Author: J.S. (---.megapath.net)
Date: 09-17-2002 23:03
(Kept general so as to not have to say the same things over to several people, further noteing thanks to those who did, in fact, get what the article was saying and responded appropriately [the checks are in the mail, comrades], now preparing to do the wrong thing, address matters I should leave alone, and manage to offend everyone):
What am I to make of this?
Of what?
That I’ve been misunderstood.
How cliché.
But still…
But still what? You draw an analogy, you accept the fullness of the analogy. You draw using a topic that has ideological charge, you recognize the fact that it will draw attention for the charge. You accept the consequences of a heavy topic. People have been stepping up for your defense.
Sure, and doing it well.
So why are you worried? Misunderstanding is a priori.
Right, it’s the Internet.
No, because it’s a powerful topic. A quip about Stonewall isn’t going to cut it, not when people are looking for trouble, and I don’t mean in the sense of looking for a fight, but looking for problem children to take out. Their looking for the inaccuracies because the world is rife with those who possess them.
Inaccuracies…the supposed factual inaccuracies-
-are reasonably inferred from the argument. You can’t bring up the notion of prohibiting homosexuality-
-any non-procreative sex, mind you. Same sort of connection with anti-condom lobbies. A promotion of anti-responsibility-
-as a concept tied to escapism without an actual rebuttal.
“for some do view”?
Too many use “some” to represent when they’re too lazy for a actual source or too cowardly to forward their beliefs with an “I.”
But it was in the context of connecting gaming to murder and death?
Not clearly enough. Especially not in the current climate.
Which climate is that?
The RPG.net climate. It’s not the same place that it was. A sizable chunk of the columns are confusing, high-concept whirligigs that no one looks forward to. The other chunk are low-concept pools of vanilla, examining placid comments in a placid way. Sure, you got exceptions: Aeon’s the respectable one of the first, Paul of the last, and numbers like Sergio’s and Sandy’s buck those definitions. The time when people were friendly towards any sort of confusion? Over.
Oh, now that, that’s not a cheap route. Blame the responder?
Hey, you want to use it as an excuse? You will be the one who gets mocked. You want to grow up and face facts? Another matter entirely. You want to jumpstart an article with a pithy analogy? Be prepared to endorse all facets of that analogy.
That’s stupid. That defeats the purpose of an analogy. An analogy is about compare and contrast. It’s about explaining-
Were you listening? People are coming from an antagonistic viewpoint because of the topic, heightened to a fever pitch because of the two-penny abstraction. If it’s a reasonable inference, they will more than willingly make it and hang you by it. Is homosexuality a choice?
What? What does that have to do with anything?
Is homosexuality a choice?
I refuse to answer. It’s not the issue.
Then, you’re fucked.
And why am I fucked?
You’re assumptions on the issue betray you. Off-handed comment about genetic definitions? So 1991.
The topic did not come from my discussion. It came from my use of the word “choice.” It’s a fiat of-
The word choice in an unclear paragraph with the prime defense and explanation an even more unclear and tucked away in a footnote.
But people got what I was saying.
Believing that homosexuality is a choice fit’s the analogy. Gaming is a choice, homosexuality is a-
Choice? Choice? What kind of choice? What even does choice mean?
The notion that you can choose to be gay is absurd.
Is it?
You do not choose who to be attracted to.
That’s kind of my point. I’ve studied enough history to that the monolithic notions of sexual orientation we
have are as fresh as yesterday.
You’re comparing an action, gaming, with a state of being, homosexuality.
But there’s an action for homosexuality, as well as a state of being-
Oh come now, you’re not about to say that the nature of being a gamer is somehow innate?
Why not? There are those who get it, and those who don’t. It takes certain mental qualities that not everyone possesses - why couldn’t those propensities be cited as genetically oriented? Could there not be a psycho-chemical state of having a mechanistic imagination?
RPGs haven’t been around since humanity.
Are you sure of that? In one form or another? See, this is the essentialist argument, and the essentialist argument really irks me, because it’s a nice and fuzzy view of “well, since they’re bodies run that way, it’s A-OK!”
Call it a choice and it opens the door to homosexuality being a human weakness, like overeating, that corrects.
The essentialist argument neglects that there are a lot of ways that people’s bodies run that are not considered good. Rape and pedophilia, to cite two other sexual examples, have both been decided by some as psychological afflictions. Anyone with some bullshit argument as to why homosexuality is wrong can then say it’s a disease.
But both of those acts take into account non-consensual acts.
Consent? Choice?
Wrong move. You don’t choose the feeling, you choose the action. You are not harming someone else.
“You don’t choose the feeling, you choose the action,” would also fit rape and pedophilia. We’re back to what does choice mean. There’s action, being, culture and self-definition. But we’re far off the article.
No, you just don’t want to argue about it anymore.
Fine. You want to win? You-
No, I want you to admit what you did wrong.
What I did wrong was to try and use a more complex point to prove a simpler one. Next time, no more cutesy analogy.
That’s going to work. The “cutesy analogy,” as you put it, is all your articles have going for them. Kill that and you’re left with broken theory that’s not even worth reading for ridicule value.
Whatever. They already gave me the T-shirt. Anything to get back to arguing actual gaming topics.
-J.S. Majer,
Desperado in the Culture Wars,
Cosmic Bandito Emeritus,
"Flawed, but Interesting"
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