Badger3k wrote:jimthepleb wrote:Cruthers is an Anitaphile.
He's let Josh use him as a condom.
He's been infected by the Steersvirus.
Well he was visited by Doctor Steersman. :lol:
By the way I see his point, especially on morons like Warcorpse doing much more harm than good. I actually agree with most of the things that James has written and I'm glad he now agrees with me about the general awfulness of most MRAs-Redpillers-MGTOW. And yes, some stuff said about Anita is stupid.
However there's a paragraph I really don't agree with in his last post:
James Caruthers wrote:I would be open to feminist criticism of gaming culture as I think I've said before, but it needs to come with some non-bullshit arguments. Japanese developers in particular are locked off in their monoculture and I think frequently cross the line for what ideas would be acceptable in the mainstream western post-feminist, post-black rights, post-gay rights (well, working on that) culture. This comes across in their games. Ever seen a Japanese developer make a game with black people in it?
I don't think there's any point to a feminist criticism of "gaming culture" because there's no such thing as "gaming culture". There are different kinds of people enjoying different video games. I'm OK if feminists want to criticise this or that trend or game. I might agree with them if they complain about bad behavior of
real persons towards other
real persons.
But all the stuff about criticism of the morality of content of video games is pretty pointless outside of the world of criticism itself and of academia, IMHO. Games are fiction.
If you want to impose an ideological policy onto fiction you're hedging towards thoughtcrime and authoritarianism through the path of moral outrage. If SJWs want to make SJW games they're free to do it. If they're any good people will play with them. If they're just pretentious boring choose-your-own adventure text game people will get bored by them.
Frankly,who gives a shit if the Japanese want to make racist or sexist games. If you don't like them, don't play with them, criticize them if you want, don't recommend them, but don't play the victim card about how you're oppressed by fiction you don't like.
That's what really irks me the most about Anita and all the moral guardians. They don't simply dislike some kind of fiction, or criticize it, or say it sucks and it's backwards and misogynistic. I'd be fine with that. But no, all these morally outraged authoritarians
have to try to
blame real problems on fiction.
They try to make it look like
people who write or read those things are criminals or potential criminals and should be locked up or put on a list so they can be under the scrutiny of the Public Big brother. That's where they cross the line.
Fiction isn't real. It never becomes real on its own. I've read some pretty depraved stuff, like the novels of the Marquis de Sade, and watched movies like Cannibal Holocaust or A Serbian Movie. That's some pretty fucked shit. I've also had a pretty bad childhood and I have some anxiety issues, so according to armchair psychologists and "concerned mothers" or Internet feminists I should be serial killer material. And yet I haven't hurt a fly. That's because, to use a tired cliche
I know the difference between fiction and reality.
Fiction isn't magic. We still unconsciously believe in the magic powers of books largely because religion is based on worshipping the supernatural events written in a book as if they were real.
Fiction is a mirror, not a trigger. If Japanese creators write some really sexist or racist or homophobic shit, maybe there are sexist/racist/homophobic and maybe they simply don't care and live in a country where nobody cares, either. You can criticise them, you can mock them, you can cry and shake with rage at the Evil they put in their games.
But at the end of the day if you wanted to lock them up or to exclude them from society because of the games they've made you'd be the bad guy, no matter how "justified" your position is. You can't really do that with the Japanese, because Japan doesn't give a shit about the opinions of Western feminists.
But as a Westerner you can potentially do that in the West. Dozens and dozens of politicians salivate at the thought of implementing authoritarian laws to punish thoughtcrime. It's absolute power over people's minds, and power is what the majority of politicians are after. And don't tell me it could never happen. David Cameron already pushes for a register of people who want to watch online porn. The excuse is to "think of the children!", as usual.
There are also hordes of shitty parents who want excuses for their sihtty parenting skills. Blaming comics or books or video games is a really easy way out for horrible parents: "My son Jimmy isn't a drug addict because I never cared for him as a human being but only as a source of perpetual disappointment. My daughter Jessie isn't turning tricks because I physically and emotionally abused her. My little Marlon isn't a bully because I mess up his face every time I get drunk. My beloved Humphrey isn't vandalizing cars because I spoiled him rotten and never gave him any rules. My dear Lizzie hasn't married a loser at 18 just because she got pregnant because I never bothered to teach her proper sex ed. No, it could
NEVER be my fault! It must be those doggone friends from school/sex revolution/video games/violent comics/porn!"
Newsflash, parents: 99% of the time your kid does something awful when they're still living with you
it's your fault for some bad parenting and
your responsibility to help them get through it (and in the other 1% it's because they're sociopaths). The buck stops with you. Every parent can fuck up, and being parents is a hard job (though most of the time nobody pointed a gun at your head and forced you to have kids). But blaming society or entertainment is nothing more than an excuse.
So no, I don't think we should really care about "misogyny in video games" more than we care about "violence in video games". Criticism is fine. Civil discussion is fine. Pearl clutching, saying you're oppressed by video games and "who would enjoy this sick filth" whining aren't: they're the prelude to proposal to authoritarian laws or "rules of conduct" who will get "concerned parents" and power-hungry politicians to jump on the bandwagon. They're a prelude to thoughtcrime.
Also, if Japanese creators never put black people in their vidya, maybe it's also because there are very, very few black people in Japan? Not every society works like the US.
