Quote from: jhkim;481157I'm not saying "everyone's a little bit racist".  I'm saying that people who like me who chanted "A fight! A fight!  A n***** and a white!" on a schoolyard are a little bit racist (or at least were so at the time).  

"People like me" does not equal everyone. I know this because I never did or said anything even remotely like that at any age. My friends included quite a few different ethnic backgrounds as a kid, and also while I was in high school and again when in the US Army. I've never even heard that chant before.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;481201My games are mythic, and that myth is the fucking Iliad, wherein the Trojans and Achaians are neither absolutely good nor evil. I dunno where this "absolute good and evil are mythic" stuff comes from. If you're dealing with pre-Christian Western myth, "good" and "evil" relate to one another and to people in radically different ways than afterwards (as well as the standards of what is what changing radically in that time).

First, I didn't get anything like a feeling of The Iliad from playing in your game. It came across as much more gritty and down-to-earth to me. I did not see anyone PC or NPC that came across to me as being anything like Achilles, for example. If your campaign world is mythic, it's only in the write-up as far as I can tell. Plus, I'm not sure I would lump The Iliad and The Odyssey in with the same kind of mythic as the myths of Perseus, Theseus, Hercules, Beowulf, etc.. In those myths, the good and the evil are pretty clear, and not debated very much. The heroes are super-heroes, but still "human". The enemies are monstrous and terrifying. "Absolute good and evil are mythic" comes from me, because I've been reading mythology since I was a small child. I have never, not once, read a myth where the protagonist agonizes over whether their enemy can be "redeemed". They go in, kick it's ass, and move the fuck on.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481204You say you were cleaning up a grass pile that was sheltering mice, when you saw a mother mouse scurrying away with her babies. You didn't kill them, and you get points in my book for that. Especially because I don't think that killing the mice was necessary, and mice aren't evil.

What went through my mind was that there were several pragmatic reasons why I should have killed the mice (not only due to the infestation, but also, for example, because I didn't know if I'd injured them or not, since I didn't know they'd be where they were) but that was swept aside because of empathy with the mother mouse.  But had I hired an exterminator, I doubt they would have shown such sentimentality had they come upon a mouse nest or would have set traps that kill mice in far more gruesome ways (e.g., glue traps are pretty nasty, and so is rat poison).  They couldn't work as exterminators if they showed the same sentimentality that I did.  In some ways, I see the heavily armed and combat trained characters created in D&D games like an exterminator.  As such, I don't think a Paladin could function if they were expected to show and did show maximal empathy for their opponents unless Evil was a very weak and mild threat in a setting, much as the mice weren't much of a threat to me.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481204With mice, once you remove the immediate environmental factors that fostered the infestation, I don't think you necessarily have to kill them. Seal up your house, secure food sources, remove rubbish and hiding places--those may suffice. At least, if you don't do those things, if you kill a bunch of mice, they'll probably just be replaced.

Well, I've asked what the alternative is for inherently and irredeemably Evil orcs and don't think I got an answer to that (maybe I missed it).  Should they be put into internment camps?  Reservations?  Drive them away and make them someone else's problem?  Should the people who coexist with them have to tolerate the occasional random slaughter because the authorities will only act against them once they are guilty of an actual crime?  What's the "good" solution here and how much misery does that pass along to either the monsters themselves or those that they will inevitably hurt or kill?

Quote from: jhkim;481206But acknowledging the racism in Robert Howard brings us to the key point about the whole thing.  I'll bring up a bunch of possible opinions for purposes of discussion, though I'd be interested in hearing more.  (1) Are people who play straight-up Conan-style sword & sorcery morally wrong and should we urge them to change their ways?  (2) Should they instead try to disprove any connection between Howard's racial ideas and the fantasy they are enjoying?  Or (3) Should they admit that the fantasy is at least somewhat colored by Howard's racism, and still enjoy it as a game - without letting it guide their real-life views?

I think that when most people adapt sword and sorcery for role-playing, they excise the truly racist elements that they notice and essentially sanitize it.  I doubt you'll find many people or published adventures based around a premise such as saving a white princess from the evil clutches of black tribesmen, for example, or treating those people as subhuman monsters.  While there may be some merit to your point for people who are specifically adapting Howard's work or writing a licensed game based on Conan, so they understand what they are bringing in or leaving out, I think the fantasy and sword and sorcery influences that appear in most role-playing games have already been significantly, if not totally, sanitized for modern audiences.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481204With mice, once you remove the immediate environmental factors that fostered the infestation, I don't think you necessarily have to kill them. Seal up your house, secure food sources, remove rubbish and hiding places--those may suffice. At least, if you don't do those things, if you kill a bunch of mice, they'll probably just be replaced.

In a lot of cases this works, and at home my wife would never let me hire an exterminator for this sort of thing, but I wouldn't take issue (at least I wouldn't equate it with genocide or anything like that) with someone who does in order to keep their house free of rodents or instects. Happens all the time. When they put those poison pellets and spray down, it impacts the babies as much as the adults.

Quote from: John Morrow;481276Well, I've asked what the alternative is for inherently and irredeemably Evil orcs and don't think I got an answer to that (maybe I missed it).  Should they be put into internment camps?  Reservations?  Should the people who coexist with them have to tolerate the occasional random slaughter because the authorities will only act against them once they are guilty of an actual crime?  What's the "good" solution here and how much misery does that pass along to either the monsters themselves or those that they will inevitably hurt or kill?

I don't know if this is aimed at me but I'll give it a shot anyway. Like I said upthread somewhere most gamers who use irredeemably evil orcs or races don't find themselves in this situation because their games don't deal with the implications of having evil races in the setting beyond just battling “evil”. If a GM is determined to explore these issues than I think the answers could be (1) a concerted effort to exterminate the evil race down to the last male, female and infant (which personally I don't think would make a heroic game) or (2) an effort to coexist with the evil creatures defending and retaliating when attacked all the while holding on to whatever principles that would stop them from doing (1) (heroic but grim). I realize it’s not a perfect answer Morrow but I think these would be the options that my group would come up with. (Which I suppose goes back to your Kantian/Utilitarian divide from the article you're so fond of)

Regards,
David R

Quote from: J Arcane;481208What a clever way of describing a factual error, while absolving yourself of responsibility.

That's typical of jhkim's disingenuous style of argument.  After all these years, I've come to expect it from him in any thread in which he participates.

Quote from: John Morrow;481280I think that when most people adapt sword and sorcery for role-playing, they excise the truly racist elements that they notice and essentially sanitize it.  I doubt you'll find many people or published adventures based around a premise such as saving a white princess from the evil clutches of black tribesmen, for example, or treating those people as subhuman monsters.  While there may be some merit to your point for people who are specifically adapting Howard's work or writing a licensed game based on Conan, so they understand what they are bringing in or leaving out, I think the fantasy and sword and sorcery influences that appear in most role-playing games have already been significantly, if not totally, sanitized for modern audiences.

For most people, I'd agree with significantly sanitized - though I wouldn't agree totally.  

However, what about someone who claims they don't sanitize their Conan game and don't have to, because they claim Conan isn't racist (regardless of what REH thought about real-world race)?

Quote from: Sigmund;481255"Angry" is the way someone without a supportable position characterizes their opponents in order to attempt to trivialize the opposing position by dismissing it as emotional and not reasonable. You're better off ignoring that bullshit.

J Arcane +1'd this.

Quote from: jhkim;481146It's true that older historical values were different than Nazi values, absolutely.  However, I think it is even more nonsensical to identify historical values with modern-day non-racist values.  Your argument suggests we should call 19th century slavers racist, but call 18th century slavers non-racist.  That Nazis were racist, but the Jewish pogroms of the Renaissance were non-racist.  That seems equally strange to me.  I think it's better to say that historical racism was different than Nazi racism.  For that matter, racism in different parts of the world are also different.  19th century Korean racism isn't the same as 19th century American racism.  

Regardless of the racism label, though, the point is that myths and stories from history often express values that clash with our modern-day values.  If you are basing your game on myths, then what you are using are constructs used to express those historical values.  It is blatantly revisionist to say that the "good" and "evil" expressed by historical myths is the same thing that we would consider "good" and "evil" today.  There is overlap, but they are not the same thing.

I certainly agree with your 2nd paragraph - concepts of 'good and 'evil' very much do change over time.

"nonsensical to identify historical values with modern-day non-racist values."

I don't do that.  If I were being kind, I would call your 'modern day values' "anti-racist", not "non-racist".  If I were being harsh I'd call your 'modern day values' "New Left cultural-Marxist anti-white Deconstructionism" or something like that, and probably refer favourably to William S Lind.  

Going on: 19th century American slavers were racist; whether slavers in the various parts of the rest of the world where slavery was endemic were racist would take a lot of analysis - at a guess I'd say Arab slavers were pretty racist, but added in more religious bigotry to the mix; African slavers weren't particularly racist except in a 'my tribe is stronger than yours, ergo better' sort of way, Brazilian slavers were racist but not as rigid as Americans, etc etc.

18th century - Were early 18th century black slave owners racist against black slaves?  I suspect not?  AIR modern American racism really emerged in the late 17th & early 18th century with first the ban on black ownership of white slaves in the American colonies, then the ban on white slavery.  By several decades before the American Revolution/War of Independence the racial slavery system we're familiar with was in place.

The Jewish pogroms of the Renaissance were definitely more overtly sectarian/religious than racist; Christians of Jewish ancestry were often not identified as alien and tended not to be targeted.  Persecuting people 'to save their souls' may be reprehensible but is very different from Nazi or Rwandan style genocide (I'm not sure how the Turks regarded Armenian Muslim converts - I suspect the Armenian genocide was about 80% religious, 20% racial/ethnic).

Quote from: J Arcane;481148Your problem is that "racism" is a very serious charge to most people, and a very specific one to most people.

Yes, for the vast majority of Western people, "racist" indicates "alike unto the Nazis", with all that implies in terms of genocidal inclinations.

Quote from: jhkim;481157Wikipedia: Racism is the belief that there are inherent differences in people's traits and capacities that are entirely due to their race, however defined, and that, as a consequence, racial discrimination (i.e. different treatment of those people, both socially and legally) is justified.

Obviously wikipedia is edited mostly by cultural Marxists like yourself.    If we leave out the "as a consequence... " bit then yes, most people throughout history, and today, meet the wikipedia definition of racist.  Since identifiable races do by definition have identifiably different "traits"*, that would seem to be inevitable.

*Americans typically claim that 'race' is about 'skin colour', but from what I've seen (& I've looked at this a fair bit), American black vs white racial categorisation is not dependent on skin tone, but on nose shape.  In the US system you can have brown skin and be "white", but if you have white skin and a 'black' nose, then you're 'black'.

Quote from: Phillip;481158Some years ago, I was astounded to find a classroom of college students overwhelmingly defending child abuse (the cutting off of girls' clitorises) because "it's their religion".

Tell me about it.  I know a bunch of academic feminists who put the 'r' in 'radical', but they somehow got the mistaken impression that FGM was Koranically mandated, so they won't dare criticise it.

Quote from: John Morrow;481190And that's because I think you can make a causal link in the case of Howard and find actual examples of situations in his stories that sure look racist but not with Tolkien.  The main evidence that there is racism in Tolkien seems to be the assumption that there must inevitably be racism in Tolkien and some real stretches related to how certain people looked.  And that's why there will be a lot of pushback if you try to insist that people acknowledge the racism in Tolkien.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Taken as a whole REH's work comes across to me as pretty nuanced, but some of the stories taken alone certainly can look racist/sexist/etc.  Whereas Americans trying to impute American-style racism onto Tolkien I think just show a huge misunderstanding of the author.  British Marxists (like the young Moorcock) who criticise him for 'classism' and other 'sins' of high-Toryism are on much firmer ground - they know enough to know where he's coming from.

Quote from: S'mon;481335I certainly agree with your 2nd paragraph - concepts of 'good and 'evil' very much do change over time.

I'm not so sure. Joseph Campbell had a way to classify certain aspects of myth. For instance, he talked about the natural myth, which is the constant or parallel aspects of myth you can find back all throughout human history, which relate to human nature, the stages of development of our bodies and identities, how we relate to the cosmos around us, etc., and the societal myth, which is basically a series of dogma or laws on how to behave in society and fit in with the culture we are part of.

The part that evolves over time is the societal myth, while the natural myth is endlessly reinterpreted and retold through various stories, songs, dances, with patterns or archetypes which remain constant.

I believe that good and evil as values are constant. Their existence transcends the field of human experience. There are things that are "right" and fit in the plan, or design, of what you are and who you are and how you relate to others and the world and beyond, and things that are "wrong", which you should not do because that affects your soul, your being, how you relate to others, yourself, the world and beyond.

What changes is each society's interpretation of what, exactly, that means on a societal level, what exactly is a crime, and related punishment, what harms others, and what is okay. It's the societal interpretation that is different.