms … both hard and soft … to “encourage” them. It’s part and parcel of a bundle of norms - and, by the way, societies with arranged marriages are more likely to have “forced marriages,” either through law, violence, or threat of ostracism.

Again, this is my opinion, YMMV, but as a general rule if you are supportive of women’s rights, LGBTQA+ rights … or even human rights, you tend to be against arranged marriages as a cultural institution. if you think that’s wrong …instead of replying to me, why don’t you silently list, to yourself, the societies that have arranged marriages that prioritize the values that I have enumerated.


----------



## Myrdin Potter

I really don’t understand the whole discussion on “lampshading” in context of this thread.

Tekumel has built in many institutions and situations that are “bad” (slavery, explicit destruction done to local races by humans when they arrived). It also is pretty diverse in terms of human society and, in general, pretty sexually liberal.

It is a setting. Looking through the lens of the recent allegations (which seem to be true), maybe some things look worse than before it was known, but there really are no blatantly obvious Nazi images or beliefs in it.


----------



## Umbran

Hussar said:


> But, think about what you're saying here - all these ends and goals mean that the initial setup is never a "worker's paradise".  The settings are never anything other than imperialistic, despotic tyrannies.  Which we completely lampshade.




So.. nothing in between? It has to either be a worker's paradise, or an imperialistic, despotic tyranny?


----------



## Mallus

Myrdin Potter said:


> It is a setting. Looking through the lens of the recent allegations (which seem to be true), maybe some things look worse than before it was known, but there really are no blatantly obvious Nazi images or beliefs in it.



My first-hand experiences with Tekumel are limited to two novels Barker wrote, but in the first the protagonist is a human scholar raised by mantis-people. It didn't strike me as particularly pro-National Socialism.


----------



## pemerton

MGibster said:


> I certainly wouldn't care to live under a feudalistic system (however we define it), I'm hard pressed to categorize it among the ranks of as evil as it gets.  Depending on the time period and the kingdom, even being a serf wasn't necessarily a miserable existence.





MGibster said:


> I would not be happy to suddenly be transported back to 19th century America, 13th century England, or 8th century BCE Greece.  I'm no so keen on looking at the past through rose colored glasses, but at the same time I think it's a mistake to look at it as a crummy place where misery abounded (though that happened sometimes).  They were human beings and they had joy, they had fun





QuentinGeorge said:


> Nothing in history compares to the industrial age of slaughter (ie the 19th-20th century) as modern technology made murder and misery so much more efficient.





Snarf Zagyg said:


> It is tragically more common than many people realize.



I think "tragedy" is a strong word to describe the lives of 100s of millions of people who are living their lives as human beings, albeit in non-liberal cultural forms.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

pemerton said:


> I think "tragedy" is a strong word to describe the lives of 100s of millions of people who are living their lives as human beings, albeit in non-liberal cultural forms.




“…tragically more common than many people realize.”

It is an open exercise….

1. Whether this (equating tragically more common with “tragedy”) is an accurate statement; and

2. Whether the individual I am responding to reflected on what I wrote when I noted that arranged marrriages, and the societies that produce them, inflict harm on people I care about.


----------



## Fifth Element

.


----------



## Hussar

Umbran said:


> So.. nothing in between? It has to either be a worker's paradise, or an imperialistic, despotic tyranny?




What setting isn’t a despotic, imperialistic tyranny?


----------



## Umbran

Hussar said:


> What setting isn’t a despotic, imperialistic tyranny?




That's dodging the question.

Edit to add: But, to answer your question - the default setting of _Coyote & Crow_ isn't a despotic, imperialistic tyranny. Imperialism as we experienced it was cut off by world events, and didn't happen in that world.


----------



## Hussar

Umbran said:


> That's dodging the question.
> 
> Edit to add: But, to answer your question - the default setting of _Coyote & Crow_ isn't a despotic, imperialistic tyranny. Imperialism as we experienced it was cut off by world events, and didn't happen in that world.




Sorry. I thought we were talking about DnD. 

And it’s dodging nothing. If 99% of the settings for DnD are despotic tyrannies, it’s not really unfair to call that out.


----------



## Faolyn

Hussar said:


> Sorry. I thought we were talking about DnD.
> 
> And it’s dodging nothing. If 99% of the settings for DnD are despotic tyrannies, it’s not really unfair to call that out.



Are you talking homebrew or official? Because I don't recall the Realms in general as being a despotic tyranny (there _are _despotic tyrannies in the Realms, but they don't seem to be the norm), Eberron doesn't have many despotic tyrannies either (I can only think of Droaam). I don't know all that much about Greyhawk; I know there are despotic tyrannies there, but there's also the _Free City _of Greyhawk. I don't know much about Krynn, either, but I would imagine that the Good side of the conflict is neither despotic nor tyrannical. Only Ravenloft seems to rely heavily on evil governments--and even there (at least in 3x and before) not every government was actually evil. And my homebrew world doesn't have _any_, and is in fact set up so that such a thing is impossible (the world, or at least this part of it, actively fights against large settlements). 

So where is this 99% coming from?


----------



## Hussar

Faolyn said:


> Are you talking homebrew or official? Because I don't recall the Realms in general as being a despotic tyranny (there _are _despotic tyrannies in the Realms, but they don't seem to be the norm), Eberron doesn't have many despotic tyrannies either (I can only think of Droaam). I don't know all that much about Greyhawk; I know there are despotic tyrannies there, but there's also the _Free City _of Greyhawk. I don't know much about Krynn, either, but I would imagine that the Good side of the conflict is neither despotic nor tyrannical. Only Ravenloft seems to rely heavily on evil governments--and even there (at least in 3x and before) not every government was actually evil. And my homebrew world doesn't have _any_, and is in fact set up so that such a thing is impossible (the world, or at least this part of it, actively fights against large settlements).
> 
> So where is this 99% coming from?



I did just mention Waterdeep.  Masked lords, chosen in secret, whose identity is kept from the public, rule the city state without any oversight. 

Sounds like a despotic tyranny to me.

The Free City of Greyhawk absolutely IS a despotic tyranny.  Here's the Wiki description:



> Greyhawk's Directing Oligarchy elects one of its own to as Lord Mayor, who serves as the head of state in addition to his directorial duties. The current Lord Mayor, Nerof Gasgal, has held office since 571 CY. The Lord Mayor heads both the Directing Oligarchy and the Council of Mayors and Manorial Lords. The chief of state also officially heads the military, though actual command is most often left to the Captain General of the Watch.




In what way is that not a despotic tyranny?  Or are we going down the nit picking road that I'm not using exactly the right word to describe this? 

My point being, these are horrifying governments.  The kind of thing we've spent centuries fighting.  And that fact is entirely lampshaded.  Of course it is.  It wouldn't be a fun game otherwise.  But, we should still recognize what's going on here - the romanticization of societies that were incredibly unjust and frankly horrifying in so many ways.

------

Although I think maybe where we're not communicating that well is that you are presuming that only evil governments are despotic or tyrannical.  I am not.  A lawful good paladin King (note, not constitutional monarch), pure and noble of heart, who has not a single speck of evil in his soul is still a tyrannical despot.


----------



## Myrdin Potter

Hussar said:


> I did just mention Waterdeep.  Masked lords, chosen in secret, whose identity is kept from the public, rule the city state without any oversight.
> 
> Sounds like a despotic tyranny to me.
> 
> The Free City of Greyhawk absolutely IS a despotic tyranny.  Here's the Wiki description:
> 
> 
> 
> In what way is that not a despotic tyranny?  Or are we going down the nit picking road that I'm not using exactly the right word to describe this?
> 
> My point being, these are horrifying governments.  The kind of thing we've spent centuries fighting.  And that fact is entirely lampshaded.  Of course it is.  It wouldn't be a fun game otherwise.  But, we should still recognize what's going on here - the romanticization of societies that were incredibly unjust and frankly horrifying in so many ways.
> 
> ------
> 
> Although I think maybe where we're not communicating that well is that you are presuming that only evil governments are despotic or tyrannical.  I am not.  A lawful good paladin King (note, not constitutional monarch), pure and noble of heart, who has not a single speck of evil in his soul is still a tyrannical despot.



You keep saying we fought and making sweeping statements.

Who is “we”?

What is not a not a “despotic tyranny”? Most of the good aligned political entities in the default D&D settings are well connected to the people and the government serves the people pretty well.

Handwaving and complaining about nitpicking is dodging the questions you keep getting.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

Faolyn said:


> Are you talking homebrew or official? Because I don't recall the Realms in general as being a despotic tyranny (there _are _despotic tyrannies in the Realms, but they don't seem to be the norm), Eberron doesn't have many despotic tyrannies either (I can only think of Droaam). I don't know all that much about Greyhawk; I know there are despotic tyrannies there, but there's also the _Free City _of Greyhawk. I don't know much about Krynn, either, but I would imagine that the Good side of the conflict is neither despotic nor tyrannical. Only Ravenloft seems to rely heavily on evil governments--and even there (at least in 3x and before) not every government was actually evil. And my homebrew world doesn't have _any_, and is in fact set up so that such a thing is impossible (the world, or at least this part of it, actively fights against large settlements).
> 
> So where is this 99% coming from?




I addressed this in the other thread I started, but Greyhawk contains a staggering number of different government types, including elected governments such as the Yeomanry (a kind of Republic) and Hightown.


----------



## darjr

What is the government of Iuz?


----------



## J.Quondam

darjr said:


> What is the government of Iuz?



Cryptobrocracy--
Oh wait, I thought you said government of "lulz". My bad.


----------



## darjr

J.Quondam said:


> Cryptobrocracy--
> Oh wait, I thought you said government of "lulz". My bad.



Ooohhhh. I’m going to form one of those!

who’s with me?!

Oh.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

J.Quondam said:


> Cryptobrocracy--
> Oh wait, I thought you said government of "lulz". My bad.




Once Iuz has conquered Greyhawk, it will be NFTs forever! Do you think the Circle of Eight can defeat Iuz's BLOCKCHAIN?


----------



## Parmandur

darjr said:


> What is the government of Iuz?



Direct theocracy.


----------



## billd91

darjr said:


> What is the government of Iuz?



That actually *would* be despotism since Iuz has pretty much absolute power with no checks or any restrictions by law. The Free City of Greyhawk is not really an example of despotism since nobody wields absolute power and various power groups in the city do need to be appeased/mollified. Sneaky and devious politics and deals in the room where it happens (the room where it happens, the room where it happens) doesn't indicate it's a despotic government - just one of any number of other forms of government that has a significant degree of corruption.


----------



## John Dallman

Pretty well all my paying and running of D&D-family games has been in homebrew worlds, some of them very long-standing. There's been a distinct shortage of oppressive governments, mostly on the grounds that there tend to be people around with an amazing capacity for violence, wielding both holy and arcane powers, uninterested in taking up government themselves, but very liable to side with oppressed populations.


----------



## Faolyn

Hussar said:


> In what way is that not a despotic tyranny?  Or are we going down the nit picking road that I'm not using exactly the right word to describe this?



It's not nitpicking if you're going for only the most technical definitions of the word and over-applying it. Being a tyrannical despot suggests oppressive rule, few or no rights, threats or actuality of violence, and rule by fear.

From the _most technical definitions, _where you strip the words down to their very earliest definitions, you're sort of right--although even then, only sort of, because tyrannical despot also means a _single_ leader, and Waterdeep has a Council, and Greyhawk holds public elections for at least some of their offices, and apparently has legislative, judicial, and executive branches where the rulers have limited areas where they have power. 

When 99% of gamers hear tyrannical despot, they're going to think something like Falkovnia (especially pre-5e) where the citizens live in constant fear of being extorted, enslaved, tortured, raped, or killed for any reason at all by the ruler or their goons. They're _not _going to be thinking a bright, open, clean city where everyone has rights and few fears. So it's very disingenuous to say that 99% of D&D cities are tyrannies ruled by despots.


----------



## Faolyn

Snarf Zagyg said:


> I addressed this in the other thread I started, but Greyhawk contains a staggering number of different government types, including elected governments such as the Yeomanry (a kind of Republic) and Hightown.



Not being a fan of Greyhawk (in that I never got into it, not that I dislike it), I had to look it up for my response, and was somewhat surprised to see that the city actually had an elected public council. I probably shouldn't have been, since I know that Greyhawk was based on... Chicago? Some other American city? something like that.


----------



## darjr

Chicago


----------



## Cordwainer Fish

darjr said:


> Chicago



Explains all the Vote for Daley posters.


----------



## darjr

Another Greyhawk-Chicago Correspondence
					

Yes, it's widely known that Gary Gygax explicitly said that the city of Greyhawk in his original campaign was located on an altered map of N...




					rolesrules.blogspot.com
				




I seem to recall that Castle Greyhawk was supposed to be Lake Geneva. However I can’t find a reference.


----------



## pemerton

Snarf Zagyg said:


> Whether the individual I am responding to reflected on what I wrote when I noted that arranged marrriages, and the societies that produce them, inflict harm on people I care about.



There are people I care about whose agency you are ignoring and/or questioning.

There are people I care about who get harmed by liberal cultural forms, day-in day-out.

I think that's a reason to avoid generalisations about the cultural forms of hundreds of millions of people.


----------



## pemerton

Fifth Element said:


> I'm going to go with (1) no and (2) probably not.



(2) is a cheap shot, and you're a better person than that.


----------



## pemerton

Faolyn said:


> the _Free City _of Greyhawk



I think it counts as a despotic tyranny by @Hussar's standards. More technically it's an oligarchy.

The "free" means (roughly) "free of the feudal structures that surround it", not "conferring political freedom on those who live in it".


----------



## pemerton

Myrdin Potter said:


> You keep saying we fought and making sweeping statements.
> 
> Who is “we”?



I think @Hussar is referring to the mainstream political currents in liberal democratic states.



Myrdin Potter said:


> What is not a not a “despotic tyranny”? Most of the good aligned political entities in the default D&D settings are well connected to the people and the government serves the people pretty well.



I think @Hussar's claim rests on the premise that, in real life, the number of governments which are absolute monarchies, feudal or otherwise controlled by non-democratic and semi-constitutional monarchies, plutocratic oligarchies, or similar; _and_ are benevolent; is modest. And that the mainstream political currents in liberal democratic states assert a non-accidental connection between (moderately) benevolent government and (a meaningful degree of) popular government by way of periodic elections, robust entitlements to participate in the political process, strong legal constraints around the conduct of public officials, etc.

Those mainstream political currents obviously can be questioned. Presumably the author who is the topic of this thread questioned them, but of course that's not the only way in which one might raise questions.

Hussar will correct me if I'm misunderstanding him, but my summary take on his claim is this: an absolute monarchy, or a system of aristocratic and monarchical government modelled loosely on mediaeval and early modern England or Japan, doesn't cease to be undemocratic and objectionable just because you stick the "LG" label onto some key ruling figures. I think that sticking on that label would be exactly an instance of the "lampshading" he has referred to.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

I'd like to add "lampshading" on the list of terms that are being used wrong...

Also this setting tangent has barely anything to do with the topic, and a new thread was spun for it, so I don't understand why people can't take the discussion there. Though I'm not sure if defending arranged marriages has much to do with the topic either, besides being questionable.


----------



## Fifth Element

pemerton said:


> (2) is a cheap shot, and you're a better person than that.



I disagree, and making it personal isn't cool, but I deleted the post.


----------



## Hussar

pemerton said:


> Hussar will correct me if I'm misunderstanding him, but my summary take on his claim is this: an absolute monarchy, or a system of aristocratic and monarchical government modelled loosely on mediaeval and early modern England or Japan, doesn't cease to be undemocratic and objectionable just because you stick the "LG" label onto some key ruling figures. I think that sticking on that label would be exactly an instance of the "lampshading" he has referred to.



Yup. That's it in a nutshell.  Like I said upthread, we can argue about the perfectly correct description of the form of government, fair enough, but, that's not really my point.  Pemerton has very nicely outlined exactly what I meant.

And, yes, Crimson Longinus is entirely right that this is the wrong thread for this.  Only problem is, I cannot see the linked thread because of Ignore policies.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

pemerton said:


> There are people I care about whose agency you are ignoring and/or questioning.
> 
> There are people I care about who get harmed by liberal cultural forms, day-in day-out.
> 
> I think that's a reason to avoid generalisations about the cultural forms of hundreds of millions of people.



I think there is a danger of straying too far into the political sphere with this thread; I freely admit that some of my comments have been pointlessly _whataboutist_ and inflammatory - for that, I apologize; I was tired and irritable. An explanation, not an excuse.

My own experience of arranged marriage has been in the context of relatively affluent, college-educated, professional Hindus in London and Birmingham - which may skew my perception of the broader phenomenon. Or not - which is to say that the _problems_ which have been identified as associated with arranged marriage, are not _caused_ by arranged marriage, but rather, symptomatic of issues pertaining to the broader cultural systems in which arranged marriage prevails.

My - wholly subjective and anecdotal, of course - experience of the phenomenon of arranged marriage has been:

1) (Young) couples, who seem (to me) considerably more self-aware than their "average" Anglo- counterparts, and endowed with good critical thinking skills and a sense of social responsibility who enter into:

2) A social contract in which needs and resources are allied for the purpose of mutual support (and child-rearing), with the understanding that such an alliance will not be perfect, will require considerable work, and will act as a liflelong means of growth and learning, and who willingly appeal to:

3) Their parents, in conjunction with a matchmaker, vetting a suitable spouse based on similar social status, comparable education, shared interests, a shared social milieu, and a genuine desire to secure the happiness of their offspring. This ceding of authority by the prospective bride or groom is not simply an acquiescence to power; it is often - surely, not always, but often - a recognition that a rational parent is better positioned to make a good choice regarding a prospective partner than:

4) An inexperienced youth, who, experiencing limerance, is driven by their loins into making bad choices.

Of course, I understand that we - in the "West" - exalt the notion of self-determination in romantic matters, and resist any notion that our autonomy be compromised. I, for one, would certainly rail against any such imposition; I demand freedom to make my own choices and suffer the consequences of my own bad mistakes (I've made a few).

I think that folding in LGBTQIA+ issues into the broader question of arranged marriage - arranged marriage as an ideal, divorced from any specific cultural context - sort of misses the point. Which is to say that the marginalization of Queer people which occurs in cultures where arranged marriage prevails, is, again, a function of broader social norms and expectations. India is the most obvious example, insofar as gay marriage (or civil union) is not recognized, despite numerous divergent laws regarding marriage depending on religion, because of heteronormative assumptions in law and tradition. _But this is changing_ - India isn't too far behind Western democracies in this regard.

Which leaves open a question - is there a future for arranged gay marriages in India? Well, yes:

GROOM SEEKING GROOM: THE CASE FOR GAY ARRANGED MARRIAGE IN MODERN INDIA
In India, even gay people want an arranged marriage
Old custom, new couples: Gay Indians are having arranged marriages
Arranged Gay Marriage Bureau: helping homosexuals find love and marriage
Indian marriage site Shaadi.com to start matchmaking LGBT+ couples – despite same-sex wedding ban

Like I say, it's complicated.


----------



## pemerton

Sepulchrave II said:


> I think there is a danger of straying too far into the political sphere with this thread



Fair point. 

My view, based in part on personal experiences and in part on scholarly experiences, is that rational, fully agential people can have good reasons to subordinate personal desires in romantic matters to other imperatives, typically involving family, language, "culture" etc.

Another idea I have, which I think is relevant: free choice of occupation in a competitive labour market leaves some people stranded, alienated and dissatisfied with their lives. Sometimes cold or hungry too. That doesn't mean I would rather live in a guild system: those have their own issues, and maybe they're worse taken as a whole; and in any event I'm stuck with what I've got.

I just think it's a reason to go less than full throttle in judging various cultural forms.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

pemerton said:


> There are people I care about whose agency you are ignoring and/or questioning.
> 
> There are people I care about who get harmed by *liberal cultural forms*, day-in day-out.
> 
> I think that's a reason to avoid generalisations about the cultural forms of hundreds of millions of people.




For whatever reason, you choose to keep continuing this fight despite my repeated attempts to provide you an off-ramp. I will reiterate that you asked this question of me, and you have repeatedly ignored the fact that I have said that (1) this topic is grossly inappropriate for this forum, and (2) your repreated insistence on the value of enforcing these retrograde cultural norms is incredibly demeaning to the values I care about, and the people I know.

I never thought I would have to defend the ability of people to choose who they wish to be with, but here we are. I think that your position is hurtful, ignorant of the struggles of so many, and your distate for *liberal cultural forms* is noted.

But you are correct- I do not subscribe to those values that encourage bride burning. That force transgender and gay youth into marriages of unhappiness. And that keep people shackled in partnerships that allow domestic violence.

But you do you. Again, didn't think that a dislike of arranged and forced marriages was a particularly wild and crazy liberal idea.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

*Mod Note:*

Howzabout a return to our regularly scheduled concerns about identified issues in the writings of game/fiction authors?


----------



## Smackpixi

Hussar said:


> My point being, these are horrifying governments. The kind of thing we've spent centuries fighting. And that fact is entirely lampshaded. Of course it is. It wouldn't be a fun game otherwise. But, we should still recognize what's going on here - the romanticization of societies that were incredibly unjust and frankly horrifying in so many ways.



I guess, maybe I’m alone here, but I don’t hide the forms of government in D&D settings.  A ”benovelent” monarch who disappears opponents to their rule is pretty common and I portray as such.  Do other people portray absolute monarchs as sunshine and rainbows and romanticize them? CRPGs often do, think Nintendo, but I never run any DND government as “good” or nice…I mean absolute hereditary monarchies are not nice.  Thought that was obvious.  Perhaps I misunderstood you earlier, cause I didn’t realize people were running around acting like the default political systems are favorable to the people In it.  Most charitable I’ve ever been in my descriptions is probably “not antagonistic” to common people.


----------



## Smackpixi

Feels like a good survey question someone that didn’t make a s-post and get on a bunch of ignore lists two weeks ago should ask.  Would be curious how people portray d&d governments.


----------



## Hussar

Smackpixi said:


> Feels like a good survey question someone that didn’t make a s-post and get on a bunch of ignore lists two weeks ago should ask.  Would be curious how people portray d&d governments.



Hey, I'm not on that many ignore lists.    Just a couple.  I know because when I use my phone to read En-World, the folks that have me on ignore show up, but don't show up on my PC.  So, I know who has me on ignore.  

But, yeah, it's pretty common in RPG's too.  Like you say, absolute monarchies are generally not nice.  But, we have things like the Masked Lords in Waterdeep where it's just accepted and generally seen as a good thing.  D&D is chock a block with "good kings" as is fantasy as a genre.

It is nice though that we are understanding each other.


----------



## Voadam

Hussar said:


> Like you say, absolute monarchies are generally not nice. But, we have things like the Masked Lords in Waterdeep where it's just accepted and generally seen as a good thing.



I am not sure how you are defining absolute monarchy here. The lords of Waterdep are a ruling council of lords with about 20 members, and no monarchy, absolute or otherwise. The open lord is not the absolute ruler.

I think for the most part D&D rulers are just seen as a thing. More just a neutral thing as far as the position, that depends on the individual government or ruler for whether it is considered a good thing or a bad thing. I don't really see a difference in general perception for whether we are talking a king or a lord or a council or a mayor or or an emperor or a viking Thing. Evil ones are evil, oppressive ones are oppressive, good rulers are good. If they don't intrude upon your consciousness that much you don't think about them one way or the other.


----------



## Hussar

Voadam said:


> I am not sure how you are defining absolute monarchy here. The lords of Waterdep are a ruling council of lords with about 20 members, and no monarchy, absolute or otherwise. The open lord is not the absolute ruler.
> 
> I think for the most part D&D rulers are just seen as a thing. More just a neutral thing as far as the position, that depends on the individual government or ruler for whether it is considered a good thing or a bad thing. I don't really see a difference in general perception for whether we are talking a king or a lord or a council or a mayor or or an emperor or a viking Thing. Evil ones are evil, oppressive ones are oppressive, good rulers are good. If they don't intrude upon your consciousness that much you don't think about them one way or the other.



Thus my point about lampshading.

Let's run with the thought that the good ruler is good.  Ok.  Now, is everyone under that ruler also good?  Because everything they do is ultimately his (or her) responsibility since all of their power derives directly from him.  Are all of their underlings also good?  So on and so forth.  Whether you are a "ruling council of lords" (Where exactly did they derive their title from anyway if there is no monarch above them?  Who made them lords?) or a single monarch, the buck stops with you.

It doesn't really matter what the exact form of government here is.  They're all autocratic dictatorships.  At best you could call them anti-democratic.  The populace has no rights, and any laws are made from decree.   IOW, a setting that makes places like North Korea look like a bastion of civil rights.  

But, it's all okay because the king is LG.  Hope his kid will be LG.  And his grandchildren.  And all the people they marry into the family and so on and so forth.


----------



## Faolyn

Hussar said:


> Thus my point about lampshading.
> 
> Let's run with the thought that the good ruler is good.  Ok.  Now, is everyone under that ruler also good?  Because everything they do is ultimately his (or her) responsibility since all of their power derives directly from him.  Are all of their underlings also good?  So on and so forth.  Whether you are a "ruling council of lords" (Where exactly did they derive their title from anyway if there is no monarch above them?  Who made them lords?) or a single monarch, the buck stops with you.
> 
> It doesn't really matter what the exact form of government here is.  They're all autocratic dictatorships.  At best you could call them anti-democratic.  The populace has no rights, and any laws are made from decree.   IOW, a setting that makes places like North Korea look like a bastion of civil rights.
> 
> But, it's all okay because the king is LG.  Hope his kid will be LG.  And his grandchildren.  And all the people they marry into the family and so on and so forth.



Generally speak, in D&Dland, _yes, _most of the people who work for a Good King, especially in a Good-aligned city or kingdom, will also be Good. Because Good, in traditional D&D, is more than just being a decent person--it's actively working towards goodness, and part of that is not allowing Evil minions. Remember that, until fairly recently (at least up through 3e), spells such as _detect evil _would in fact detect Joe Evildude as being evil, even if he wasn't actively evil or supernatural, unless Joe was actively being protected via magic, like _Nystul's undetectable alignment_. It wasn't actually hard to determine if your underlings were evil or not. And also don't forget that again until recently, it wasn't hard to have your alignment change if your employees committed acts contrary to it and you were aware of those acts and allowed them. A Good King wouldn't stay Good if they allowed Joe Evildude to work as the royal torturer.

And as several of us have pointed out, in most big D&D cities, especially those not labeled as Evil, the citizens _do _have rights and often _can _vote for at least some of their leadership and _aren't _subjected to cruel and unusual punishments. Those cities that _are _Evil are done so that the PCs can topple the Evilness.


----------



## Hussar

Faolyn said:


> Generally speak, in D&Dland, _yes, _most of the people who work for a Good King, especially in a Good-aligned city or kingdom, will also be Good. Because Good, in traditional D&D, is more than just being a decent person--it's actively working towards goodness, and part of that is not allowing Evil minions. Remember that, until fairly recently (at least up through 3e), spells such as _detect evil _would in fact detect Joe Evildude as being evil, even if he wasn't actively evil or supernatural, unless Joe was actively being protected via magic, like _Nystul's undetectable alignment_. It wasn't actually hard to determine if your underlings were evil or not. And also don't forget that again until recently, it wasn't hard to have your alignment change if your employees committed acts contrary to it and you were aware of those acts and allowed them. A Good King wouldn't stay Good if they allowed Joe Evildude to work as the royal torturer.
> 
> And as several of us have pointed out, in most big D&D cities, especially those not labeled as Evil, the citizens _do _have rights and often _can _vote for at least some of their leadership and _aren't _subjected to cruel and unusual punishments. Those cities that _are _Evil are done so that the PCs can topple the Evilness.



And you don't find any of that absolutely dystopian horrifying?  We're randomly testing citizens with detect evil - note that in 2e that doesn't actually work, but, that's a separate issue.  Paladins wandering around with Helms of Opposite Alignment to correct citizens and ensure maximum goodness.  

And, no, if your employee commits an evil act, that doesn't change your character's alignment.  I'm not even sure where you are getting that.

The point being, the citizens not being subjected to cruel and unusual punishments is part of the lampshading.  They absolutely are.  It's just that we elide over those facts.  And vote?  What setting has votes?  

My point is, only evil cities are places where evil things are done is part and parcel of the lampshading.  You just got through talking about state run mind control to enforce alignment.  Anyone who is evil, even if they haven't done anything evil, is called out as evil.  I wonder what happens to them then?  That's an nightmare that would scare Orwell.


----------



## QuentinGeorge

Hussar said:


> Thus my point about lampshading.
> 
> Let's run with the thought that the good ruler is good.  Ok.  Now, is everyone under that ruler also good?  Because everything they do is ultimately his (or her) responsibility since all of their power derives directly from him.  Are all of their underlings also good?  So on and so forth.  Whether you are a "ruling council of lords" (Where exactly did they derive their title from anyway if there is no monarch above them?  Who made them lords?) or a single monarch, the buck stops with you.
> 
> It doesn't really matter what the exact form of government here is.  They're all autocratic dictatorships.  At best you could call them anti-democratic.  The populace has no rights, and any laws are made from decree.   IOW, a setting that makes places like North Korea look like a bastion of civil rights.
> 
> But, it's all okay because the king is LG.  Hope his kid will be LG.  And his grandchildren.  And all the people they marry into the family and so on and so forth.



What on earth are you on about? Are you really not able to tell the difference an oligarchy (ie what Waterdeep looks to be) and an "autocratic dictatorship". Waterdeep is not a dictatorship (neither is the City of Greyhawk), since it doesn't have a dictator. It's not autocratic by definition (the state does not wield ultimate power over its citizens' lives and there is not one person in sole control of the state). You seem to be under the impression there are two forms of government, your favoured idea of what a modern democratic state is, and then everything else which you keep conflating a variety of different government forms into "tyranny" or "autocratic dictatorships" as if they are all identical and all the same. You've been pulled up multiple times yet you keep digging in. I genuinely don't understand it.

The only D&D examples that come close to autocratic tyranny are well established to be evil societies. (And let's leave aside once again that autocracy as a form of government is practically unworkable in any pre-modern society)


----------



## Hussar

I keep digging in because I simply do not care what you want to call it.  It really doesn't matter to me that you are distinguishing between an an oligarchy run by anonymous "lords" (again, since no one answered me the first time - how exactly does one become a Lord of Waterdeep when there is no one there to make you a lord?) with absolute authority and an "autocratic dictatorship".  The point being, these are absolutely horrible forms of government, prone to extreme abuse, and completely lacking in any sort of real freedom.

Think about it for just a second how horrifying the Masked Lords of Waterdeep would actually be as a system of government.  

But, yeah, it's so deeply ingrained into people's views of fantasy that we can have these horrifying forms of government and they're considered "good".  Yay, slap on a LG moniker and it doesn't matter how dystopian and evil a form of government is.  The system is good because the king is good.  Long may he reign and don't mind the massive abuses of power of anyone not in the ruling class.  They're just peasants after all and don't matter.


----------



## AnotherGuy

Hussar said:


> *But, yeah, it's so deeply ingrained into people's views of fantasy that we can have these horrifying forms of government and they're considered "good".*  Yay, slap on a LG moniker and it doesn't matter how dystopian and evil a form of government is.  The system is good because the king is good.  *Long may he reign and don't mind the massive abuses of power of anyone not in the ruling class.  They're just peasants after all and don't matter.*



D&D mimicking real life.


----------



## Hussar

I have to admit, I could not have asked for better examples of how far people will go to ignore the underlying icky stuff.  

By the way, I'm not saying I'm any different.  I mean, I play D&D too and I certainly don't play rebels who are out to overthrow the monarchy or spread democracy.  And the settings I create for homebrew games are every bit as deep in the shade of the lamp as anyone else's.  Like I said way upthread - lots of people like Grand Theft Auto or First Person Shooters.  I know I do.  

But, I just find it really funny when people will absolutely flip out over something like The Wall of the Faithless or The Cataclysm in Krynn but have no problems with a centuries old government of anonymous rulers governing a city without anything remotely approaching any sort of democratic principles.  Well... it's Good, so, it's no problems.


----------



## Voadam

Hussar said:


> Thus my point about lampshading.
> 
> Let's run with the thought that the good ruler is good.  Ok.  Now, is everyone under that ruler also good?  Because everything they do is ultimately his (or her) responsibility since all of their power derives directly from him.  Are all of their underlings also good?  So on and so forth.  Whether you are a "ruling council of lords" (Where exactly did they derive their title from anyway if there is no monarch above them?  Who made them lords?)



Lord in this case simply means person on the ruling council. They apparently come from all walks of life and are non-hereditary but chosen as a person of influence when there is an opening on the Council.



Hussar said:


> or a single monarch, the buck stops with you.



Or a democracy. In Ancient Athens the citizens democratically voted the death penalty for Socrates. The buck stops with that democratically enacted decree.

The buck stops with the rulers whether they are a monarch, an oligarchy, a republic, or a democracy.


Hussar said:


> It doesn't really matter what the exact form of government here is.



Right, to an extent. Rulers/ruling bodies make the rules.


Hussar said:


> They're all autocratic dictatorships.  At best you could call them anti-democratic.  The populace has no rights, and any laws are made from decree.   IOW, a setting that makes places like North Korea look like a bastion of civil rights.



I do not know what you mean by autocratic dictatorships here.

Governments vary in form greatly and in the level of power they exert and what rights they respect or not. Even monarchies can be absolute central powers or weak symbolic figureheads or a variety of places on a spectrum in many dimensions.

You are providing no differentiation between democracies and non-democracies here.

Rights are not dependent on whether you vote in leaders or not. Jumping from the buck stops with the rulers to they are all autocratic dictatorships worse than North Korea is a huge jump that you seem to feel is self evident but does not seem to follow.

What rights there are is going to depend on what the system in place is and the specific culture. This is often rarely defined for fantasy settings.

In a fantasy game with a mythic romantic pseudo-medieval flavor this can mean a variety of things from full modern society with an overlay of platemail and people with the title king or lord, or a full on historical medieval based society, or a different system entirely because of magic and gods or just because fantasy and the sky is not the limit. This can vary for things like Waterdeep, different DMs could run Waterdeep by the book and portray it as a mostly modern base with a light overlay, try to match historical guilds and nobility models for a coastal trade hub city state, or play it as a fantasy society different from both. There is a lot of ways to go with a D&D setting.

There is no must on how it must be in a fantasy RPG setting.


----------



## Mannahnin

Hussar said:


> Thus my point about lampshading.



I'm confused by your usage of "lampshading".  The way you're writing sounds like you're using it to mean "elide", "ignore" or "sweep under the rug", but the verb "lampshade" means "to intentionally call attention to the improbable, incongruent, or clichéd nature of an element or situation featured in a work of fiction within the work itself." Which is the opposite of hiding it.

I'm not aware of Greyhawk or the FR campaign materials making a lot of jokes about how implausible or absurd their systems of government are.  But maybe I'm missing something?


----------



## Mannahnin

Voadam said:


> Rights are not dependent on whether you vote in leaders or not. Jumping from the buck stops with the rulers to they are all autocratic dictatorships worse than North Korea is a huge jump that you seem to feel is self evident but does not seem to follow.
> 
> What rights there are is going to depend on what the system in place is and the specific culture. This is often rarely defined for fantasy settings.
> 
> In a fantasy game with a mythic romantic pseudo-medieval flavor this can mean a variety of things from full modern society with an overlay of platemail and people with the title king or lord, or a full on historical medieval based society, or a different system entirely because of magic and gods or just because fantasy and the sky is not the limit. This can vary for things like Waterdeep, different DMs could run Waterdeep by the book and portray it as a mostly modern base with a light overlay, try to match historical guilds and nobility models for a coastal trade hub city state, or play it as a fantasy society different from both. There is a lot of ways to go with a D&D setting.
> 
> There is no must on how it must be in a fantasy RPG setting.



Yup.  The way most D&D settings are depicted is with ordinary people having some degree of personal freedom and human rights.  

The extent to which this is accurate to pre-modern societies varies quite a bit.  Some definitely had very little, but many had broad "freeman" classes to which nobles and authorities were beholden to give at least some respect and protection. 

More brutal ones, like the period in Japan when a Samurai could get away with just randomly cutting a peasant's head off with no real repercussions, were, to my understanding, more the exception than the rule.


----------



## Faolyn

Hussar said:


> And you don't find any of that absolutely dystopian horrifying?  We're randomly testing citizens with detect evil - note that in 2e that doesn't actually work, but, that's a separate issue.  Paladins wandering around with Helms of Opposite Alignment to correct citizens and ensure maximum goodness.



Who said anything about random? Also, _detect evil _did work that way in 1e and 3x.



Hussar said:


> And, no, if your employee commits an evil act, that doesn't change your character's alignment.  I'm not even sure where you are getting that.



Try looking at older descriptions of paladins and with whom they can associate.

But also you have an employee and you _know _they are committing evil acts in your business's/kingdom's name and you do nothing to stop it and allow them to continue, thus giving tacit approval... can you say that you're actually good?



Hussar said:


> The point being, the citizens not being subjected to cruel and unusual punishments is part of the lampshading.  They absolutely are.  It's just that we elide over those facts.



Really? Where? The list of crimes in Dragon Heist (for instance) are all things that are considered crimes today (i.e., gossip isn't a crime) and the punishments are in most cases far less severe than real life medieval/renaissance punishments (no maimings, pillories, trials by ordeals, or being burnt at the stake on the list).



Hussar said:


> And vote?  What setting has votes?



Again, Greyhawk, as several of us have pointed out. Several places in the Realms and in Eberron do as well.



Hussar said:


> My point is, only evil cities are places where evil things are done is part and parcel of the lampshading.  You just got through talking about state run mind control to enforce alignment.



No, I didn't. I said that it was an available spell.



Hussar said:


> Anyone who is evil, even if they haven't done anything evil, is called out as evil.  I wonder what happens to them then?  That's an nightmare that would scare Orwell.



If you aren't committing evil acts, then you probably don't have an evil alignment. Unless the DM insists on racial alignments, of course. I don't think _any _D&D setting, outside of Ravenloft perhaps, would make someone be evil because they have evil thoughts they never acted on. And even in Ravenloft, the Dark Powers don't react to reward a person until they _actually_ _commit _an evil deed.

Edit: can you actually give us examples of D&D non-evil governments trampling all over the rights of the citizens or ruling with ultimate authority?


----------



## Bill Zebub

Hussar said:


> I have to admit, I could not have asked for better examples of how far people will go to ignore the underlying icky stuff.
> 
> By the way, I'm not saying I'm any different.  I mean, I play D&D too and I certainly don't play rebels who are out to overthrow the monarchy or spread democracy.  And the settings I create for homebrew games are every bit as deep in the shade of the lamp as anyone else's.  Like I said way upthread - lots of people like Grand Theft Auto or First Person Shooters.  I know I do.
> 
> But, I just find it really funny when people will absolutely flip out over something like The Wall of the Faithless or The Cataclysm in Krynn but have no problems with a centuries old government of anonymous rulers governing a city without anything remotely approaching any sort of democratic principles.  Well... it's Good, so, it's no problems.




As long as my character is allowed to openly carry two-handed swords in public I know it's a just and free and righteous society.  If the king abuses his power in other ways, it's only to protect my right to carry my sword, so it's totally worth it.


----------



## Baron Opal II

Hussar said:


> And you don't find any of that absolutely dystopian horrifying?



No, Hussar, we're playing a blessed game. Some of us like more complex backgrounds and have fun reading history, weather, geopolitics, shipbuilding, economics, biology, anthropology, &c. and throw it all together.

Sometimes if we create or adapt something objectionable we listen to feedback and adjust as necessary. But we're doing this to have fun and relax. Sometimes that fun is through catharsis and drama, rather than direct victory or comedy. But still, we're not actually creating worlds that others suffer and die in.



Bill Zebub said:


> As long as my character is allowed to openly carry two-handed swords in public I know it's a just and free and righteous society.




Actually, you can do that in Oregon. Just sayin'.


----------



## Hussar

Ok, let's try this one last time, because the pedantry is getting too annoying.

Any form of government that is not fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law is, IMO, evil.  Someone upthread pointed to Athens as democratic.  If that's your definition of democracy, well, there's a reason that we're not understanding each other.  That's democratic in the sense that some people get a vote, but, not if you're disqualified for the heinous crimes of being a woman, poor, or various other reasons. 

Now, it's true that I misused the term lampshading, sorry.  My bad.  I did mean it as "sweep under the rug".  Again, my misuse. 

To be honest, I'm finding this absolutely baffling.  That anyone would actually defend any state that isn't fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law boggles my mind.  It's actually rather frightening to be honest.  That people would look at something like Waterdeep and think, "Yeah, that's not too bad.  I wouldn't mind living in that system"   

But, yeah, I'm done here.  This was a minor point that was meant to reference how wargames elide (see, I can learn, I didn't use lampshade) the horror of what's being made into a game.  I didn't quite realize that people actually _believe_ that undemocratic systems of government without universal enfranchisement and basic human rights was a good thing.  Who knew?



You all have a good day now.


----------



## Aldarc

Hussar said:


> Think about it for just a second how horrifying the Masked Lords of Waterdeep would actually be as a system of government.



I suspect that Ed Greenwood was going for a Florentine Republic / Italian Renaissance + "fantasy veneer" vibe with the Sword Coast city-states. These were nominally republics but in practice were oligarchies dominated by ruling families and guilds. But it feels pretty sophomoric as far as governing bodies go. Historically, republics and democracies were fairly messy, bureaucratic with lots of various bodies, offices, and cabinets. 

See the Venetian Republic: 






Republic of Rome:


----------



## pemerton

Hussar said:


> To be honest, I'm finding this absolutely baffling.  That anyone would actually defend any state that isn't fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law boggles my mind.  It's actually rather frightening to be honest.  That people would look at something like Waterdeep and think, "Yeah, that's not too bad.  I wouldn't mind living in that system"
> 
> <snip>
> 
> I didn't quite realize that people actually _believe_ that undemocratic systems of government without universal enfranchisement and basic human rights was a bad thing.



I think you dropped a "not" in that last quoted sentence (or "bad" should read "good").

There's also a bit of irony in it, given the thread topic.


----------



## pemerton

Aldarc said:


> I suspect that Ed Greenwood was going for a Florentine Republic / Italian Renaissance + "fantasy veneer" vibe with the Sword Coast city-states.



Agreed. And for what it's worth I think that @Hussar's point stands, that these are not political forms for which widespread support is normally expressed among liberal democratic publics. There's an interesting question as to how much contemporary non-liberal democratic countries that seem to enjoy a wide degree of internal popular support might be compared to them, but I think addressing that question might break board rules.


----------



## Staffan

The problem with most governments in D&D is that they are usually autocracies or oligarchies. Many of them are considered "good" because the people in charge happen to be good, _but that depends on that person staying in power_ (and staying benevolent). Queen Aurala ir'Wynarn is listed as Neutral Good, and so the realm of Aundair under her rule generally acts in a benevolent fashion, but should her heir turn out to be rotten, or should Aurala be turned astray by bad advisors, the only real remedy for that is the sword.

To some degree, this is appropriate to a game like D&D where some people are able to amass an enormous amount of personal, physical power. In real life, there is a pretty tight ceiling on how much one person can accomplish on their own. Pit the best fighter in the world against a dozen competent fighters, and that fighter is going down. But in D&D, a single person can defeat a hundred people, or more with magic. So it makes sense that rulers have at least a fair portion of such personal power, or else make sure they have the protection of those who do.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Hussar said:


> Ok, let's try this one last time, because the pedantry is getting too annoying.



You're grossly misusing words. It is no wonder your point doesn't get across. (And you have one here with which I partly agree.) It might be wise to aim to express yourself with a tad more precision. We don't need academic precision here, but your posts were genuinely confusing.



Hussar said:


> Any form of government that is not fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law is, IMO, evil.  Someone upthread pointed to Athens as democratic.  If that's your definition of democracy, well, there's a reason that we're not understanding each other.  That's democratic in the sense that some people get a vote, but, not if you're disqualified for the heinous crimes of being a woman, poor, or various other reasons.



Yet that was progressive compared to autocracies that were norm at the time. It's not a binary, there are degrees in this. Just like in a modern world a non-corrupt multi-party democracy with proper proportional representation is better that a heavily lobbied two-party system with voter suppression and all sort of archaic structures that actually mean the vote is not proportionally representative.



Hussar said:


> To be honest, I'm finding this absolutely baffling.  That anyone would actually defend any state that isn't fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law boggles my mind.  It's actually rather frightening to be honest.  That people would look at something like Waterdeep and think, "Yeah, that's not too bad.  I wouldn't mind living in that system"



I would mind living in such a system. But I would also mind going into caves armed only with a sharp piece of metal fighting monsters ten times my size. 



Hussar said:


> But, yeah, I'm done here.  This was a minor point that was meant to reference how wargames elide (see, I can learn, I didn't use lampshade) the horror of what's being made into a game.  I didn't quite realize that people actually _believe_ that undemocratic systems of government without universal enfranchisement and basic human rights was a good thing.  Who knew?



Like I said earlier, I agree with the part of your point. And I think the issue arises from the alignment system or other such simplistic moral frameworks. Just present the things as they are, and let the players decide how they and their characters feel about it. I don't mind morally dubious things existing in the game world, but I mind the game telling me that those things are actually good!


----------



## Hussar

Crimson Longinus said:


> You're grossly misusing words. It is no wonder your point doesn't get across.



Considering the point before yours uses virtually the exact same language I have been using - "autocracies" - I'm finding your lack of understanding somewhat dubious.  Unless you want to have a go at @Staffan as well.

Unless you think that despotic dictatorship is particularly different in form from an autocracy, I suppose.  Given that despotism is literally a form of autocracy, I'm really not feeling the particular misuse. Additionally, since others have had no problems understanding my point, I'm kinda left at a loss as to how to explain more clearly.


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Hussar said:


> Considering the point before yours uses virtually the exact same language I have been using - "autocracies" - I'm finding your lack of understanding somewhat dubious.  Unless you want to have a go at @Staffan as well.
> 
> Unless you think that despotic dictatorship is particularly different in form from an autocracy, I suppose.  Given that despotism is literally a form of autocracy, I'm really not feeling the particular misuse. Additionally, since others have had no problems understanding my point, I'm kinda left at a loss as to how to explain more clearly.



Yes, 'despotic dictatorship' is a type of autocracy. It of course has other connotations too. But you also lumped various forms of oligarchies in that. And then there was your constant misuse of 'lampshading.' And I think I get your point now, but there were several pages of people not getting what you were saying, and I don't think the issue there was solely on the side of the reader. 

In any case, it was just friendly advice, do what you will.


----------



## John Lloyd1

Hussar said:


> Any form of government that is not fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law is, IMO, evil.



I find this conversation unnecessarily binary. They are either pure 'good' or 'evil'.

1. As others have pointed out this is a game of magic and dragons. It does not have to be historically accurate. We could be playing King Arthur and the Round Table or some gritty roman noir.

2. Even so, I don't think 'good' governments started with New Zealand in 1893 when they allowed women to vote. It was certainly an improvement, a good thing and an important milestone in the journey. It didn't lead immediately to equal rights or representation. It didn't do it for South Australia in 1894 or Western Australia in 1899. It didn't dramatically improve the lives of indigenous people in those places.

In these cases, there was not a binary line where on one side is evil and on the other is good. It is a continuum that is moved along. Sometimes getting closer to one ideal or another.

Also, there are innumerable factors about which come into consideration. Many of which are more about their actions rather than their processes (ie treatment of minorities, workers rights, women's rights, indigenous rights, etc). It is a many factored score card.

As DMs or players we can view focus on a different aspect depending on the context. This week the rulers are protecting the lives of their people from slaughter with good grace, and next week suppressing a worker's strike and demanding taxes.

3. Before you were talking about making evil governments visible to players. Even an authoritarian government doesn't need to appear as obviously evil, if it is stable and rules well enough. Outwardly everything looks similar to those countries that are fully enfranchised, democratic and having the rule of law with no more extra police visible. While, out of site, a small section of society is being stood over, tortured or killed on some 'publicly' acceptable pretext. Of course the players will find out eventually.


----------



## Willie the Duck

Hussar said:


> To be honest, I'm finding this absolutely baffling.  That anyone would actually defend any state that isn't fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law boggles my mind.



People aren't. They are suggesting treating all non-modern-democracies (in their elfgames) as all-equally-evil villain states where their villainy must be addressed or loudly acknowledged is not a gaming priority they consider of utmost importance. 


Hussar said:


> It's actually rather frightening to be honest.



That you are trying to extrapolate people's positions on how much they want to come down on fictional societies created for purposes of gaming to some kind of real world judgement on them (like this sentence seems to do)? Yeah, that is frightening.


Hussar said:


> That people would look at something like Waterdeep and think, "Yeah, that's not too bad.  I wouldn't mind living in that system"



Point to the person in-thread who has done so.


----------



## the Jester

Hussar said:


> Sorry. I thought we were talking about DnD.
> 
> And it’s dodging nothing. If 99% of the settings for DnD are despotic tyrannies, it’s not really unfair to call that out.



(Citation needed)


----------



## the Jester

Hussar said:


> It doesn't really matter what the exact form of government here is.  They're all autocratic dictatorships.  At best you could call them anti-democratic.  The populace has no rights, and any laws are made from decree.   IOW, a setting that makes places like North Korea look like a bastion of civil rights.



That's not accurate to how most governments in D&D worlds work, or how most governments worked historically. Populations almost always have rights of some kind; laws are often made by legislative bodies, or councils, or with the input of nobles, and sometimes even from straight up democracy. You're making this assertion that all D&D governments are functionally the same, but that's simply not true.


----------



## Alzrius

Hussar said:


> But, I just find it really funny when people will absolutely flip out over something like The Wall of the Faithless or The Cataclysm in Krynn



I find it funny when they flip out over those, too.


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

the Jester said:


> (Citation needed)




I think Hussar meant that 99% of D&D *tables* are despotic tyrannies. 

To which I say ... (1) Duh, and (2) Get me some pizza.


----------



## the Jester

the Jester said:


> (Citation needed)



I will say that this discussion has gotten me curious. Has anyone ever made a list of the various D&D states and their government types in order to look at how many are e.g. autocracies vs. have some kind of democratic or representative system?


----------



## Snarf Zagyg

the Jester said:


> I will say that this discussion has gotten me curious. Has anyone ever made a list of the various D&D states and their government types in order to look at how many are e.g. autocracies vs. have some kind of democratic or representative system?




I haven't done a systemic check, but it wouldn't be that difficult if you were doing, inter alia, just the Greyhawk '83 set.

My recollection (in accord with what I posted in the other thread on this topic) is that while Greyhawk has a fair number of autocracies, Gygax put in almost every type of government in there that he could think of.

That said, even though there were a number of different "selection types," you often ended up with a single leader. It was relatively uncommon to have serious checks on the power (such as in the Yeomanry) or regular elections (such as in Hightown).


----------



## Voadam

Most fantasy setting government is left vague. A lot of what is specified will be a leader, usually a lord or monarch or whatever. When specifics of government get detailed they can vary widely as to whether they are thinly veneered modernisms, based off of some historical model, or created as a fantasy creation. I have seen a lot of modernisms in D&D settings from police force city watch to full modern judicial system trials and jails to universal schooling.

A fantasy monarchy could be a modern Queen of England and house of lords type setup with a liberal western democracy base with full rights. It could be a Queen Elizabeth setup where the monarchy is hugely strong. The gnomish monarchy and nobility titles may be jokes. The dragonborn monarchy may have a completely different setup.

The exact rights of people are not usually spelled out. It could be a romanticized Disney medieval backdrop. It could be a grimdark peasant slave situation. It could be a familiar liberal western democracy base with a thin fantasy veneer.

There can be slaves or no slaves. There can be racism and sexism and homophobia and religious persecution or none of that.

Mostly specifics are left vague or undefined and a DM has room to include what issues or backdrop they want in many ways for most fantasy settings.

This is a very different issue from siloing military acumen appreciation from historical horrors and context of individuals and militaries.

Fantasy settings can reasonably be divorced from historical context and implications. Using real-world historical contexts and implications along specific dimensions in fantasy is a specific choice, not a universal.


----------



## pemerton

Voadam said:


> A fantasy monarchy could be a modern Queen of England and house of lords type setup with a liberal western democracy base with full rights.



The contemporary UK is a first-past-the-post unicameral electoral democracy. The bicameralism is an illusion - as per the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 the role of the House of Lords is ultimately procedural. The concession by the monarch that underpinned the enactment of the first of the Parliament Acts reveals that the monarchy is ultimately a matter of form, not substance: the Prime Minister has the constitutional power to lead a "revolution" simply by majority vote in the House of Commons.

I've never heard of a fantasy monarchy, in a D&D-type world, that resembles the contemporary UK, and for my part would find it anachronistic unless the goal was some sort of urban or modern fantasy. Off the top of my head I can't think of a fantasy monarchy even that looks like 18th century Britain or contemporary Morocco, but I'm not that widely read in the genre, and such a thing would to me be a bit less anachronistic.


----------



## Jer

pemerton said:


> I've never heard of a fantasy monarchy, in a D&D-type world, that resembles the contemporary UK, and for my part would find it anachronistic unless the goal was some sort of urban or modern fantasy. Off the top of my head I can't think of a fantasy monarchy even that looks like 18th century Britain or contemporary Morocco, but I'm not that widely read in the genre, and such a thing would to me be a bit less anachronistic.



Breland in Eberron is fairly close to a UK-style parliamentary monarchy, though not the contemporary one.  The Nobles Chamber holds most of the power while the Commons Chamber is less so (or at least I think that's how it works - I might be confusing my own Eberron for the official one in the books in that respect).


----------



## pemerton

Jer said:


> Breland in Eberron is fairly close to a UK-style parliamentary monarchy, though not the contemporary one.  The Nobles Chamber holds most of the power while the Commons Chamber is less so (or at least I think that's how it works - I might be confusing my own Eberron for the official one in the books in that respect).



OK. In the contemporary UK, the House of Lords has no power except to impose a one-year delay on the passage of legislation, or a one-month delay for money bills.

In 1688, the Parliament of the UK exercised its power to stage a revolution that was in formal terms presented as an abdication.

The Eberron Wiki tells me that

While Boranel is the head of state, the Brelish Parliament handles much of the day to day legislation. The Nobles Chamber is made of 27 land-holding families, while the Commons chamber consists of officials elected in two-year cycles. The ir'Clarn family is the most influential out of the 27 making up the Nobles Chamber.​
From this I can't tell who enjoys the franchise, how the executive is established, how taxes are imposed, if there is a consolidated revenue fund and if so who controls it, and what legislative power the monarch enjoys. But on its face, it looks less liberal democratic than Britain in 1688, let alone the contemporary UK.


----------



## Jer

pemerton said:


> OK. In the contemporary UK, the House of Lords has no power except to impose a one-year delay on the passage of legislation, or a one-month delay for money bills.
> ...
> 
> From this I can't tell who enjoys the franchise, how the executive is established, how taxes are imposed, if there is a consolidated revenue fund and if so who controls it, and what legislative power the monarch enjoys. But on its face, it looks less liberal democratic than Britain in 1688, let alone the contemporary UK.



As far as the franchise goes (and again I'm away from my books) IIRC everyone who is a citizen of Breland over the age of 16 gets to vote for a representative in the Commons chamber.  Noble Chamber is by land ownership and inheritance of title.  King has authority but Nobles Chamber has the real power and the Commons chamber is as of the date of the setting maneuvering to try to get more power for themselves.


----------



## Voadam

pemerton said:


> I've never heard of a fantasy monarchy, in a D&D-type world, that resembles the contemporary UK, and for my part would find it anachronistic unless the goal was some sort of urban or modern fantasy.



You can't tell exactly what most fantasy monarchies resemble, they are left undefined on the specifics of their government for the most part and are open to individual DMs defining or characterizing them. Some go in depth on describing these types of things, but most do not.

Most fantasy settings have a light flavor which can be implemented in a number of ways.

Mostly you get that the ruler has the title of king or queen or baron or lord or whatever.

How do Chaotic Good elves set up their monarchies and their relationship for rulers and ruled? Goblin kings? How does the Queen of Air and Darkness hold power versus her court of dark fey?

Anachronisms are rife in fantasy settings. Sometimes these are intentional, sometimes these are blindspots or based on a lack of knowledge.

I expect many D&D fantasy settings in practice are generally modern perspective people in a D&D world to some extent. If you are a 5e peasant hero background you journey with the party and are not bound to the land in a feudal social contract. The same for some institutions such as businesses or governments or cultures. Lots of stuff is undefined and open to doing a lot of different ways. The details published may go in depth or be top level view and vague on details.

Someone taking the post WWI noir era theme of Eberron and basing one of the big kingdoms on modern UK as a baseline generally for filling in gaps and characterization would not seem amiss to me. I do not know enough of the specifics on Breland or Audair or destroyed Cyre to say how much that would clash with their full world lore though.


----------



## pemerton

Voadam said:


> How do Chaotic Good elves set up their monarchies and their relationship for rulers and ruled?



The immediate fictional model seems to be Lorien, with a dash of Rivendell. Lorien is a benevolent despotism, complicated by the fact that it has no economy (at least as far as the reader can tell) and no apparent social or economic conflicts of interest, and hence (again, as far as the reader can tell) no politics.

One could ask, what would the story of Lorien look like if written from a subaltern point of view? But that would be to subvert the genre so thoroughly that I don't even know if it makes sense. I certainly don't think the concept of CG monarchy would survive the change in perspective.


----------



## Baron Opal II

Hussar said:


> Ok, let's try this one last time, because the pedantry is getting too annoying.
> 
> Any form of government that is not fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law is, IMO, evil.



Okay



> That anyone would actually defend any state that isn't fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law boggles my mind.  It's actually rather frightening to be honest.



In the real world, of course not.



> But, yeah, I'm done here.  This was a minor point that was meant to reference how wargames elide (see, I can learn, I didn't use lampshade) the horror of what's being made into a game.  I didn't quite realize that people actually _believe_ that undemocratic systems of government without universal enfranchisement and basic human rights was a good thing.  Who knew?



The horror of... Tsolyani Empire? Barony of Yan Kor, Theocracy of Livyanu? Free City of Greyhawk, City-States of the Dune Sea, The Scarlet Brotherhood, Kingdom of Cormyr, Kingdom of Mulhorand, Kingdom of Karrnath?

Yeah, none of them are awesome places to live. They aren't "fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law". But, they're not real.

Importantly, some of them exist to be decent places within a semi-medieval / Renaissance milieu. Some of them are meant to be interesting places to scout out. And some of them are meant to be overthrown or changed. Yes, terrible things are elided. To a childish level, in fact. I would be _horrified _to actually _fireball _a group of people, even if they meant me harm. But that's not actually happening. There are a lot of things that we ignore to play, because the real world is rough enough.


----------



## Voadam

pemerton said:


> The Eberron Wiki tells me that
> 
> While Boranel is the head of state, the Brelish Parliament handles much of the day to day legislation. The Nobles Chamber is made of 27 land-holding families, while the Commons chamber consists of officials elected in two-year cycles. The ir'Clarn family is the most influential out of the 27 making up the Nobles Chamber.
> 
> From this I can't tell who enjoys the franchise, how the executive is established, how taxes are imposed, if there is a consolidated revenue fund and if so who controls it, and what legislative power the monarch enjoys.



Agreed. It gives no indication one way or the other on those issues. It could be liberal democratic or not in different ways.


pemerton said:


> But on its face, it looks less liberal democratic than Britain in 1688, let alone the contemporary UK.



On the face of it I see no basis for saying it appears more or less liberal democratic.

It seems completely consistent with a similarly worded and focused description of the UK.

While Boranel Queen Elizabeth is the head of state, the Brelish UK Parliament handles much of the day to day legislation. The Nobles Chamber House of Lords is made of 767 sitting members whose seats are hereditary, by appointment, or by official function27 land-holding families, while the Commons chamber House of Commons consists of elected officials who hold office until parliament is dissolved. elected in two-year cycles. The ir'Clarn family is the most influential out of the 27 making up the Nobles Chamber.

It could easily be less democratic, but I don't see a basis from the cited description to conclude so.

Using the modern UK as your model for portraying that cited Breland lore seems consistent on the face of it.

One option among many.

Other lore about Breland might or might not be much more inconsistent with using such a model.

The monarch of Breland could be a complete autocrat who rules absolutely but delegates most of the boring day to day legislative duties to parliament while despotically asserting his power personally and through executive actions in running foreign policy, the military, spy networks, secret police, and so on.

Lots of options in interpreting or portraying most fantasy settings as written.


----------



## Cadence

Hussar said:


> Any form of government that is not fully enfranchised, democratic and ruled by law is, IMO, evil.




So what "Political System Score" on the  Democracy Ranking - Wikipedia
or "Democracy" rating on  Polity data series - Wikipedia
or "Democracy Index"at Democracy Index - Wikipedia
qualifies as non-evil?


----------



## Crimson Longinus

Cadence said:


> So what "Political System Score" on the Democracy Ranking Democracy Ranking - Wikipedia
> or "Democracy" rating on Polity Polity data series - Wikipedia
> or "Democracy Index"at Democracy Index - Wikipedia
> qualifies as non-evil?



Obviously it is the Democracy Ranking Score of 80, and let's face it, anything below 85 is already pretty dubious!


----------



## pemerton

Voadam said:


> While Boranel Queen Elizabeth is the head of state, the Brelish UK Parliament handles much of the day to day legislation.



This is false of the UK, where since the Glorious Revolution the Parliament, and the executive that is responsible to it, handles all legislation.



Voadam said:


> The Nobles Chamber House of Lords is made of 767 sitting members whose seats are hereditary, by appointment, or by official function27 land-holding families, while the Commons chamber House of Commons consists of elected officials who hold office until parliament is dissolved. elected in two-year cycles. The ir'Clarn family is the most influential out of the 27 making up the Nobles Chamber.



This is misleading of the UK, because it elides (i) the power of a Prime Minister to advise the monarch to appoint new peers, and (ii) the effect of the Parliament Acts, which mean that the House of Lords plays a procedural but not a determinative role, and (iii) the effects of the Blair-era changes to the House of Lords that mean it is an overwhelmingly appointed chamber.



Voadam said:


> Using the modern UK as your model for portraying that cited Breland lore seems consistent on the face of it.



Well, except for the bits about "most of the day to day legislation" and the fact that it would be a quite misleading description of the UK system.


----------



## Cadence

On the topic of authors' work vs. authors' deeds:

Being both a Garrett PI and Nero Wolfe fan, I just picked up Randall Garrett's "Lord Darcy" collection --  Glen Cook's Garrett is named after him and a pastiche of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is appranetly in it.  Having really liked the first two short stories in it, I googled up Garrett to see what else he'd done.   His unacceptable sci-fi convention behavior was not what I was looking for :-(     Kind of takes the fun out of discovering a new-to-you author.  But not as much fun missing as for the women at the conventions who had to put up with it.  I may recommend some of the titles by book name, but I won't be doing it by author's name.


----------



## Parmandur

Cadence said:


> On the topic of authors' work vs. authors' deeds:
> 
> Being both a Garrett PI and Nero Wolfe fan, I just picked up Randall Garrett's "Lord Darcy" collection --  Glen Cook's Garrett is named after him and a pastiche of Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe is appranetly in it.  Having really liked the first two short stories in it, I googled up Garrett to see what else he'd done.   His unacceptable sci-fi convention behavior was not what I was looking for :-(     Kind of takes the fun out of discovering a new-to-you author.  But not as much fun missing as for the women at the conventions who had to put up with it.  I may recommend some of the titles by book name, but I won't be doing it by author's name.



Yeah, I don't want authors I enjoy to be living saints, but some basic standards of decency are appreciated. Particularly if the author or those in proximate and/or formal cooperation with their evil stand to benefit financially.


----------



## Cordwainer Fish

Parmandur said:


> Particularly if the author or those in proximate and/or formal cooperation with their evil stand to benefit financially.



Sometimes I shop at used bookstores for long out of print titles I'll never see anywhere else.  Sometimes I shop there because I'm buying my childhood back one book at a time.  And sometimes I shop there out of pure spite.


----------



## Umbran

*Mod Note:*

Some of you are talking politics.  Please stop.  Thanks.


----------



## Sepulchrave II

pemerton said:


> This is false of the UK, where since the Glorious Revolution the Parliament, and the executive that is responsible to it, handles all legislation.
> 
> This is misleading of the UK, because it elides (i) the power of a Prime Minister to advise the monarch to appoint new peers, and (ii) the effect of the Parliament Acts, which mean that the House of Lords plays a procedural but not a determinative role, and (iii) the effects of the Blair-era changes to the House of Lords that mean it is an overwhelmingly appointed chamber.
> 
> Well, except for the bits about "most of the day to day legislation" and the fact that it would be a quite misleading description of the UK system.



Parliament is Sovereign, yes. And if the monarch were to reject any law passed by Parliament, then Parliament could simply make a new law, stipulating that the monarch's assent is no longer required.

_However_ the armed forces take an oath _to the Queen or King_ - she or he is the Commander-in-Chief - and if a _real_ conflict between the monarchy and Parliament were ever to ensue, then the sh*t would totally hit the fan.

Just sayin....


----------



## eyeheartawk

Just now catching up on this thread.

Wow.

So much cope.

We really are exhausting the world's supply of Copium by claiming that "We can't be sure he was a Nazi! He only wrote Turner Diaries 2: Electric Boogaloo and served on the board of a holocaust denial organization for over a decade, that could happen to anyone!"

Like, my guy, it's okay, you like a thing and found out the guy who made it turned out to be a literal Nazi. This isn't the way to come to terms with that.

EDIT: It also just occurred to me, did the Tekumel Foundation address the fact that they sat on this info for years? I just saw the one statement that said "Yeah, we're not Nazis" but nothing about them sitting on this bomb since 2012.


----------



## Willie the Duck

eyeheartawk said:


> EDIT: It also just occurred to me, did the Tekumel Foundation address the fact that they sat on this info for years? I just saw the one statement that said "Yeah, we're not Nazis" but nothing about them sitting on this bomb since 2012.



To the best of my knowledge, no they didn't. 

I don't have any excuses for that, but I think I have an explanation (at least by my criteria)--

The Tekumel Foundation have always seemed to me like a bunch of guys who inherited their buddies' iron mine -- they know the thing is valuable (and don't want to just sell it for pennies on the dollar of what they think it is worth in total), and are sure there's money to be made from the thing, but they're butchers and bakers and candlestick makers and don't really know how to do so. Thus they just kinda sit on the thing until something happens (or one of the other guys there once again takes a stab at a book in the setting or something). I'm sure finding out about Phil's other activities ramped up the 'I don't know what to do with this, better just sit on my hands'-factor by an order of magnitude.


----------



## Mercurius

Parmandur said:


> Occultism and esotericism are Fascist adjacent, historically...



This is a bit misleading, imo. The vast majority of people into occultism and esotericism are not fascist in any way, or at least no more so than anyone else. It is just that there are certain types of occultism that fascists tend to be drawn to, and of course the well-known fascination of Hitler with the occult (and if Hitler had played with Legos, no one would be saying "Legos and fascism are adjacent"). 

And of course there is all sorts of misunderstanding of occult and esoteric doctrines, twisting them to fit fascist ideology.

And of course it should be mention that occultism and esotericism are huge fields, with an enormous range, to the point that connecting them to fascism is not unlike connecting philosophy or religion to fascism. It is just too broad, so that the connection is essentially meaningless.


----------



## Parmandur

Mercurius said:


> This is a bit misleading, imo. The vast majority of people into occultism and esotericism are not fascist in any way, or at least no more so than anyone else. It is just that there are certain types of occultism that fascists tend to be drawn to, and of course the well-known fascination of Hitler with the occult (and if Hitler had played with Legos, no one would be saying "Legos and fascism are adjacent").
> 
> And of course there is all sorts of misunderstanding of occult and esoteric doctrines, twisting them to fit fascist ideology.
> 
> And of course it should be mention that occultism and esotericism are huge fields, with an enormous range, to the point that connecting them to fascism is not unlike connecting philosophy or religion to fascism. It is just too broad, so that the connection is essentially meaningless.



As I said, it is not one-to-one, and there are plenty of non-Fascist esotericists. However, the Venn diagram overlap is strong enough to make this, as I said, disappointing but not as surprising as one may wish it to be. Umberto Eco's classical analysis of "Ur-Fascism" does delve into the connecting tissue, which can besummarized with his pithy line:

"If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism."






						Umberto Eco
					

'Eternal Fascism', an essay by Umberto Eco, brought to you by www.aechive.8m.net



					archive.8m.net


----------



## Mercurius

Parmandur said:


> As I said, it is not one-to-one, and there are plenty of non-Fascist esotericists. However, the Venn diagram overlap is strong enough to make this, as I said, disappointing but not as surprising as one may wish it to be. Umberto Eco's classical analysis of "Ur-Fascism" does delve into the connecting tissue, which can besummarized with his pithy line:
> 
> "If you browse in the shelves that, in American bookstores, are labeled New Age, you can find there even Saint Augustine, who, as far as I know, was not a fascist. But combining Saint Augustine and Stonehenge -- that is a symptom of Ur-Fascism."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Umberto Eco
> 
> 
> 'Eternal Fascism', an essay by Umberto Eco, brought to you by www.aechive.8m.net
> 
> 
> 
> archive.8m.net



That's an interesting piece. I can't really adequately respond to it without teetering on the edge of forum rules. But yeah, I don't really agree with that Eco quote, or at least think it is a bit over-reaching. I don't find New Agers to be more inherently fascist than other groups, or at least it is very benign, non-autocratic, and everyone is invited to the Ascension, new Golden Age, or what have you. Oh wait, meaning it isn't fascism! So I think a lot of Eco's underlying argument is "modernism is good, traditionalism--or anything not modernist/scientific/academic--is bad."

But again, some fascists have been drawn to certain strains of occultism, especially as pertains to the polar (or Hyperborean) mythos. See, for instance, Joscelyn Godwin's book, _Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival. _


----------



## Parmandur

Mercurius said:


> That's an interesting piece. I can't really adequately respond to it without teetering on the edge of forum rules. But yeah, I don't really agree with that Eco quote, or at least think it is a bit over-reaching. I don't find New Agers to be more inherently fascist than other groups, or at least it is very benign, non-autocratic, and everyone is invited to the Ascension, new Golden Age, or what have you. Oh wait, meaning it isn't fascism! So I think a lot of Eco's underlying argument is "modernism is good, traditionalism--or anything not modernist/scientific/academic--is bad."
> 
> But again, some fascists have been drawn to certain strains of occultism, especially as pertains to the polar (or Hyperborean) mythos. See, for instance, Joscelyn Godwin's book, _Arktos: The Polar Myth in Science, Symbolism, and Nazi Survival. _



Yes, that's what I'm saying: it is not an absolute trend, but the overlap is historically notable, so the Barker revelations are consistent.


----------



## MGibster

eyeheartawk said:


> We really are exhausting the world's supply of Copium by claiming that "We can't be sure he was a Nazi! He only wrote Turner Diaries 2: Electric Boogaloo and served on the board of a holocaust denial organization for over a decade, that could happen to anyone!"



I think denial is just one of the coping mechanisms people use to deal with this kind of revelation though I don't think it's a particularly healthy one.  Disengaging from the material they once loved is also a coping mechanism.  I think we, as a whole, are still trying to figure out how to come to terms with the knowledge that some of the things we love and enjoy very much were created by people with values that run contrary to our own.  I don't have a dog in this race, while I know Tekumel exists I know very little about it, and even without this recent revelation regarding Barker, the odds of me ever getting into it were between slim and none.  For the most part, I've come to accept that there are some right bastards who created some of the things I loved, and I'm comfortable engaging their work on my own terms.


----------



## Mercurius

MGibster said:


> I think denial is just one of the coping mechanisms people use to deal with this kind of revelation though I don't think it's a particularly healthy one.  Disengaging from the material they once loved is also a coping mechanism. * I think we, as a whole, are still trying to figure out how to come to terms with the knowledge that some of the things we love and enjoy very much were created by people with values that run contrary to our own.*  I don't have a dog in this race, while I know Tekumel exists I know very little about it, and even without this recent revelation regarding Barker, the odds of me ever getting into it were between slim and none.  For the most part, I've come to accept that there are some right bastards who created some of the things I loved, and I'm comfortable engaging their work on my own terms.



To respond to the highlighted part, I think that is true, but part of the problem is the common notion that we all must collectively agree with what the right response is, as if we must agree upon what is good and true and all conform to that. It is a form of OneTrueWayism that is common within just about any community.

I don't think there is a single, right way for everyone to respond. We don't have to agree or have the same response. If one person who loves Tekumel will now boycott it, that's fine. If another still loves their Tekumel books, that's fine too. And we should be tolerant, imo, of this fact: that different people will respond differently, and not being offended in the same way we are, or being offended when we're not, isn't necessarily a moral failing or something that threatens us.


----------



## aramis erak

Baron Opal II said:


> I would be _horrified _to actually _fireball _a group of people, even if they meant me harm. But that's not actually happening. There are a lot of things that we ignore to play, because the real world is rough enough.



There are a lot of veterans who would, in the moment, not hesitate to use a fireball in defense of self, family, and unit... might bug them days to decades later, but not at the moment. 
The military trains killers. It takes normal folk, most of whom are reticent to kill, and overrides that key "Thou shalt not murder" commandment - sometimes by logic & justification, sometimes by rote training.
Prior to the 16th C, the military was largely  a caste - the gentry - with its knights and minor lords, and their trained men at arms as a second, larger, caste. But they trained from youth to be ready to kill fellow men. And lived in a society where the meat on the table was living the day before, sometimes even a near-pet. Everyone knew that lives depended upon the deaths of lesser beings, so the justification of the neighboring ethnic group as lesser beings put their lives right down there with sheep, cattle, dogs, and wolves, by behavior.


Mercurius said:


> I don't think there is a single, right way for everyone to respond. We don't have to agree or have the same response. If one person who loves Tekumel will now boycott it, that's fine. If another still loves their Tekumel books, that's fine too. And we should be tolerant, imo, of this fact: that different people will respond differently, and not being offended in the same way we are, or being offended when we're not, isn't necessarily a moral failing or something that threatens us.



And yet, many have taken positions that to not condemn the whole corpus is to approve the whole corpus and beliefs of the man behind it.

I've seen enough to think it more likely than not that Barker was at some level a neofascist. But I'll still note that the racism common to it didn't surface in his professional life (it would have been news), and didn't appear to factor in to his dealing with fans, so I still question the level of commitment to it Barker may have had.

The political discussion is actually more interesting and enlightening than the original topic, too bad it's in prohibited turf.

I will say that there's not yet been an LG society detailed in a product I've read that isn't a dystopia to me. Most of the societies described in fantasy games are dystopian; if they weren't, there would be no adventure there...


----------



## Mercurius

aramis erak said:


> And yet, many have taken positions that to not condemn the whole corpus is to approve the whole corpus and beliefs of the man behind it.



Yeah, I know, and it is unfortunate and very black and white.


aramis erak said:


> I've seen enough to think it more likely than not that Barker was at some level a neofascist. But I'll still note that the racism common to it didn't surface in his professional life (it would have been news), and didn't appear to factor in to his dealing with fans, so I still question the level of commitment to it Barker may have had.



Yeah, I have no idea. But most people tend to have views that are reprehensible to someone, and I think actions are louder than words. Still, it is a weird thing: harboring such views and feeling the need to release them to the world in an anonymous way.


aramis erak said:


> The political discussion is actually more interesting and enlightening than the original topic, too bad it's in prohibited turf.
> 
> I will say that there's not yet been an LG society detailed in a product I've read that isn't a dystopia to me. Most of the societies described in fantasy games are dystopian; if they weren't, there would be no adventure there...



Ha, agreed. But I always get Chaotic Good on alignment quizzes, so to me LG smacks of overly restrictive.

But it is strange to me that people want to remove certain bad things from game worlds. I mean, part of the point of D&D is to face bad things and find a way to defeat them.


----------



## Baron Opal II

aramis erak said:


> There are a lot of veterans who would, in the moment, not hesitate to use a fireball in defense of self, family, and unit... might bug them days to decades later, but not at the moment.



Well, yes. I'm also not a veteran. My point is that what we do in games and the places games portray are often, if not usually, very different from our everyday lives.


----------



## Parmandur

aramis erak said:


> I've seen enough to think it more likely than not that Barker was at some level a neofascist. But I'll still note that the racism common to it didn't surface in his professional life (it would have been news), and didn't appear to factor in to his dealing with fans, so I still question the level of commitment to it Barker may have had.



I don't know that we have enough information to say that with confidence.


----------



## Parmandur

Mercurius said:


> Yeah, I have no idea. But most people tend to have views that are reprehensible to someone, and I think actions are louder than words. Still, it is a weird thing: harboring such views and feeling the need to release them to the world in an anonymous way.



Well, there are opinions and views...but some things are right out.


----------



## dragoner

Here is me, dying in the Holocaust





						Robert Brandt | Database of victims | Holocaust
					

Holocaust.cz portal represents a comprehensive and unique source of information on the topic of the Holocaust, racism and anti-semitism.




					www.holocaust.cz
				



I don't want to think about someone who would do this to me, and won't touch their game again. It is not radical at all, people made their choices to be nazis, so they can suffer the consequences. It is a shame, the setting was very detailed, it is what it is though. There are plenty more games to be had, new ones being made everyday.


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## Hussar

For some people, it is very much a moral choice.  If you think that it is immoral to support Nazi's, then, well, that's pretty much the end of the conversation right there.  Doesn't really matter if the person who is a Nazi is a shoemaker or a game maker or whatever.  By buying things from that person, one is supporting them and thus supporting their views, even if it is indirectly.

For others, it's more of a separation.  The author and the work are separate and should be judged separately.  

And it's a really, really complicated issue that gets very heated, very quickly.  Because, well, where do you draw the line?  How much of modern technology is the result of Nazi scientists?  All those scientists that got snapped up after WWII - they weren't all being forced to work.  Some of them had to be Nazis as well.  Do we boycott flying on a modern aircraft?  So on and so forth.

I'm not pretending to have an answer here.  The answer will always be personal.  I don't really blame either side of the issue here.  It's just something to keep in mind when talking about things like this.  Respect works.  Keep up the conversation, but, don't denounce or attack.  Or, at least try not to anyway.    Be kind to each other.

My personal view is that the best thing for things like this is to hand it to creative people that the creator would absolutely hate and have them bring it forward.  Let some gay, black female, immigrant writer publish Lovecraft stories and celebrate her.  Support the authors that can take the good ideas of the work, strip away all the stuff that makes it an issue, and bring it forward.  It's the best kind of revenge in my mind.


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## dragoner

I'm just dealing with what is in front of me, not going to argue about someone else. I mean, von Braun? He was an SS General who slave labored thousands to their death, and was the architect of the V2 Blitz on London and Antwerp that killed thousands of civilians. The British would have hanged him if he wasn't swept up by the US. The record kind of speaks for itself there, and still in the space enthusiast communities one gets people trying to defend him.

Life is short though, I can only control what is in front of me, and I am not a crusader. So I'll be a cat, knock that game from in front of me, and find something else. I actually feel kind of sorry for who does pick it up, because then they are going to have to have an uncomfortable conversation at some point. Yes indeed they can look very bad, it's a minefield.


----------



## Hussar

dragoner said:


> I'm just dealing with what is in front of me, not going to argue about someone else. I mean, von Braun? He was an SS General who slave labored thousands to their death, and was the architect of the V2 Blitz on London and Antwerp that killed thousands of civilians. The British would have hanged him if he wasn't swept up by the US. The record kind of speaks for itself there, and still in the space enthusiast communities one gets people trying to defend him.
> 
> Life is short though, I can only control what is in front of me, and I am not a crusader. So I'll be a cat, knock that game from in front of me, and find something else. I actually feel kind of sorry for who does pick it up, because then they are going to have to have an uncomfortable conversation at some point. Yes indeed they can look very bad, it's a minefield.



Oh, totally agree.  It's a personal choice and it's a difficult one.  And, there's absolutely no right answer.  Where you draw the line is always going to be a compromise somewhere.  Don't support anything that was created by Nazi's?  Okay, fair enough, but, what about the loads and loads of people who were/are Nazi adjacent?  They held/hold views that are ... let's phrase this as questionable but weren't full blown supporters of Nazi's or the Alt-right.  Do you refuse to have anything to do with them?  How about people who do have something to do with them?  Do you refuse to have anything to do with them too?  It becomes a really twisted game of 7 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.  

The only thing we can do, and I agree with you @dragoner, is deal with what's in front of you right now.  And be willing to have this same (or very similar) conversation a LOT of times going forward.


----------



## pemerton

Hussar said:


> For some people, it is very much a moral choice.  If you think that it is immoral to support Nazi's, then, well, that's pretty much the end of the conversation right there.  Doesn't really matter if the person who is a Nazi is a shoemaker or a game maker or whatever.  By buying things from that person, one is supporting them and thus supporting their views, even if it is indirectly.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Be kind to each other.



Is the penalty for being a National Socialist death? Even the victors in WWII didn't take that view! So presumably the shoemaker is entitled to subsistence in some form or other. And in a market economy that means doing some sort of work that someone else will pay for; and being able to purchase food, housing and healthcare from others.


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## aramis erak

pemerton said:


> Is the penalty for being a National Socialist death? Even the victors in WWII didn't take that view! So presumably the shoemaker is entitled to subsistence in some form or other. And in a market economy that means doing some sort of work that someone else will pay for; and being able to purchase food, housing and healthcare from others.



Many now want it to have been. I find them as disgustingly uncharitable and inhumane as the war criminals. 

The extremes at both ends want the cadet branches of their opposite removed from society; the question of "how to remove them" is a good measure of how far out people are from center. 

Which can be very useful in constructing settings... remembering that the visible minorities are just that: minorities. Just because king's a paladin doesn't mean the average person in town is LG... Likewise, the Headman of the village being a right LE B*****d doesn't mean the peasants are LE, either. Most are probably NG or LN, with a few NE thrown in...


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

pemerton said:


> So presumably the shoemaker is entitled to subsistence in some form or other. And in a market economy that means doing some sort of work that someone else will pay for; and being able to purchase food, housing and healthcare from others.



In other similar contexts, I’ve made the point that the person may be entitled to a living, but it may not be the kind of living he would otherwise choose.

To use a hypothetical, if someone were a highly skilled computer programmer who- for whatever reasons- doxxed a bunch of people who got killed, got caught, convicted, and did his time, he may be legally barred from ising any kind of networked technology.  That person may find the only jobs anyone will hire him for are manual labor positions.


----------



## Hussar

pemerton said:


> Is the penalty for being a National Socialist death? Even the victors in WWII didn't take that view! So presumably the shoemaker is entitled to subsistence in some form or other. And in a market economy that means doing some sort of work that someone else will pay for; and being able to purchase food, housing and healthcare from others.



Again, sorry if I wasn't clear, I wasn't arguing one way or the other.  As I said, it's complicated and will likely be a very personal choice.

I mean, if I know that someone hates Japanese people, for example, I'm very unlikely to give them my business because they hate my children.  Is that person entitled to subsistence in some form or other?  Probably.  But, it likely won't come from me.  

OTOH, I've had students in my classes over the years who have voiced some incredibly racist things.  Jaw droppingly racist, at least for me who had never been exposed to that sort of thing in the past.  And, at the time, there wasn't much I could do about it - these are students who are paying my boss for English lessons.  Me blasting them in class isn't going to help anything, nor was I in a position to excuse myself from teaching that class.  It was incredibly uncomfortable.  Still not sure what I could have done differently.

So, when your student looks you in the eye and tells you about those dirty ____ who do all sorts of bad things and should all be packed up on a boat and sent back where they came from, it does present something of a challenge.  Or the local business association who comes to you and asks you to translate "No foreigners served here" signs for the restaurants in town.    At least that one I managed to convince people that that was a REALLY bad idea.

You do what you can.


----------



## pemerton

Dannyalcatraz said:


> In other similar contexts, I’ve made the point that the person may be entitled to a living, but it may not be the kind of living he would otherwise choose.



There are interesting points raised by this, but because it probably moves into an overly political terrain I'll refrain from a substantive reply! (Which would not necessarily be disagreement - but to repeat myself, I'll leave it there.)



Hussar said:


> I wasn't arguing one way or the other.  As I said, it's complicated and will likely be a very personal choice.
> 
> I mean, if I know that someone hates Japanese people, for example, I'm very unlikely to give them my business because they hate my children.  Is that person entitled to subsistence in some form or other?  Probably.  But, it likely won't come from me.



Bernard Williams has an interesting discussion of some of the moral issues around substitutability in a market economy in one of his anti-utilitarianism essays (maybe in Moral Luck? or in his contribution to Utilitarianism: For and Against - spoiler alert: he's against!).

I've taught, and supervised, students with very different political and moral views from mine. That's part of my job. I've also had students thank me for the way I've approached topics like colonialism and history in my classes. Doing my best to teach truth rather than ideology is also part of my job. The prevalence of ideology is a complicating factor in inferring from someone's expressed views to their deep moral centre. (Which is not to say that MAR Baker was a victim of ideology. I suspect his eyes were wide open. I'm speaking in more general terms around the matters you've raised, while trying not to violate board rules.)

A friend of mine, who is in a same-sex partnership, had a parent who voted against same-sex marriage in the plebiscite held on that issue. My friend was, naturally, very upset, but to the best of my knowledge hasn't cut of mum as a result.

I've only ever had one colleague whose political views - including views about the history of the British Empire - I felt were a bar to a friendship. That said, to the best of my knowledge he _voted_ for a completely mainstream political party. I don't think I've ever interacted with someone literally committed to National Socialism, except in the context of political rallies.


----------



## MGibster

Dannyalcatraz said:


> In other similar contexts, I’ve made the point that the person may be entitled to a living, but it may not be the kind of living he would otherwise choose.



I want to stay away from actual criminals for a moment, lest I run afoul of any political discussions that are beyond the scope of this board's purpose.  But at least here in the United States, that's a pretty common attitude that makes it hard for people who have done wrong in the past to integrate successfully back into society.  In the case of people like Barker and Lovecraft, they're dead and there is no path for them to come back into society.  At least not without the right incantations.  While I don't mind purchasing something with Lovecraft's name on it today, I wouldn't purchase anything if he were still alive and held fast to his odious beliefs (see JK Rowling & Bill Cosby).  I do think it's in our best interest to make sure people have a path to return to polite society once they've stopped the offensive behavior.


----------



## Parmandur

MGibster said:


> I want to stay away from actual criminals for a moment, lest I run afoul of any political discussions that are beyond the scope of this board's purpose.  But at least here in the United States, that's a pretty common attitude that makes it hard for people who have done wrong in the past to integrate successfully back into society.  In the case of people like Barker and Lovecraft, they're dead and there is no path for them to come back into society.  At least not without the right incantations.  While I don't mind purchasing something with Lovecraft's name on it today, I wouldn't purchase anything if he were still alive and held fast to his odious beliefs (see JK Rowling & Bill Cosby).  I do think it's in our best interest to make sure people have a path to return to polite society once they've stopped the offensive behavior.



There are a couple big differences between Lovecraft and Barker here for me. 

The first and big one us...Lovecraft slipped into Public Domain, so there is no Lovecraft Estate that benefits financially if I read q story of His, or watch a show that makes use of his aesthetic. With Barker, there are living people who knew he had Nazi sympathies, and swept it under a rug whole they continued to profit from his work.

Secondly, Lovecraft never hid any of his bigotry. It's all spelled out explicitly all over his work, easy to see and address critically in the open. Barker was clever enough to hide what he thought, even going to the trouble of using a pseudonym for his explicit Nazi novel. This makes the potential Nazi content of his other work more fraught, and may involve subtler nefarious elements thst would require careful energy to dissect, and who has the time.


----------



## dragoner

I think a lot of what is happening is like the quote from the movie _Jacob's Ladder:_
"If you're afraid of dying, and you're holdin' on, you'll see devils tearin' your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freein' you from the world. It all depends on how you look at it."

With other forum posters being the devils here. People want to hold onto that setting, not for itself, instead as it represents that time of their life they invested in it. Nevertheless, the reality is that it is only another form of denial, as it is not other people, except the author themself that has betrayed the fans. Similar to Rowling and the Potter-verse.

The Adam and Eve moment has passed, however, the knowledge of what Barker has done will always be there in people's minds, no external process can change that.


----------



## overgeeked

Parmandur said:


> The first and big one us...Lovecraft slipped into Public Domain, so there is no Lovecraft Estate that benefits financially if I read q story of His, or watch a show that makes use of his aesthetic



Tell that to Arkham House, Chaosium, S.T. Joshi, and the Lovecraft literary estate run by Robert C. Harrall. The best article that I’ve found on this is:





__





						The Black Seas of Copyright: Home
					






					www.aetherial.net


----------



## Parmandur

overgeeked said:


> Tell that to Arkham House, Chaosium, S.T. Joshi, and the Lovecraft literary estate run by Robert C. Harrall. The best article that I’ve found on this is:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> __
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The Black Seas of Copyright: Home
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.aetherial.net



Yeah, well, it's complicated.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

MGibster said:


> But at least here in the United States, that's a pretty common attitude that makes it hard for people who have done wrong in the past to integrate successfully back into society.



It’s not just the USA, and it happens for reasons.

In the hypothetical, the person’s #1 skillset was also related to the crime they committed.  Hiring past known offenders whose criminality is related to a particular job is a legal liability.  Look in any country, and you’ll see certain crimes will bar you from certain kinds of employment.  Forgers won’t  be able to be bank tellers, people with drug convictions won’t be hired in the medical field.  Violent behavior towards children will effectively bar you from working as a teacher,  Commit a crime with a gun, forget about a career in law enforcement. 

I was investigated by the FBI before being allowed to attend law school.  Certain crimes would have gotten me booted.  Not only that, those same crimes can get me permanently disbarred.

Going further, in one of the actual cases in particular, the lead singer of a Christian metal band tried to hire someone to kill his wife, but he was caught and did his time.  He reunited with his band- with his wife’s blessings- and his return was embraced by his fanbase.…but a lot of other bands refused to be on tour or festival bands with him.  He and his band may be able to record music and sell it, but they’re currently cut off from one of the biggest streams of potential income.

In some countries, if you lose your driver’s license for certain reasons, it’s permanently revoked- you _cannot_ get it back.  If your job involved driving, you’re out of luck.

In none of those cases is there any sense in which a person could reasonably claim to be entitled to have a particular form of employment.  The reality is, in every society, some punishments exist that go beyond mere fines or jail time.  Certain crimes have lifetime repercussions.  If you can’t handle that, *don’t do those crimes.*


----------



## MGibster

Dannyalcatraz said:


> In the hypothetical, the person’s #1 skillset was also related to the crime they committed. Hiring past known offenders whose criminality is related to a particular job is a legal liability.



I was trying to avoid bringing up crime because I was afraid it would stray into political territory beyond the scope of gaming.  Barker and Lovecraft committed no crimes that I'm aware of.  But I get where you're coming from, and I largely agree.  When it's relevant to the job, it makes sense that past actions might bar one from holding that position.  I work in a highly regulated industry myself, and when screening candidates, even misdemeanor convictions of fraud or theft will disqualify a person for whatever position they're applying for.  

But we often wish to continue punishing someone even after they served their time.  Michael Vick was convicted for his involvement in running a dog fighting ring, which had nothing to do with his NFL career, and when he got out of prison he resumed his career with the Eagles which upset a lot of people who argued "He doesn't have a right to have the career he wants."  Which is true, but should we have continued to punish him by barring him from being a football player?


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## Dannyalcatraz

MGibster said:


> I was trying to avoid bringing up crime because I was afraid it would stray into political territory beyond the scope of gaming.  Barker and Lovecraft committed no crimes that I'm aware of.  But I get where you're coming from, and I largely agree.  When it's relevant to the job, it makes sense that past actions might bar one from holding that position.  I work in a highly regulated industry myself, and when screening candidates, even misdemeanor convictions of fraud or theft will disqualify a person for whatever position they're applying for.
> 
> But we often wish to continue punishing someone even after they served their time.  Michael Vick was convicted for his involvement in running a dog fighting ring, which had nothing to do with his NFL career, and when he got out of prison he resumed his career with the Eagles which upset a lot of people who argued "He doesn't have a right to have the career he wants."  Which is true, but should we have continued to punish him by barring him from being a football player?



In Vick’s case, I agree somewhat and disagree somewhat.  His crimes had zero relevance to his preferred employment on the surface.

However, the NFL is “family entertainment”.  There were a lot of parents who had a difficult time explaining why a “dog-killer” was on TV to their kids.  

And remember, _all_ of the major professional sports leagues have had enough problems with scandals involving on-field talent, so that most leagues or team contracts have had “morals” or “personal conduct” clauses for 30+ years.  So when someone gets caught for an offense involving violence or drugs, it’s very difficult to distinguish why one athlete gets a slap on the wrist and others get blackballed.  (Especially when some of the blackballed talent didn’t actually commit a crime.)


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## MGibster

Parmandur said:


> The first and big one us...Lovecraft slipped into Public Domain, so there is no Lovecraft Estate that benefits financially if I read q story of His, or watch a show that makes use of his aesthetic. With Barker, there are living people who knew he had Nazi sympathies, and swept it under a rug whole they continued to profit from his work.



I wouldn't care if there was a Lovecraft estate that benefitted financially from his work so long as they didn't try to hide his bigotry.  What would be the purpose of punishing the estate?  And I don't really have any strong feelings that some people knew about Barker's NAZI sympathies though I can see why others might.  It's just not an issue to me.  



Parmandur said:


> Secondly, Lovecraft never hid any of his bigotry. It's all spelled out explicitly all over his work, easy to see and address critically in the open. Barker was clever enough to hide what he thought, even going to the trouble of using a pseudonym for his explicit Nazi novel



In Lovecraft's case it wasn't a matter of not being clever enough to hide his attitudes.  He didn't have to hide them because millions of Americans shared his sentiments.  i.e.  His bigotry towards immigrants and African Americans were well within mainstream standards.  But Barker had to hide it, because at the time, Nazi sympathies were very much out of vogue.  



Parmandur said:


> This makes the potential Nazi content of his other work more fraught, and may involve subtler nefarious elements thst would require careful energy to dissect, and who has the time.



Does it really though?  Human beings have an amazing ability to see patterns were there are none.  This is like Ted Cruz being worried that "woke" Disney is going to have Mickey and Goofy going at it.


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## MGibster

Dannyalcatraz said:


> However, the NFL is “family entertainment”. There were a lot of parents who had a difficult time explaining why a “dog-killer” was on TV to their kids.




Heaven forbid we expect parents to do a little parenting.  This is a remarkably similar argument to those who don't want to see gay characters on television.  How do I explain that to my children?  I don't have kids, but it seems trivially easy to explain Vick:  Michael Vick did a bad thing and he was punished for it.  But now that his punishment is over, as long as he continues to behave himself he's free to live his life.  Just because you've done something bad, doesn't mean we have to keep punishing someone forever.


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## Parmandur

MGibster said:


> Heaven forbid we expect parents to do a little parenting.  This is a remarkably similar argument to those who don't want to see gay characters on television.  How do I explain that to my children?  I don't have kids, but it seems trivially easy to explain Vick:  Michael Vick did a bad thing and he was punished for it.  But now that his punishment is over, as long as he continues to behave himself he's free to live his life.  Just because you've done something bad, doesn't mean we have to keep punishing someone forever.



Yeah,but if that parenting involves "changing the channel," then it hurts the NFL bottom line. Hence the controversy: comply with community standards, or suffer the commercial consequences.  Free market capitalism in action.


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## MGibster

Parmandur said:


> Yeah,but if that parenting involves "changing the channel," then it hurts the NFL bottom line. Hence the controversy: comply with community standards, or suffer the commercial consequences. Free market capitalism in action.



The NFL is actually a not-for-profit organization with the for profit entities being the individual teams.  How many people do you think turned the channel because they didn't want to do any parenting?  Do you think it hurt the Eagles' bottom line when Vick returned?  It doesn't really matter.  It might be true, but it's hardly a moral argument any more than "I don't want to explain gay people to my kids" is a moral argument.


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## Parmandur

MGibster said:


> The NFL is actually a not-for-profit organization with the for profit entities being the individual teams.  How many people do you think turned the channel because they didn't want to do any parenting?  Do you think it hurt the Eagles' bottom line when Vick returned?  It doesn't really matter.  It might be true, but it's hardly a moral argument any more than "I don't want to explain gay people to my kids" is a moral argument.



I mean, people were complaining saying "I'm going to change the channel if you keep paying this creep," and that is parenting: that was the controversy, people doing parenting in a capitalist society. They can hire him, nobody is obligated to subsidize the Eagles or him. Though I cut off the NFL completely over health issues related to longterm damage to players: if I wouldn't let my son play football, why would I lend any support to anyone else committing self-harm?


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## Dannyalcatraz

MGibster said:


> Heaven forbid we expect parents to do a little parenting.  This is a remarkably similar argument to those who don't want to see gay characters on television.  How do I explain that to my children?  I don't have kids, but it seems trivially easy to explain Vick:  Michael Vick did a bad thing and he was punished for it.  But now that his punishment is over, as long as he continues to behave himself he's free to live his life.  Just because you've done something bad, doesn't mean we have to keep punishing someone forever.



I agree.  However, I _still_ wouldn’t want to be the one explaining to a preteen why people are cheering an animal killer.  It’s not the most difficult job in parenting, but it’s not an easy one.

To be clear, I agree he did his time and paid his punishment.  I even cheered his return to the league…on the condition that he “go forth and sin no more.”

But just because he did so, it does not follow that he _has_ to be accepted back into the fold.  Everyone else involved has a right to choose between associating with him or not.  His coaches & teammates have a say.  Other teams, coaches and players in the league have a say.  The league itself has a say.  The fans and corporate partners and sponsors have a say.

He has a right to be able to feed, clothe and house himself, but he doesn’t have a right to be paid millions to throw and run with a football for millions of dollars a year.

Entertainment industry jobs- particularly the ones in front of cameras and microphones- have a very high profile that tends to magnify the good & bad that the members do.

And the public’s appetite for forgiveness/tolerance of any particular kind of behavior waxes and wanes.  I guarantee you, before players like Vick had a right to play in the NFL, there were players who engaged in dogfighting just like he did.   Before the 1990s, athletes’ drug and domestic violence issues were  generally not widely publicized, but neither were they secrets.  And they rarely cost anyone a job.

These days?  The bar is MUCH lower. And I don’t have a problem with that.

Lastly, pro tip: it’s not a good look to be drawing parallels between condemnation of past criminal behaviors and being LGBTQ, _even if the arguments are the same in form.  _


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## MGibster

Dannyalcatraz said:


> He has a right to be able to feed, clothe and house himself, but he doesn’t have a right to be paid millions to throw and run with a football for millions of dollars a year.



And I think this is the rub.  He still managed to have a good career in the public eye and make a lot of money.  But out of curiosity, how successful should we allow people like Michael Vick to be?  He's got a right to be able to feed, clothe, and house himself, but should we prevent him from having nice clothes, living in a decent neighborhood, or being able to afford prime rib on Christmas?  



Dannyalcatraz said:


> Lastly, pro tip: it’s not a good look to be drawing parallels between condemnation of past criminal behaviors and being LGBTQ, _even if the arguments are the same in form._



I'll make 'em when I think they're applicable.  "Won't somebody think of the children" is rarely a good argument.


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## Dannyalcatraz

MGibster said:


> He's got a right to be able to feed, clothe, and house himself, but should we prevent him from having nice clothes, living in a decent neighborhood, or being able to afford prime rib on Christmas?



He has a right to feed, clothe and house himself & support his family.  *Period*.  End of story. Nobody is _owed_ a fantastic house, great food and flashy clothes.  If the mighty fall from their pedestals through their own fault, they don’t “deserve” being lifted back into a pace of honor.

That doesn’t mean he _can’t_ be re-erected onto a pillar, just that he’s not _owed _that elevation back into society’s upper echelons..


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## Hussar

And, again, let's not forget here, there's nothing saying that adults can't simply turn the channel.  The whole "who will think about the children" does ignore the fact that there are adults in the conversation who don't want to "forgive and forget".  But, as I said earlier, it's a complicated issue that comes down to a lot of personal choices.

At the end of the day, one can only really talk about one's self and try to avoid broader claims about what other people should do.  If I choose to boycott the Eagles over Michael Vick, that should be my choice.  If I choose not to buy anything from Frog God Games because of the allegations surrounding Bill Webb, I should be free to do so.  It is not my place to tell anyone else how to spend their money and it's no one's business but my own how I spend mine.


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## Ralif Redhammer

While I certainly think they made the wrong call with that, I can at least understand how they came to it. You have to think, these are people that believe(d) passionately in MAR Barker's world of Tekumel. To have found out that he was a total Nazi would've likely shaken them to their core, would've done real damage to their psyches. Admitting that to the world then and there would've been hard.

Ultimately, when faced with a hard decision, they still made the wrong decision. These days, it might be easier, when faced with a real and horrid resurgence of _all this_, but ultimately when it mattered back then, they chose silence.



eyeheartawk said:


> EDIT: It also just occurred to me, did the Tekumel Foundation address the fact that they sat on this info for years? I just saw the one statement that said "Yeah, we're not Nazis" but nothing about them sitting on this bomb since 2012.




I was talking with a friend of mine that these days, the rot of fascism/racism is everywhere. You could be talking about anything - The legacy of The Assassins Knot, why Bauhaus broke up the first time, Austin Osman Spare's techniques, or heck, which type of knitting needles are best, and then the next thing you know the person you've been talking to will start spouting horrible racist garbage.

Which is why that rot needs to be excised, given zero chance to root, wherever it is.



Mercurius said:


> This is a bit misleading, imo. The vast majority of people into occultism and esotericism are not fascist in any way, or at least no more so than anyone else. It is just that there are certain types of occultism that fascists tend to be drawn to, and of course the well-known fascination of Hitler with the occult (and if Hitler had played with Legos, no one would be saying "Legos and fascism are adjacent").
> 
> And of course there is all sorts of misunderstanding of occult and esoteric doctrines, twisting them to fit fascist ideology.
> 
> And of course it should be mention that occultism and esotericism are huge fields, with an enormous range, to the point that connecting them to fascism is not unlike connecting philosophy or religion to fascism. It is just too broad, so that the connection is essentially meaningless.


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## aramis erak

Barker wasn't doing anything unlawful at the time. It was barely unethical; the pen name probably helped him dodge attacks by the political leftists so common on tenure and retention committees from the late 50's on....


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## Umbran

aramis erak said:


> Barker wasn't doing anything unlawful at the time. It was barely unethical; the pen name probably helped him dodge attacks by the political leftists so common on tenure and retention committees from the late 50's on....




*Mod Note:*
Where to begin?

You blame political leftists?  Okay, technically, breaking the no politics rule.

But... you are _making excuses_ for the behavior of a Nazi propagandist?!?  

You are done in this discussion.


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## Mannahnin

aramis erak said:


> Barker wasn't doing anything unlawful at the time. It was barely unethical; the pen name probably helped him dodge attacks by...



No one's suggested that he did anything unlawful.  That's entirely missing the point, if not a deliberate red herring.

"Dodge attacks"; you mean dodge responsibility for his actions?  Dodge judgement by people of any non-Nazi creed?  Yeah.  No doubt the pen name did help him avoid a lot of awkwardness and disgust while he was alive.


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## MGibster

Mannahnin said:


> "Dodge attacks"; you mean dodge responsibility for his actions? Dodge judgement by people of any non-Nazi creed? Yeah. No doubt the pen name did help him avoid a lot of awkwardness and disgust while he was alive.



Wasn't dodging reponsibility/repercussions the whole reason authors starting using pseudonyms in the first place?


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## Mannahnin

MGibster said:


> Wasn't dodging reponsibility/repercussions the whole reason authors starting using pseudonyms in the first place?



That may be the original reason.  There have been several different reasons, historically.  Women used to often use male pseudonyms when women writers weren't taken seriously, for example.  Even today it's not uncommon for them to use their initials instead.  Professional genre writers sometimes use different pen names when writing in different genres, to maintain brand clarity.  Back when physical book stores were more prevalent, this also helped them get more books on the shelves in different parts of the store.


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## billd91

MGibster said:


> Wasn't dodging reponsibility/repercussions the whole reason authors starting using pseudonyms in the first place?



I think it's fair to be a lot more critical of an author obscuring their efforts in furthering Nazi ideologies than trying to avoid discrimination or create a bit more separation between an author's public vs private life.


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## Nikosandros

billd91 said:


> I think it's fair to be a lot more critical of an author obscuring their efforts in furthering Nazi ideologies than trying to avoid discrimination or create a bit more separation between an author's public vs private life.



Indeed. The Italian writer Elena Ferrante choose to eschew notoriety and to avoid having the critics try to guess which parts of her novels were autobiographical. I totally respect that and I think that the journalist who doxed her is a jerk.

The case of Barker is completely different and I appreciate those who found out and revealed the truth of the matter.


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## Dire Bare

MGibster said:


> Wasn't dodging reponsibility/repercussions the whole reason authors starting using pseudonyms in the first place?



No.

Certainly, that's ONE reason an author might choose a pseudonym. But far from the only reason.


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## TeutonicBerserker

How many of the people in this thread have actually read the book in question, and how many are offended because they were just told to be offended?


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## Hussar

TeutonicBerserker said:


> How many of the people in this thread have actually read the book in question, and how many are offended because they were just told to be offended?



Wow.  Talk about not reading.  If you had actually read the thread, you would see that it's not the book that is in question.  It's the fact that Mr. Barker was a full on Nazi and belonged to a Nazi organization that's the issue.


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## GuyBoy

TeutonicBerserker said:


> How many of the people in this thread have actually read the book in question, and how many are offended because they were just told to be offended?



Your comment appears to be belittling people who are decent enough, noble enough and honourable enough to stand against pro-Nazi ideology. 
Nazism is more than offensive. It is evil. So are it’s adherents and its lackeys.


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## pemerton

GuyBoy said:


> Your comment appears to be belittling people who are decent enough, noble enough and honourable enough to stand against pro-Nazi ideology.



I'm all for people opposing National Socialism. But I actually don't think it takes that much decency, nobility or honour to do so. It's a fairly low bar to step over!


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## Ancalagon

TeutonicBerserker said:


> How many of the people in this thread have actually read the book in question, and how many are offended because they were just told to be offended?



Have you ever put your hand in a vat of concentrated acid?  Why not?  Were you just told not to do it?

This is not a valid argument.


----------



## GuyBoy

pemerton said:


> I'm all for people opposing National Socialism. But I actually don't think it takes that much decency, nobility or honour to do so. It's a fairly low bar to step over!



Doing the morally right thing is always decent, noble and honourable. 
Opposing Nazism and neo-Nazism is always morally right.


----------



## pemerton

GuyBoy said:


> Doing the morally right thing is always decent, noble and honourable.
> Opposing Nazism and neo-Nazism is always morally right.



Fair enough!


----------



## SpaceOtter

Folks, he's clearly trolling. I mean, he has Kenneth Copeland (ultra-rich, far right evangelical minister) as his avatar while calling himself Teutonic (Germanic) Berserker.


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## TeutonicBerserker

GuyBoy said:


> Your comment appears to be belittling people who are decent enough, noble enough and honourable enough to stand against pro-Nazi ideology.
> Nazism is more than offensive. It is evil. So are it’s adherents and its lackeys.



Truly a stunning AND brave stance to take. It really takes a person of exceptionally strong character to side with the all pervasive, socially, economically, academically, and often legally enforced ideology of anti-nazism. I mean it really takes guts to go along completely with the messaging you receive from the first day of school, on every single television show and hollwyood movie, commercial ad campaign, government funded public service announcement, NGO, corporate human resources department, and government policy. You truly are The Resistance (tm). I don't know how you do it.


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## Umbran

TeutonicBerserker said:


> How many of the people in this thread have actually read the book in question, and how many are offended because they were just told to be offended?




*Mod Note:*
Thread's been quite for nearly a month, poster who earlier today got himself warned for politics posts this?

Getting a bit obvious.  Let us have no more of that.[/COLOR]


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## Hussar

Heh, I should always click on the bio information when I see posters.  A 15 year old sock puppet account posts inflammatory stuff in a dead thread.  I should know better.


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## Levistus's_Leviathan

Hussar said:


> Heh, I should always click on the bio information when I see posters.  A 15 year old sock puppet account posts inflammatory stuff in a dead thread.  I should know better.



The profile picture probably should have given it away.


----------



## GuyBoy

TeutonicBerserker said:


> Truly a stunning AND brave stance to take. It really takes a person of exceptionally strong character to side with the all pervasive, socially, economically, academically, and often legally enforced ideology of anti-nazism. I mean it really takes guts to go along completely with the messaging you receive from the first day of school, on every single television show and hollwyood movie, commercial ad campaign, government funded public service announcement, NGO, corporate human resources department, and government policy. You truly are The Resistance (tm). I don't know how you do it.



Goodbye, troll.


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## Hussar

AcererakTriple6 said:


> The profile picture probably should have given it away.




On my phone so pic is tiny and still have no idea who that is.


----------



## Mannahnin

Hussar said:


> On my phone so pic is tiny and still have no idea who that is.












						Kenneth Copeland - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org
				






> *Kenneth Max Copeland* (born December 6, 1936) is an American televangelist and author associated with the charismatic movement. The organization he founded in 1967, Eagle Mountain International Church Inc. (EMIC), is based in Tarrant County, Texas.[1] Copeland's sermons are broadcast across the US and worldwide on the Victory Channel.[2] Copeland has also written several books and resources.
> 
> He has been identified as preaching the prosperity gospel and as part of the Word of Faith movement. Copeland has written that parishioners will get a "hundredfold" return on their investment through giving to God.[3] He has been criticized for his use of donations and tax exempt status to finance a mansion, private jets, an airport and other lavish purchases.
> 
> During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Copeland claimed that the pandemic had ended or would soon end and that his followers would be healed from the virus. He stated that followers should continue paying tithes if they lost their jobs in the economic crisis that the pandemic caused. He later made claims to have destroyed the virus and to have ended the ongoing pandemic.


----------



## Willie the Duck

Trolling in general I have never really understood, but I _really _never understood blatant trolling -- take the most-obvious and least-effort but also least-respected route to having the least amount of influence (mild annoyance) over others, and making everyone who has viewed the thing assume that's the only capacity you have to effect the larger world, diminishing yourself in their estimation. Like, what's the point? You didn't totally pull one over one anyone. You didn't ruin anyone's day. You just made total strangers think you never grew up, what does that get you?


----------



## overgeeked

Willie the Duck said:


> Trolling in general I have never really understood, but I _really _never understood blatant trolling -- take the most-obvious and least-effort but also least-respected route to having the least amount of influence (mild annoyance) over others, and making everyone who has viewed the thing assume that's the only capacity you have to effect the larger world, diminishing yourself in their estimation. Like, what's the point? You didn't totally pull one over one anyone. You didn't ruin anyone's day. You just made total strangers think you never grew up, what does that get you?



A lot of people seem to think drive-by nonsense like this is “owning” people and that somehow means winning everything forever and destroying your enemies irrevocably.


----------



## darjr

I think assuming they are a troll is being generous to them. Still bad, and probably likely.


----------



## South by Southwest

darjr said:


> I think assuming they are a troll is being generous to them. Still bad, and probably likely.



Dude first joined EN World way back in 2008: I don't think this latest bit was a trolling effort, especially after reading through some of his earliest posts. I think he wrote what he believes.


----------



## Sacrosanct

Well, that's weird.  True courage is defending the indefensible because everyone else is clearly against it?  What an odd position to take.

"No man, trying to ban lead paint isn't special.  It takes real courage to keep using it."

Although, insisting on using lead paint would explain a few things...


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## Levistus's_Leviathan

Hussar said:


> On my phone so pic is tiny and still have no idea who that is.



As the link that @Mannahnin provided says, he's a crazy millionaire televangelist that believes/spouts a whole bunch of nonsense.


----------

