Quote from: LordVreeg;481393Remarking on an actual extant culture is merely reality...I am Scottish, does someone's noting my paleness count as racism?  I think not....

Also if I understand the context of the statement made by Tolkein correctly, it sounds more like a rebuff against German hatred of the Jews than any kind of endorsement for the idea of racial superiority.

Quote from: S'mon;481339*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'.

As someone who has been on the receiving end, I can say without much hesitation that it's skin tone and not noses. Certainly looking brown but having a white nose didn't help at all.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;481397As someone who has been on the receiving end, I can say without much hesitation that it's skin tone and not noses. Certainly looking brown but having a white nose didn't help at all.

Regards,
David R

I always thought of it as pretty comprehensive, but starting with skin tone. When I lived in North County (where racism was a lot more widespread than in Mass), kids used to tease me saying I had a "black nose" but no one seriously thought I was black. Most of them just mistook me for mexican.

Quote from: S'mon;481366Modern Racists - people who would actually call themselves Racists - always refer to the Nazi model of race-hate and genocide.

Not at all. Most I have seen subscribe to the separate but "equal" policy. The Nazi caricature is convenient because it takes away from the less obvious but in the long run more insidious racist out there.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481399I always thought of it as pretty comprehensive, but starting with skin tone. When I lived in North County (where racism was a lot more widespread than in Mass), kids used to tease me saying I had a "black nose" but no one seriously thought I was black. Most of them just mistook me for mexican.

Well I'm a Pakistani when in London.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: David R;481403Well I'm a Pakistani when in London.

Regards,
David R

I imagine British attitudes toward race are pretty different than US attitudes.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;481404I imagine British attitudes toward race are pretty different than US attitudes.

Sure, but I was just commenting on how colour is the focus. I mean it's the first thing you notice.

Regards,
David R

Haven't read the thread much past the posts from which these quotes are drawn, so apologies if I'm duplicating or cross-posting. This begins with the mice in John Morrow's yard.

Quote from: John Morrow;481276[...][Professional exterminators] 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.

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?

To begin with, the mice are only a starting point. To an extent I suppose I'm just pointing out the inadequacy of the mice as an analogy for fantasy orcs. At the same time, I recognize that exterminators have a job to do, it's not an evil job per se, and often it requires killing animals. At the same time, I think the threshold for cruelty and killing of animals is lower than it ought to be, worldwide. A lot of it is unthinking, or weighs convenience more highly against the well-being of animals than ought to be done. Recognizing how common this, I often don't think badly of the people involved, but as I said before, you get bonus points for going the extra mile, or even for showing a little mercy by not acting. (Why only "often"? Well, to give one example, I've come across discussions on a rabbit breeding forum where people talked about the best way to euthanize rabbits that didn't have the desired breed characteristics. As far as I'm concerned, these animals were bred for pure vanity, and will now be discarded for the same reason, and some of the participants advocated suffocation in a blanket as a cheap, convenient, no-mess method of disposing of the undesirables. This is both inhumane and a shirking of responsibility.)

As for your second question, if you are treating the fantasy world in a naturalistic fashion, how exactly are you defining inherently and irredeemably evil? In the real world, Yersinia pestis is the closest thing I can think of to "irredeemably evil", alongside the HIV virus, the hemorrhagic fever viruses, smallpox, etc. There's a bit of human-chauvinism there (to the natural world, human diseases might be good since they help keep us under control), but I can live with that, especially as I'm willing to put a premium on sentient life. For human-like creatures, I've tried very hard to think of a way a species could be congenitally evil. The closest I can think of would be something like chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), which although cute as babies, and capable of a form of culture, are very strong and prone to violence. They've been known to kill each other, kill humans, even engaging in infanticide (of their own species and ours). I don't think they're evil, at all, but to use the term I introduced in an earlier post, they would be "noxious" if they lived among us indiscriminately.

So let's say we're talking about creatures which are a bit like smart chimps. I'm willing to entertain the notion of humanoids which can talk, use tools, reason, etc., but which are also congenitally aggressive, violent, impulsive, rapacious (much more than humans). Let's say they even enjoy killing things and being generally destructive.

Were they always this way? If not, why couldn't they change back? If they've always been so destructive, why didn't they die out after depleting their native environment? If they formerly lived in balance with their environment, was there some recent event that brought them into contact with humanity?

To make a long story short, I think the in-depth analysis of why it's okay to kill orc females & young is an overly-literal interpretation of a few cues from the texts, possibly combined with assumptions brought in from outside of the game (such as familiarity with Tolkien). And it isn't matched with consistently in-depth analysis of the sense in which orcs are "evil" in the first place, yet portrayed as creatures of the natural world.

AD&D 1e does say that orcs are "lawful evil". It does suggest that they're congenitally violent. It doesn't say that orcs have always been "evil" or that they always will be. IMO, AD&D, while designed with an absolute morality, isn't intended to be turned into a mathematically perfect, universally applicable philosophy. Like Newtonian physics, it provides a local truth which breaks down under extreme conditions. One of those is speculating on the "necessity" of wiping out orcs due to the speculative future harm that would be caused by allowing them to live. In practical terms, I think the best approach in the sense of how the DM handles the game would indeed be to just let the "good guys" run them off. Or, if the PCs kill the young, does that mean there won't be any more trouble with orcs in the game?

Quote from: David R;481405Sure, but I was just commenting on how colour is the focus. I mean it's the first thing you notice.

Regards,
David R

And I was agreeing. I think the focus is the color.

By the way, I'm wondering what this business is about centaurs being connected to ancient Greek racism.

I've heard the theory, which I think is plausible, that the myth of centaurs came from the earliest contact of non-horse-riding people with horse-riders. (Note that in the Mediterranean world, horse-riding, at least in a military context, was preceded by the use of chariots.) The idea is that people saw men riding horses (or heard reports about them) and thought they were a single creature.

How this translates into "racism", particularly in the sense of asserting superiority or justifying discrimination, I'm not sure.

I do agree, again on the basis of plausibility than any real proof, that the idea of entire "races" of humanoids (elves, goblins, etc.) in myth is probably a dim culturally-transmitted memory of encounters with "others". However, I think the mythological use of these themes often lost its connection to the original relationships.

Quote from: Elliot Wilen;481414By the way, I'm wondering what this business is about centaurs being connected to ancient Greek racism.

I've heard the theory, which I think is plausible, that the myth of centaurs came from the earliest contact of non-horse-riding people with horse-riders. (Note that in the Mediterranean world, horse-riding, at least in a military context, was preceded by the use of chariots.) The idea is that people saw men riding horses (or heard reports about them) and thought they were a single creature.

I've heard this explanation too. Don't know how much weight it actually carries. It sounds to me like one of those explanations that makes sense when you hear it, but falls apart under more scrutiny. But I honestly have no idea.

QuoteHow this translates into "racism", particularly in the sense of asserting superiority or justifying discrimination, I'm not sure.

This is where I am pretty fuzzy too. It sounds like an honest misunderstanding if the explanation is correct. But even if it were a product of greek intolerance of other peoples, I don't see why it is all that relevant to us today; why we would need to acknowledge it if we plan to use centaurs in our game.

QuoteI do agree, again on the basis of plausibility than any real proof, that the idea of entire "races" of humanoids (elves, goblins, etc.) in myth is probably a dim culturally-transmitted memory of encounters with "others". However, I think the mythological use of these themes often lost its connection to the original relationships.

For me this is the key thing. Whatever racist connotations these things may have carried has long since evaporated.

Quote from: jhkim;481206Like I said before, I'm not going to argue about Tolkien any more.  It seems like too much of a hot-button issue for people.

In other words you got schooled, but aren't man enough to admit it.

QuoteBut 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'm in favor mainly of (3).  However, anyone personally bothered by Howard's racism should totally feel free to change or de-emphasize the racist parts.  That doesn't make them elitist - it's just a difference in taste.

The definitions of racism you posted said, very plainly, it was a belief. Only people can hold beliefs, not inanimate objects, or stories, or games. Hence, no inanimate object is racist. The fact that Howard was possibly racist is inconsequential, because a game based on his works is, by definition, not racist.

To put another way, you can try to rephrase your "guilt by association" premise all you want, but it's still a logical fallacy.

Quote from: TristramEvans;481417The definitions of racism you posted said, very plainly, it was a belief. Only people can hold beliefs, not inanimate objects, or stories, or games. Hence, no inanimate object is racist. The fact that Howard was possibly racist is inconsequential, because a game based on his works is, by definition, not racist.

Well a game based on the works of a writer may or may not contain racists ideas if the designers of said game do or do not subscribe to the racist beliefs of the writer in question.

Regards,
David R

I wonder what you guys would make of this review of Space 1889?

http://www.space1889.org/sp1889rev.html

Quote from: S'mon;481372That always really bugs the scum, for some reason.  On rpgnet they even start vomiting.

Cool story bro.