Quote from: John MorrowAnd I notice that you left out my point about sexism in East Asian culture.  Do you think that was a fair point or not?  How about my complaints about Communists?

The communist thing bugs me. Communists are the karmic equivalent of nazis. Why would anyone glorify these discredited fringe ideologies?

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!Big, hulking, apelike brutes can be of any ethnicity, can't they?

Correct.  It's the description that they are "black, hulking, apelike brutes" that happens to hit a particular and offensive racial stereotype.

I agree with Gareth about the pulp = escapism thing, but it seems to me that that's not a fully satisfactory answer to the problem that this product is trying to address.

If the stereotypes, etc. means it's only escapism for white heterosexual males, then we need to find a way to write pulp that's good escapism for adventure minded white-females, gay men, whatever. We need equal opportunity escapism!

I suspect though that playing up the oppression angle seriously is probably not the way to do it, since that's just as jarring to escapism as the butch dude invariably treating women as nothing more than sex objects or endless streams of savage black cannibals and no other people of color in sight. What you'd want instead is mostly to ignore the oppression angle (just put Doc Sarah in the same as you'd put in anyone else) and then occasionally throw in a stupid sexist/racist villain/mook band for revenge fantasy purposes.

There are some examples of where we might look. The short stories in the first book (ONLY!) of Delaney's Neveryon series, Charles Saunders' Imaro stories, the two Amazons collections edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson would be a good starting point for fantasy pulp, for example. Some of Paretsky's best earlier stuff is sort of pulpy. And so on.

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe communist thing bugs me. Communists are the karmic equivalent of nazis. Why would anyone glorify these discredited fringe ideologies?

Because they look awesome, and you don't.

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe communist thing bugs me. Communists are the karmic equivalent of nazis. Why would anyone glorify these discredited fringe ideologies?

Um, well, I'm not a communist by a long shot, but like it or not they certainly do have a far more justifiable raison d'etre than nazis.  They are certainly responsible for a shitload of atrocities, but there's also a ton of instances where they were the "good guys" in context of what was going on around them. And their stated goals on paper were considerably more noble.

Like it or not, if you put personal politics aside, a defense of certain communist ideologies is certainly more feasible than a defense of nazism, and only the most die-hard right-wingers would claim that they were equally morally reprehensible as ideologies.  You can certainly claim that, in practice, there were many instances of communist atrocities that were equivalently reprehensible to the acts of the Nazis, but then, you can say that about a lot of different ideologies, including western democratic capitalism.

In other words: come on.. let's not muddy the issue here. A lot of (particularly American) conservatives like to claim that Communism was just as bad as Hitler; and a lot of (particularly non-American) lefties these days try to claim that Bush is just as bad as Hitler (something I heard over and over again in the last few days here in Uruguay, where Bush was visiting). Neither of these are true.

RPGPundit

Quote from: John MorrowThus what he's saying is that he will not censor or modify his language to conform to (probably left-wing) political sensibilities that dislike the term.

G'ah.  Haven't been able to log on all day for some reason.  Anyway, you may point your finger at "probably left-wing", but in my experience the only people who ever use the term "politically correct" are either those who have the most to gain by it, or the most to lose.  The rest of us in the broad middle ground are the targets of attempts to polarise us to one end of the spectrum or the other.

QuoteAre you guys really so dense that you need all of this spelled out or maybe Google isn't working anymore in your neck of the Internet?

Hey, have I told you to fuck yourself lately?  Please, go fuck youself.

!i!

[Edit: I was in too much of a hurry last night to find this post of mine from a week and a half ago.  It includes irony and self-effacing humor and everything.  And I didn't have to look it up with Google or Wikipedia for a definition.]

Quote from: RPGPunditUm, well, I'm not a communist by a long shot, but like it or not they certainly do have a far more justifiable raison d'etre than nazis.  They are certainly responsible for a shitload of atrocities, but there's also a ton of instances where they were the "good guys" in context of what was going on around them. And their stated goals on paper were considerably more noble.

Whatever raison d'etre they might have, when you've murdered 100 million people or more in one century, you don't get more chances to try again.  And I'm sorry but noble goals stop being noble when they become a boot used to snuff out the lives of millions.

Quote from: John MorrowWhatever raison d'etre they might have, when you've murdered 100 million people or more in one century, you don't get more chances to try again.  And I'm sorry but noble goals stop being noble when they become a boot used to snuff out the lives of millions.

That's a very one-sided way of looking at things, and I suspect you know as much.

The fact remains that Communism remains a popular ideal for a huge segment of the population, especially in the third world. There are serious reasons for that.  I mean, you can accuse the United States of all kinds of atrocities, can't you? But that doesn't actually affect the reality that western democracy appeals to a vast segment of the world, and that it has a whole lot of other features that create that appeal, and that in many instances, it was the better of two choices.

You can talk about Stalin's purges or Mao or Pol Pot all you like, but that's a good basis to condemn Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot. Not communism per se.

Whereas Nazism, even ideologically, has no redeeming qualities.

RPGPundit

Quote from: RPGPunditYou can talk about Stalin's purges or Mao or Pol Pot all you like, but that's a good basis to condemn Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot. Not communism per se.

Whereas Nazism, even ideologically, has no redeeming qualities.

Not forgetting that the so-called Communist regimes were about as communist as a not-very-communist thing.

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe communist thing bugs me. Communists are the karmic equivalent of nazis. Why would anyone glorify these discredited fringe ideologies?

I think it would be instructive to bring out the Communist Manifesto and see how many of it's goals were actually achieved (at least partially) by modern liberal democracies.  Number 2, certainly!  In the UK at least number 5 is still arguable and we still had numbers 6 and 7 until quite recently.  I can't see a rational argument against number 10.  Number 9 is quite interesting in that the combination of agriculture with industry had the opposite effect to the one they predicted

Quote from: RPGPundit... but there's also a ton of instances where they were the "good guys" in context of what was going on around them.

They were the main armed resistance movement during the Japanese occupation of Malaya.

Regards,
David R

Quote from: RPGPunditThat's a very one-sided way of looking at things, and I suspect you know as much.

No, not really.

Quote from: RPGPunditThe fact remains that Communism remains a popular ideal for a huge segment of the population, especially in the third world. There are serious reasons for that.

A joke my friend's father used to tell (he was old enough to have fought in WW2):

"I used to be a Communist and then I found out that if you divided all of the money equally, everyone would have $50.  I had a $100 at the time, so I stopped being a communist."

Quote from: RPGPunditI mean, you can accuse the United States of all kinds of atrocities, can't you?

Comparable to starving millions of its own citizens for political purposes?  Did you ever notice that Communist countries have to build walls to keep the people in and information out yet the United States has a problem with keeping people out and information in.  Why do you think that is?

Quote from: RPGPunditBut that doesn't actually affect the reality that western democracy appeals to a vast segment of the world, and that it has a whole lot of other features that create that appeal, and that in many instances, it was the better of two choices.

The reason why Western democracy appeals to a vast segment of the world is that it actually seems to work pretty well, unlike Communism.

Quote from: RPGPunditYou can talk about Stalin's purges or Mao or Pol Pot all you like, but that's a good basis to condemn Stalin, or Mao, or Pol Pot. Not communism per se.

Can you give me one good real world example of Communism working well on a national scale that hasn't killed substantial numbers of its own people and/or has had to build walls or take other measure to keep people from leaving?

Quote from: RPGPunditWhereas Nazism, even ideologically, has no redeeming qualities.

Nazism is a horrible ideology that should never rise again.  No doubt about that.  The same is also true of Communism.  Arguing whether Nazism is worse than Communism is like arguing whether it's better for your neighbor to be dragged to death behind a car by someone who hates him because he's black or Jewish and your neighbor being dragged to death behind the car of someone who wants to take his money and property because he feels entitled to it.  Yeah, maybe the bigot is more despicable but in the long run, your neighbor is dead and they are both of the killers are murderers that shouldn't have excuses made for them.

Quote from: John MorrowA joke my friend's father used to tell (he was old enough to have fought in WW2):

"I used to be a Communist and then I found out that if you divided all of the money equally, everyone would have $50.  I had a $100 at the time, so I stopped being a communist."

And of course the appeal of communism in poorer countries is the reverse of this; "I used to be a capatalist, but then i found out that if you divided all of the money equally, everyone would have $50. I had $25 at the time, so i stopped being a capatalist."

Expectation never matches the reality though, as very well pointed out by history and even before events played out fully, Animal Farm.

Quote from: John MorrowCorrect.  It's the description that they are "black, hulking, apelike brutes" that happens to hit a particular and offensive racial stereotype.

But are they human?  Are they mutants?  Are they monsters?  Are they Martians?  Is there a reason why the GM would say "black"?

Quote from: David RThey were the main armed resistance movement during the Japanese occupation of Malaya.

Did they succeed in driving the Japanese out?  How did they behave toward their fellow countrymen after the war?  Would you want them to be in charge of Malaya today?