I have described the elementary problem a few pages ago, and I'm not using the term nazist in any kind of light hearted way. Yet of course it's the same strategy of dehumanization, it's the same kind of moldable enemy concept with the same kind of circular description=identification reasoning and it eerily centers on the very same fears that the nazis harbored, from the communism to the violation of 'their' art.

I'm NOT implying that people who use the term are nazis. Frankly, that would defeat the purpose of me stating it at all. I assure you: I don't speak to nazis. But of course in a thread that's full to the brim with people going the SJW this, the SJW that, people should develop an awareness that it's a nazist enemy concept. And it is.

To bring the topic back to one of the matters at hand, please do take a look at how clear cut fascists use the term particularly in the context of the Baldur's Gate controversy.

As an example, I am referring to posts made by one of the leading theorists of the SJW enemy concept and in fact author of the surely not at all nazist or dehumanizing book "SJWs always lie: Taking down the thought police".

Employing the pluralis sociativus to essentially mean "everyone who stands against the SJW", Theodore "Vox Day" Beale has only yesterday offered some "advice" to the developer of the expansion (my bold marks):

. .

Oh, the many freedoms Mr. Beale grants the developer of this game! Why, it really must be this new utopian era in which developers aren't thought policed any more. Of course, the professional life of the developer is forfeit if he doesn't fire one of his writers.

An Alison Rapp desaster is beckoning, again, a mere week after the first. Nothing has been learned from the first time. You can sit here debating whether that's not what you meant, that Vox Day isn't speaking 'for you' and doesn't represent the gamergate movement in any way. Good for you! But unless you tell Vox Day himself, I don't think that's going to take. His voice seems to be all too welcome among the protesters despite the obvious "misrepresentation" of the "argument".

If you don't, at least don't forget to cheer at the guy and all his other valiant fighters against the SJW conspiracy when he attempts to violate democratic processes again at the Hugo awards. After all, to get rid of SJW influence, any and all means can be used, right? In love and war...

Employing the SJW enemy concept doesn't make anyone a nazi. But actual, unashamed and vocal nazis can and will, at all times, use the dehumanizing enemy concept to lump one in with them. It has happened yesterday, very very prominently; I have yet to hear protest.

If that's not a plain call for censorship, I don't know what it is. I remember back in my good old days when "vote with your wallet" was the magic sentence, or you could simply go back playing Baldur's gate without the EE nonsense.

Most of GG doesn't want to censor BG at all. Don't take one opinion as everyone's.

@Vain: and you see dehumanizing of the ''enemy'' by GG only? I get you speaking about it from the GG side and I get it is valid information you transfer with pointing this out, but this is a two way street by any means at all. The ideology itself that is the basis for the beliefs of ''SJW''s is based on not giving value to what people from ''majorities'' say. Or what about the constant railing by the media about being ''harassers''? What about the many times people claim harassment from GG without proof and people still vilify it?

Well seeing such a beloved franchise get dragged through the mud by the company owning the rights is kinda angering.
But generally capitalism works at sorting that out.

I'll admit though my first reaction to having the old characters changed was "Fire the writer! Rawr!", but that is stooping to the progressives level meh.

I was talking about people in general, not GG, people that are individuals able to think for themselves without carrying any kind of identity politics behind them.

I was expecting people to believe GG supported this after reading the media. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Hey man I think you need to look at this from both sides. The owner of the games shop she was talking about replied : https://postmortemstudios.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/gamers-the-nicest-white-terrorists-youll-ever-meet/#jp-carousel-4827
Read the images, not the opinion piece.

I think it's quite a fitting term; I sum my own concerns with this kind of arguments as "cautionary tale of the girl whose neighbor was crying Rape".

I generally agree with your whole post. We just should keep in our minds that this apply for good chunk of people in every group (including GG, why should they be exception). But this is just a part of the problem of the higher level.
The important source of many needless and futile conflicts is that people are prone to demanding perfection: Flawless solutions of their problems, 100% safety, absolutely correct statements, universal moral code and so on. Human society cannot by flawless, because it consist of imperfect, inherently flawed human beings (just for the record, I don't see myself in any way better); we can and should work on the ways to "work over" those flaws which are part of our human nature, rather than trying to get rid of them completely. So far, attempts to create "new, better people" too often shows the worst of human nature rather than the best, so I advise to avoid this path because it seems to be too dangerous.

But we should not be judgemental to those who falls for the oversimplifying concepts and sticks to simple answers, this is part of our human nature too.
Human brain is great device for finding patterns; the flipside is, it often see the pattern even where isn't any or fill in blanks of the whole picture in a incorrect way. The woman that falls twice for abusive jerks or man that was twice robbed by romani (both these things can easily happen) can legitimately feels that "all men are bastards" or "all gypsies are criminals". The problems begins only if they mistake those feelings for objective, absolute, "scientifically proven" facts and start acting accordingly.

Yup. Radical all or nothing mindset and emotional appeals to action. It's funny to see many people that I'm sure were happy to ridicule "you're with us or against us" do the exact same kind of dynamic for their political causes - "This is THE problem. You are not moving yet? You are an enemy!"

I have to assume some deeper insecurities, otherwise I find it hard to understand... but of course, my believing there are traumas motivating some of these dynamics somehow is me dismissing those traumas, when I just disagree with the solutions as counterproductve or unecessary or problematic.

I mean, final solutions to any political problem should ring alarm bells in any reasonable individual, just like perpetual motion machines in other contexts.

To quote Jef Rouner from a few hours ago: "What GamerGate IS NOT is a people, a culture, an ethnicity, or an organized social movement. There wasn't a bunch of people sitting around discussing ethics in video game journalism whose name was sullied by the appearance of bigots. People who called themselves GamerGate weren't victims of a few bad apples upsetting their crusade. Those apples WERE the crusade"

Consequently, I don't even see dehumanization coming "from GG". That may be giving a nebulous, purposefully uniforming concept too much credit. You may protest against people 'lumping in' individuals with the gamergate movement, but that's a strategy e.g. Vox Day also employs by drawing on the nazist enemy concept. When Vox Day speaks in the social "we", he is trying to speak for all the individual people that have declared their hatred towards anything "SJW".

My plea is simply: Stop letting him.

I see harassment coming from a whole lot of individuals, from the despicable sealions in femfreq's twitch stream right to some people in this thread who contribute to abuse by sheer hate, falsification, conspiracy theory and proudly displayed lack of intersectional knowledge. That is where I must protest.

I see a deeply dehumanizing enemy concept, one that triggers certain reflexes I had hoped my people to have more universally built in during their upbringing.


Your question was of course aimed at the idea that "my side", whatever that is, may also be involved in harassing and abusive activities. I want to answer that as well. In the circles in which I think I am understood, I have and will continue to stand against forms of organized protest or boycott as well. I will ask for developer contact data, private as well as professional removed. Having mass protest emails crash in to a support service of a microscopic indie dev, that will not start in one of my forums. I stand against wild conspiracy theory. I despise singling out convenient targets – individual people in a company with dozens, if not hundreds of co-workers – for something I happen not to like in a game. You may not think that this constitutes harassment in itself, but some of this is what I see in my forums as well, I don't like it, and that is the breeding ground for abuse I want to take a flamethrower to.

That is e.g. why, in at least one other forum, I have decidedly argued against the last part of the blog entry I linked to, which directed people at the miniature tabletop developer's help line. WTF is THAT supposed to achieve? So thanks for the link to the company owner's response; I am of course taking it with a grain of salt, but appreciate that he doesn't name and shame at least.

Standing against harassment isn't like ticking a box or adding a line to forum rules. It needs active involvement and speaking up again and again. Everywhere, in every social circle.



About tokenism, Forgotten Realms and writing trans characters, Katherine Cross has swiftly written up a quite brilliant evaluation that you guys may be interested to read. Her conclusion for "Siege" is: Great attempt and far better than most, but not surprisingly, tweaks could be applied. Warning: "Opinion", trans theory, trans writing, Forgotten Realms/AD&D P&P enthusiasm, takes longer than 60 seconds to read

The thing is Vaina, that one of the let's say "terminal values" of the culture that GamerGate represents is almost absolutist free speech. Hence why those in said culture reject the call to, for example, make Vox shut up, or to constantly disclose he does not speak for anyone else in a dynamic akin to the "who speaks for Islam" debate.

That's despite many likely agreeing the guy is a jerk. And make no mistake, I am sure many more look at it in a - the enemy of my enemy is my frieend - sort of way.

Then, the kind of myopic denial that this Jef Rouner you mention is suggesting is pretty obviously political disenfranchising of sorts. Denying the legitimacy of a group whose socio-political goals he likely disagrees with. Specifically for your pleasure, here is an interesting link. The meat of this speculation is relevant, but go into the comments for the discussion that is more directly relevant. You will find some interesting points there about what kind of group / culture Gamergate represents.

This thread just keeps going and going doesn't it? It reminds me of that 'Atheists I understand you thread' that thankfully got archived, only this is one is more civil.

Not for Beamdog, apparently. :|

But the call isn't to make Vox Day shut up. The call is to not grant him the immense privilege and power of speaking for a supposed consumer army united against what is, in essence, a nazist enemy concept.