then he was taken up by US Universities as a tool for 'educating' their students to feel ashamed of themselves (involving a bit of a sleight of hand, since 'Oriental' in American-English refers to the Far East, not Said's Middle East).I've read Said in college (and was never asked to accept anything he said without criticism, by the way). In fact I had to read criticisms of his book along with the book itself.
Alleging sleight of hand in the use of the term "Orient" is not up to par.
It wasn't Said who was engaging in sleight of hand. It's the US academics who use it to teach US students. Maybe 'sleight of hand' gives them too much credit, many of them may be 'lumpen intelligentsia' themselves I suppose and not really appreciate the difference. But certainly Said's concern was to stop Englishmen thinking about the Middle East, whereas the US (lumpen) academic concern seems to be to stop Americans thinking about the whole non-Western world, by tying such curiosity to 19th & early 20th century US discrimination vs east-Asians. Both have the idea of the Western culture as uniquely powerful and demonic, the mirror-imagge of the right-liberal/neoliberal/neocon view of the West as uniquely powerful and benevolent.
There is justice in the world.
Good lord why is this in General Discussion for the Pathfinder RPG?
Why isn't this in Campaign Setting or Gamer Talk?
I literally threw up in my mouth a little. This drivel is worse than Alignment threads.
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I'm not sure what to think of your reply. Either I don't understand your statement, or you don't understand mine. Unless you are trying to make an amusing statement of agreement with me, but it just sound like that to me.
I was agreeing with you, that even abstract art could potentially cause offence, though maybe not for the same reasons.
In effect, making a comment on the nature of contemporary art.
Because one of the root tenets of identity politics is that being a victim of more or less anything makes you right, at least compared to those who can't claim victimhood, who then by extension, are wrong. It is the primary reason identity politics are crap.
Hear hear! Very well stated.
I think you failed your sense motive check, either that or Sissyl failed her bluff check.But if we took out everything that anyone could ever be offended by, THEN we would have a great campaign setting!Except that this is impossible. The entire movement of artists going to abstract art, was to avoid offending anyone by removing all subject material, and there are still the occasional offended people.
The way I see it, how much people take offense to is far more telling of an individual's maturity and personality, rather than how much they offend others.
I'm offended that you think Sissyl couldn't have been completely serious.
*Munches on politically correct naysayers*
I recall a dm wanted to be politically correct once after we had finished a quest. So, kobolds had been attacking caravans, eating people, damaging trade in the region. After we exterminated almost all of them, the dm started trying to play up the we should feel guilty about killing them. It was very weird, but a mark of political correctness and notions of victimhood encroaching on a game with typical quests that were older than the pc ideas. Don't kill the murdering kobolds, their young and wives might feel bad and then you should feel bad now that they are victims. Urgh.
It wasn't Said who was engaging in sleight of hand. It's the US academics who use it to teach US students.then he was taken up by US Universities as a tool for 'educating' their students to feel ashamed of themselves (involving a bit of a sleight of hand, since 'Oriental' in American-English refers to the Far East, not Said's Middle East).I've read Said in college (and was never asked to accept anything he said without criticism, by the way). In fact I had to read criticisms of his book along with the book itself.
Alleging sleight of hand in the use of the term "Orient" is not up to par.
If so it seems to me that it would be so incompetent an attempt as to be basically irrelevant.
Anyone who
a) has actually read even just the first two paragraphs of Said's book, and
b) is taken in by any such sleight of hand
is wildly terrible at reading comprehension.
Americans will not feel quite the same about the Orient, which for them is much more likely to be associated very differently with the Far East (China and Japan, mainly).
Under thirty seconds into the book.
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Some of my colleagues really love it. It speaks to them, reveals the truth of the world. These people are anthropologists. :(
Whenever I hear the acclaim, I just want to refer them to the critiques, or explain how many hard-working Orientalists really came under threat of even having a job after Orientalism came out. Asian Studies reformed, and it is a damn good discipline but the work of so many lives trying to comprehend the history of human societies was attacked by Said.
It is not always brought up alongside criticism, sometimes it is just on a reading list and something you are meant to assimilate into your knowledge base. There are still followers of the text.
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If you have sacred cows (to butcher another cultural trope) then kill them and eat them immediately.
Bad idea. Killing and eating your sacred cow means you will have no beast of burden to pull your plow next planting season, and you will starve in the long term.
Making an effort to understand other cultures and the reasons for certain practices does more than prevent you from offending people. It adds complexity and verisimilitude to your worldbuilding.
I recall a dm wanted to be politically correct once after we had finished a quest. So, kobolds had been attacking caravans, eating people, damaging trade in the region. After we exterminated almost all of them, the dm started trying to play up the we should feel guilty about killing them. It was very weird, but a mark of political correctness and notions of victimhood encroaching on a game with typical quests that were older than the pc ideas. Don't kill the murdering kobolds, their young and wives might feel bad and then you should feel bad now that they are victims. Urgh.
To be fair, PCs were ignoring that sort of moral dilemma for years before political correctness really got going. I mean, Moldvay Basic has a picture of three PCs arguing about the fate of a captive goblin right next to the alignment section.
I don't disagree with any of your post, jeff, and I certainly can't talk about the specifics of DM's esperience, but if a PC of good alignment decides to kill noncombatants out of expediency, the GM's description of feeling guilty may well be the hint that there should have been a more diplomatic approach, rather than a political correctness fueled guilt trip.
Don't get me wrong, around the gaming table, if it's a choice between subtlety and player comprehension, player comprehension should win every time.
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It wasn't Said who was engaging in sleight of hand. It's the US academics who use it to teach US students.If so it seems to me that it would be so incompetent an attempt as to be basically irrelevant.
Anyone who
a) has actually read even just the first two paragraphs of Said's book, and
b) is taken in by any such sleight of handis wildly terrible at reading comprehension.
Americans will not feel quite the same about the Orient, which for them is much more likely to be associated very differently with the Far East (China and Japan, mainly).Under thirty seconds into the book.
I don't know; I've read a bunch of US gamers posting on (eg) EN World who seem to have been taken in (and I think rpgnet is worse, but I try hard to avoid the political areas there and only go to the d20 forum). Are they all morons? I guess they probably weren't paying a lot of attention; maybe they never read the book* and just heard what they expected to hear.
*If every student I told to read a book actually read it, I'd be a happy lecturer. :)
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I don't what books you pick, but if every teacher I know pick readable books that weren't organized in the most confusing way, with horrible lack of clarity, I'd read the textbooks more often. Right now I use them only as reference and rely more on google to gain understanding. I read lots of books cause I love reading, and textbooks are usually (thankfully not always) the most horribly written pieces of junk. Well to be fair, some are written more like reference books then textbooks, which helps only after I know what is going on.
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I don't what books you pick, but if every teacher I know pick readable books that weren't organized in the most confusing way, with horrible lack of clarity, I'd read the textbooks more often. Right now I use them only as reference and rely more on google to gain understanding. I read lots of books cause I love reading, and textbooks are usually (thankfully not always) the most horribly written pieces of junk. Well to be fair, some are written more like reference books then textbooks, which helps only after I know what is going on.
I'm a law lecturer/professor - I do choose books for clarity, but law text books are always going to be pretty heavy going. The good students read them, the bad ones don't. Hopefully they at least Google. ;)
I actually think Googling first, textbook second is a very good approach, one I recommend to my classes: "Sure, look at Wikipedia. Just don't *stop* with Wikipedia!"
I don't disagree with any of your post, jeff, and I certainly can't talk about the specifics of DM's esperience, but if a PC of good alignment decides to kill noncombatants out of expediency, the GM's description of feeling guilty may well be the hint that there should have been a more diplomatic approach, rather than a political correctness fueled guilt trip.
Don't get me wrong, around the gaming table, if it's a choice between subtlety and player comprehension, player comprehension should win every time.
Well it got weirder. Not only were we guilt-tripped, but the dm ended up turning the mothers and children into swarms, so rather than clean it all up and make the region actually safe from the critters, we got rid of the males but left some rather dangerous swarms with memories of slaughter and trauma. At our very low level, it was just too much trouble to get rid of the swarms, and then there was the dm trying to guilt us.
So we went home, mission accomplished, and left the region in danger. :/
PS: I really like negotiation quests and for demihumans to be complex creatures involved in the politics of the region, but the above just got weird.
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Most of my experience with the practical application of Said's work has been to see it used as a bludgeoning tool to silence or discredit scholars who criticize any culture that they aren't members of by birth, and doubly so if they're discussing religion.
For instance I've seen criticism of female genital mutilation in the middle east and east Africa hit by charges of 'you can't criticize this, you're being an imperialist eurocentric/racist/sexist orientalist' etc.
Worse even if the scholar is an actual orientalist by academic focus (see for instance the work of the German scholar Christoph Luxenberg, who regardless of if his theories are historically accurate wholly or even only partially, has been hit by an avalanche of dismissive, disdainful charges of "orientalism" as well as a bevy death threats).
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I don't disagree with any of your post, jeff, and I certainly can't talk about the specifics of DM's esperience, but if a PC of good alignment decides to kill noncombatants out of expediency, the GM's description of feeling guilty may well be the hint that there should have been a more diplomatic approach, rather than a political correctness fueled guilt trip.
Don't get me wrong, around the gaming table, if it's a choice between subtlety and player comprehension, player comprehension should win every time.
Well it got weirder. Not only were we guilt-tripped, but the dm ended up turning the mothers and children into swarms, so rather than clean it all up and make the region actually safe from the critters, we got rid of the males but left some rather dangerous swarms with memories of slaughter and trauma. At our very low level, it was just too much trouble to get rid of the swarms, and then there was the dm trying to guilt us.
So we went home, mission accomplished, and left the region in danger. :/
PS: I really like negotiation quests and for demihumans to be complex creatures involved in the politics of the region, but the above just got weird.
I think I read about that in an episode of KoDT. :P
Most of my experience with the practical application of Said's work has been to see it used as a bludgeoning tool to silence or discredit scholars who criticize any culture that they aren't members of by birth, and doubly so if they're discussing religion.
For instance I've seen criticism of female genital mutilation in the middle east and east Africa hit by charges of 'you can't criticize this, you're being an imperialist eurocentric/racist/sexist orientalist' etc.
Worse even if the scholar is an actual orientalist by academic focus (see for instance the work of the German scholar Christoph Luxenberg, who regardless of if his theories are historically accurate wholly or even only partially, has been hit by an avalanche of dismissive, disdainful charges of "orientalism" as well as a bevy death threats).
That is also how I have seen it used.
It has gotten so bad, that Bernard Henri-Levy has accused the left of abandoning its principles (of doubt, criticism of tradition/religion and supporting progress) in Left in Dark Times. The point on leftists abandoning their critique of fascism (because you can't criticise fascism in non-western cultures without in turn copping flak now, or genital mutilation, or religious tyranny, or child slavery) was quite compelling.
I am not sure if it is exactly Orientalism, but when fantasy maps always put Africans south of the main adventuring area, Arabs to the east and Asians to the far east, I can't help but feel it is highly unoriginal.
As someone who has built worlds and made maps that is very lazy. I was disappointed to see Golarion did that. Real world ethnic geography doesn't have to be copied!
I am not sure if it is exactly Orientalism, but when fantasy maps always put Africans south of the main adventuring area, Arabs to the east and Asians to the far east, I can't help but feel it is highly unoriginal.
As someone who has built worlds and made maps that is very lazy. I was disappointed to see Golarion did that. Real world ethnic geography doesn't have to be copied!
As I've mentioned elsewhere on these boards, I went through several years of playing Traveller, when I remade my D&D campaign setting under the that system. Since then the three major human ethnicities in my world have been have been much closer Solomani, Vilani and Zhodani than anything historical. Point being, you're right about the maps, but there's no requirement to copy real world cultures, either.
Damn straight. I get that it is done to sell something easier (this is an adventure in fantasy Egypt, or fantasy Japan) but I much prefer actual originality.
Orientalism in gaming as laziness?
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I actually enjoy pulling fairly heavily from real-world cultures. Partially because there is just so much more inspiration to draw from, and especially with religion. So often, fantasy gods are single-faceted... but I digress. This doesn't mean you have to copy real geography I agree.
I don't really have a problem with taking inspiration from foreign versions of other cultures' myths as opposed to originals, though. An upcoming Egyptian/Sumerian/Akkadian/Persian mishmash type of character ( :O Orientalism salad!) is going to be taking as much inspiration from Apuleius as from the Isis and Re papyri.
If you don't knick from the well known cultures, and avoid what is typically copied, it can be pretty neat. Needs more melanesia. The Assyrians have crept into my games before (love the idea of shield and bow teams).
Orientalism salad! It's what's for dinner.
I actually enjoy pulling fairly heavily from real-world cultures. Partially because there is just so much more inspiration to draw from, and especially with religion. So often, fantasy gods are single-faceted... but I digress. This doesn't mean you have to copy real geography I agree.
I don't really have a problem with taking inspiration from foreign versions of other cultures' myths as opposed to originals, though. An upcoming Egyptian/Sumerian/Akkadian/Persian mishmash type of character ( :O Orientalism salad!) is going to be taking as much inspiration from Apuleius as from the Isis and Re papyri.
I don't think there's anything wrong with drawing inspiration from real world sources. Orientalism salad sounds very, very tasty!
I guess at a certain point I do start to wonder if dedicated asian themed supplements do more harm than good. In the case of AD&D, I never felt that the selection of classes in the 1e player's handbook couldn't be used for an asian themed campaign, so having a supplement called Oriental Adventures felt like some sort of misguided attempt at segregation masquerading as open mindedness. On the other hand, I'm pretty impressed by Spears of the Dawn, so maybe I'm just a big fat hypocrite.
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At some point, we are and will remain humans. We function very much the same, and we need and value the same things. Different cultures are merely different answers to how to achieve these same things in different environments, and thus come with different problems attached. And there lies stories, every story we (again, as pretty similar humans) respond to and feel is authentic. It is all well and good to work toward civility to those different than ourselves, but it becomes a problem when you do not even tolerate balanced viewpoints on the grounds that such a viewpoint also includes negative issues.
So, we can at the very least relax about this in our home campaigns, I should say. Paizo has a more difficult situation, but are dealing with it admirably.
Damn straight. I get that it is done to sell something easier (this is an adventure in fantasy Egypt, or fantasy Japan) but I much prefer actual originality.
There's also a major chunk of the market that prefers real-world cultures because there's a depth and richness to them that is not often captured by "original" material. One of the major weaknesses of a lot of speculative fiction is the "planet of hats" phenomenon, where everyone from Bandragoria is a Mercantile Prince or something like that. Rather than making up shallow stories, you can borrow deep ones (Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo is a very good example of this done well, and popular for exactly this reason).
For the same reason, Ars Magica (which is ostensibly set in historical Europe, usually in Western Europe) is one of my favorite TTRPGs. Basically, any time I'm hurting for a story idea, I can just flip open any of a thousand reference books and I have all the history, folklore, literature, I could desire. Compare that with the kind of material I have available for Traveller(typically seven numbers and 1-3 two-letter codes for any given planet) and you see the issue.
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Orf, can I ask if you feel you should only use those reference books in a historical setting? I'm asking cause Ars Magica isn't the pseudo-medieval not-europe of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, it's Europe. Like, Europe Europe.
Personally, even though my home brew D&D setting is ostensibly somewhere on a planet in the Traveller universe (or Star Wars sometimes, there was a d20 system for that), I have no compunctions whatsoever about using history such as the Dutch tulip bubble of 1637 for world building fodder, because having the continent's strongest economy fail because of over valued flowers is just awesome.
Orf, can I ask if you feel you should only use those reference books in a historical setting? I'm asking cause Ars Magica isn't the pseudo-medieval not-europe of Greyhawk or the Forgotten Realms, it's Europe. Like, Europe Europe.
Yes, it's Europe. My first campaign was on the isle of Anglesea, just off the coast of Wales.
The issue isn't that you "shouldn't" use those reference books in Greyhawk, but that it's a much harder job to, because the fictitious world of Greyhawk doesn't hang together well enough and doesn't provide enough detail.
Case in point: My second ArM game was set on the Isle of Man, and the campaign HQ was in an abandoned and derelict monastery. One of the players asked "which order," so I pulled "Dominican" out of a thin air (which was actually anachronistic, but they didn't know any better, either. Today I'd have picked "Cistercian"). That one word gave me six months of gaming material from real-world church politics, especially when one considers the historical role that the Dominicans played in combatting heresy.
Personally, even though my home brew D&D setting is ostensibly somewhere on a planet in the Traveller universe (or Star Wars sometimes, there was a d20 system for that), I have no compunctions whatsoever about using history such as the Dutch tulip bubble of 1637 for world building fodder, because having the continent's strongest economy fail because of over valued flowers is just awesome.
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm talking about -- you're back to a planet of hats (hats with tulips on them, in this case) transplanted from its natural environment. Where did the tulip mania come from? How are the other people around reacting to this?
Everyone knows about the Dutch in 1637, but it's surprising how little attention is paid to the French, Germans, and Spanish at that time, despite the fact that they were just as affected, and there's probably more realistic story potential in playing off the different factions than there is in an economic Aesop's fable.
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Further to previous. There are similar issues with Galt, in Golarion. Yes, Galt is an awesome place to do Scarlet Pimpernel remakes, and that's why the designers put it in. But who's supposed to be playing the part of the English in these remakes? Who's the Spanish? It's a little odd to step across a line and you're no longer in revolutionary France but in Taldor, which (to me) is a little piece of the Shire.
The not-Europe of Greyhawk and Golarion fits together like a badly sewn patchwork quilt; the individual stories have been put in without much regard for how their neighbors work. The real Europe hangs together because how the neighbors work is literally part of the history.
Aesop's fable? Why the frick would I bother to include a moral? :P More seriously, how is it a planet of hats if it's not all tulips all the time everywhere?
My issue with using real Europe for how well it hangs together is that at a certain point it limits your story options with all the history. This is a particularly a problem with with level based games like D&D and PF; at a high enough level the only way you can reconcile that sort of influence with the historical record is to pull a "I guess everyone's been calling me Charlemagne the whole time, or something?"
My issue with using real Europe for how well it hangs together is that at a certain point it limits your story options with all the history.
... which is simply another way of saying that all the history has a lot of narrative power, but you don't like that. I do. I think a lot of people do, which is why games and splatbooks that try to tap into that type of power (e.g., Legend of the Five Rings) have the market they do.
If you want to play in a completely unrestricted world, GURPS supports that quite well. The world can be as detailed or not as you prefer, anywhere from Lord of the Rings to a Bugs Bunny cartoon. For most people, who aren't Tolkien and who don't have years to spend on their campaign background, this means Bugs.
That's part of why the storytelling games with the deep and imaginative backgrounds really took off in the late 80s and early 90s -- people didn't want to play GURPS. But there's also a reason that the World of Darkness was based on the real world; it made it easier for the group to find sources to plunder and create deep background. If you want to play in something with a specific theme or background, it's much easier to let someone else do the work of creating the world rather than spending months in the library yourself.
The setting I had been originally doing was basically an alternative history of Earth, and I abandoned it just because I didn't feel my knowledge of history and anthropology was up to snuff to set something in the real world. Which is basically why I turning my setting into Faux-Earth, with some continents rearranged and some "historical events" changed around or reversed. It's makes a setting way way easier to play with since I feel more comfortable handwaving things like anachronisms, etc.
At some point, we are and will remain humans. We function very much the same, and we need and value the same things. Different cultures are merely different answers to how to achieve these same things in different environments, and thus come with different problems attached. And there lies stories, every story we (again, as pretty similar humans) respond to and feel is authentic. It is all well and good to work toward civility to those different than ourselves, but it becomes a problem when you do not even tolerate balanced viewpoints on the grounds that such a viewpoint also includes negative issues.
So, we can at the very least relax about this in our home campaigns, I should say. Paizo has a more difficult situation, but are dealing with it admirably.
I would agree, but if you contrast the samurai warrior ethic with its fixation upon honour with the wants and needs of a young consumerist today, you will find that they do not need and value the same things.
I came across this recently when I was trying to introduce samurai death poetry to late high school students. These are smart kids, but they had real trouble getting into the mindset or even understanding where the samurai were coming from. There was a whole lot of difference in background and mentality, few parallels in needs and values.
Different cultures across time are not all the same, and the people from them are not all the same.