Author: Stephen (---.69.169)
Date: 08-13-2001 13:31
I just want to say that this was possibly the most interesting and moving column I've read in the history of my time at RPG.net. A powerful, impassioned cry for the beauty and magnificence of the human imagination, and its ability to save us from despair.
But it overlooks one fundamental fact: Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were into these things. Not RPGs specifically, but geek media, living in their heads, imagination and fantasy and obsession. Which to me suggests that imagination, fantasy, and obsessive immersion are neutral in themselves. They are not a solution on their own, and I am reluctant to recommend them as so.
The real solution is community. As long as you feel yourself to be part of an accepting community, the hostility that drives violence and the despair that drives suicide can be mitigated and accommodated, if not wholly alleviated. Similarly, if one is forced to exist in a community that degrades, denies, undermines or mocks you, you're pushed on a daily basis towards either rage (if you reject this degradation) or depression and low self-esteem (if you accept it). Ultimately, that rage or depression finds expression in violence, whether that be directed outward or in.
Geek media offers one route to this community, if the participant is willing or able to take it. Even the greatest fandom in the world can only do so much if you still have to go to that goddam cliquish snobby ego-lacerating high school classroom every day. But geek media -- like every other community of common interests -- can also connect violent people with violent people, creating a situation of mutual feedback. Nor can geek media compensate for an abusive or unstable home life.
And finally, geek media can't magically of their own accord cure an a$$hole of being an a$$hole.
Imagination, escapism, and RPGs are invaluable techniques, when used right; RPGs in particular are amazingly valuable because they create that life- and sanity-saving feeling of imaginative, accepting community, if played with the right people (I've seen some RPG groups that'd drive me to the edge of violence, and I'm not even a highschooler). But there's only so much they can overcome, and not even they can overcome the choice of an individual person. We need to recognize that no matter how many solutions to pain are available, some people will still pick the most destructive one.
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