Here's the core core core problem that I see.
Mistaking logos for ethos. Reason and authority are not 100% aligned, much as smart educated "elites" want / need / like to believe it. And let's not even go into the emotional / pathos angle...
From Leigh's piece - the conclusion no less (emphasis mine):
It's a good takedown ... of geek culture's fixation in general on the idea that arbitrary, witless "offense" is some kind of sacred bastion ... It just doesn't have to be that way. We are supposed to be smarter than that. The word smarter is standing in for better, the word witless is standing in for worse. Unless she is begging the question (unconsciously I'm sure... and I'm not being sarcastic) about her morals regarding freedom of speech and freedom to offend being
smarter than her opponent's. :) Do you see it Fever?
PS: "takedown" is interesting word choice... she's quite a good writer :)
From Quinns:
But even worse is the thought that someone might sit down to play ... and assume the entire hobby is this boring. You might say boring is more about an aesthetic, but SUSD reviews games more along my lines: objectively. They are often insightful about game mechanics. Considering the market success of CAH it's also effective rhetoric, but divorced from the facts. :) Do you see that contradiction? It's born in subjectivity.
A bit higher it's
What we’ve got here is a relaxed card game with the very real possibility of offending people ... This game had one job, and it failed. See how the failure is dependent on the game's intent being relax instead of, say, provoke? (provoking is not satire by the way... I'm not sure if anyone is saying CAH is satire but I'd argue against them) Again, even in terms of fun and relaxing, has it realy failed? When you see millions buying it and seemingly numerous groups playing it without issue? To be fair Quinns is the one of the three that applies less logos and is not afraid to just make a wholly subjective ethical appeal. Still CAH wears offense and misanthropy on its sleeve. That's its
whole theme. You
should know what you're getting into when you play it, and if you don't that's no one's fault, it's just humanity. Tragic.
This notion there's always a will behind tragedy... so arrogant, so anthropocentric... Do you see it?
Matt... well Matt is actually pretty smart about this. He is basically putting his finger on a lot of the reasons CAH was so successful. The mistake he is making is not so much mixing up ethos and logos, rather divorcing them too much by assuming that only audiences like him are playing (assumption of a shared ethos). He means people like you Fever... Have you played it? Did if feel transgressive to you? Like reverting to a more primal being? :)
Anyway, there it is, the seed of the assumption those with a different ethos either don't exist, or perhaps are more primal, brutal, unrefined. Projection at its finest. It took Matt effort to be tolerant and innoffensive, this game undermines that effort, therefore everyone playing it must be experiencing it similarly. Because Humanity is sooo homogeneous. :)
Paul... well here we go back to reason as replacement for morality. Back to Leigh's type of thinking. Funny to think opposites do attract somewhat I guess... anyway back to Paul, and right from the intro:
The best way to describe Cards Against Humanity is “Lego for jokes”. It gives its players setups and punchlines, all ready to click together in one-step assembly. It’s easier than microwaving food or boil-in-the-bag rice. Almost no creativity is required, and because the powers of chance deal you your cards, it’s not as if you can even help the sort of combinations that present themselves, right? As well as creativity and effort, who even needs responsibility? Do you see the elitism peeking through? :) It's easy, it's like Lego (eg: for
children), it's not creative... all reasonable and logical criticisms (objective!),
before we jump to responsibility. Because my conception of responsibility is tragic. It's that we humans have hardly any control over "the powers of chance deal[ing] you the cards" and we "can['t] even help the sort of combinations that present themselves". But the ethical thing (stoic) to do is to live with that. Accept it, do the best we can and move on. And to call that irresponsible, is to me, borderline offensive, that my conception of how to live my life, my agency - the fundamental thing that I have and no one can take, even if they destroy me - that is being dismissed a priori as unworthy and immoral, just because I was constrained, conditioned, imperfect. Do you see it Fever?
Consider these other quotes from Paul.
It openly, plainly, even joyfully acknowledges its content, with things like “The profoundly handicapped,” “Black people,” “Auschwitz,” “Homeless people,” and “Surprise sex” which, if you’re not versed in the term, is a euphemism for rape. So it doesn't whitewash Humanity, and reveals it as exactly what we actually know it is: humanity... and it's a box with cards... the joy is not in it, it's in the players, maybe it enables it, maybe not.
...whatever you come up with was your choice. You’re the one who put those pieces together. But Cards Against Humanity still gives you the tools with which you can construct these calls and responses. It still frames and controls what happens. There’s a word for this, and that word is “enabling.” Me I call it human life... ergo, just because I choose to adapt my agency to context, it's still mine. Society has not controlled me, it just framed me. It does that to all of us. Tragic... maybe... I think we all enjoy not having to choose sometimes - abdicating responsibility I'd call it.
This one is revealing:
The explosion of Cards Against Humanity has, I think, been downright hurtful to board gaming’s progress. He's mixing commercial success which obviously CAH is not hurting at all in terms of more players, etc... with ideological progress, well, or diversity progress... but it's all fear... he offers no data to prove anything. Anyway the dissonance of the two is clearly hurting him... not hurting me though... and I don't know why his ethos should be privileged over mine...
And Fever, you pretty much said no one is trying to stop anything right? Reread Paul's conclusion:
So, if you were thinking about buying Cards Against Humanity, perhaps you should think again, because your money is an encouragement, your purchase is a statement and your playing is a representation. Personally, I am not remotely okay with Cards Against Humanity representing us. I hope a lot of other people aren’t, either. I hope they say so, too. That's not trying to stop sales? Honest and clear call of boycott I haven't seen :)
Anyway CAH only represents those that accept it. If Paul doesn't (because of his ethos) fine. If he wants everyone else to agree, he should go more into ethos, or actually offer data to his logical points, instead of trying to convince us his is the only logical possible conclusion. Do you see how subjectivity and ego, are basically turning reviewers into politicians instead of journalists? :)
Vote with your wallet, but vote for me, for us, for all that's good and holy! Yeah, that's so logical...
I super enjoy SUSD, and even Leigh to be honest... yes GG folks, I don't think she's the devil incarnate... gasp... I even bought a book of hers I think 2 years back. Anyway, they're all in the californication bubble about this. :) It's San Fran, London, Seattle / Vancouver and a bit of Toronto... it's group think, just like Idle Thumbs and a bunch other nice folk. Moral righteousness reinforcing intelectual arrogance, causing intolerance. I mean The Bay Area actually thinking they're the moral center of the US or the world... it would be immensely amusing, if it wasn't so tragic. They call it punching down in other contexts, but they won't see it right in front of their noses. And considering what they think of Hollywood, it's soooo ironic.
Edit: For readability. And since Vaina posted, let me add Berlin to the list... don't want him to feel excluded. I think it's Berlin... hipster and trendy I'm sure.
