Trans Paizo employee fired for complaining about trans Iconic?

[LazarX]

Alzrius wrote:

Crystal Frasier wrote:

Probably relevant to this discussion that "social justice warrior" is originally an insult, not a self-description. A few people may call themselves that now--mostly in jest--but it's mostly just a mocking label applied by a certain category of people on the internet who don't like it when a minority says "stop insulting me."

It took me a while to understand that the people using the term "social justice warrior" weren't using it to refer to anyone who believes in/advocates social justice. Rather, they seem to be using it to make a mockery of the idea that the principles of social justice should be applied to artwork, media, and fiction to the same (or similar) degree as to legal, workplace, and social situations.

From what I'm given to understand, the basis for this is that people who mock "SJWs" fundamentally disagree with the belief that media has the power to normalize attitudes and behaviors - at least to any appreciable degree - and as such implicitly reject the assumption that changing what the media displays and how it displays it will necessarily make any positive changes to society at large. Rather, they're of the opinion that the media reflects attitudes already in place, and that changing the media requires making more fundamental changes to the social fabric of society, rather than vice versa.

This isn't to say that there aren't people using the term to justify acting like spiteful, self-centered jerks, of course. But the above attitude seems to be at the core of those with a philosophical opposition to "social justice warriors."

At the macro level, this is a debate about whether life imitates art, or art imitates life.

You're wrong. the people who mock, whose culture created the term "Social Justice Warrior" as a pejorative, DO believe in the power of media. Otherwise they wouldn't give a flying f+&* about Fraiser wrote in her iconic writeup. Even in such niche areas as Paizo and it's blog. They're fighting a rearguard action on what they see as an attack on them. That's why GamerGate is as vicious as the reports say. They see the active push on progressiveness as an attack on their culture and the very way they see themselves. And it will get worse before it gets better.... if it gets better at all.

[Kryzbyn]

No, I meant the attitude behind it.

[Kelvar Silvermace]

Gaberlunzie wrote:

Ragnarok Aeon wrote:

There's a big difference between sexual preference and gender identity. One is an interest the other is how you present yourself.

Of course (though gender identity is a bit more than how you present yourself); I don't know if your post was a response to mine though, which was a response to meatrace's post above.

That's right. How one presents oneself may or may not be consistent with one's gender identity. Trans people can be (and often are) closeted, too, often for many of the same reasons as gay, lesbian and bisexual people. It is just that the secret is not related to who one loves, but to who one *is*.

[Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal]

Hell, I read the initial article and couldn't figure what the guy was talking about until I returned to this thread because I that was the first time I had seen anyone use just the initials.
To be honest, I hadn't really encountered the term that frequently previously.

[thejeff]

Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

But I could say "a few people use the word 'privilege' in an educational manner, but it is mostly just used by social justice bullies so they can feel superior". It's not very conducive, though, is it?

Actually, as a total supporter of the notion of being aware of one's own privilege, I *do* see it used to bully people much more often than I see it used in a constructive manner. That's a real grievance.

I suspect much of this, both with "privilege" and SJW is as much based on the perception of the person hearing the term than the one using it.

If someone think's your privilege is affecting your reaction to a situation, they might use the term to describe it. If you don't think it's relevant, you'll perceive it as an attack.

If you don't think the issue being discussed really is sexist/racist/whatever or possible just not significant, you'll perceive someone treating it such as a Social Justice Warrior.

(I tried to frame those equivalently, not to attack either side. If I failed, assume the intent was good :)

[Kobold Catgirl]

Alrzius wrote:

It took me a while to understand that the people using the term "social justice warrior" weren't using it to refer to anyone who believes in/advocates social justice.

Correct!

Quote:

Rather, they seem to be using it to make a mockery of the idea that the principles of social justice should be applied to artwork, media, and fiction to the same (or similar) degree as to legal, workplace, and social situations.

Uh...wh'okay...

Quote:

From what I'm given to understand, the basis for this is that people who mock "SJWs" fundamentally disagree with the belief that media has the power to normalize attitudes and behaviors

right, okay, yes, WHAT?

Quote:

- at least to any appreciable degree - and as such implicitly reject the assumption that changing what the media displays and how it displays it will necessarily make any positive changes to society at large.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, okay. YEAH, OKAY...

Quote:

Rather, they're of the opinion that the media reflects attitudes already in place, and that changing the media requires making more fundamental changes to the social fabric of society, rather than vice versa.

Alright, this I can kind of get behind. Obviously, it's a combination of both, depending on the medium. Books and comics and TV shows and video games don't have to worry as much as movies do about "is this too radical?" Movies have a harder time being "social changers" because there's so many people and so much money involved in them you are not generally allowed to take risks. Kinda like how there's a lot of steampunk books, a ton of steampunk video games, and a bajillion of steampunk comics...but maybe three or four steampunk movies. And that's a very generous guess.

Quote:

This isn't to say that there aren't people using the term to justify acting like spiteful, self-centered jerks, of course.

That's the kind of thing I like to see clarified before I bust out the Jontron links, dude.

Quote:

But the above attitude seems to be at the core of those with a philosophical opposition to "social justice warriors."

I simply can't agree with this. Social Justice Warriors are just...awful. Everyone should be philosophically opposed to them, the same way they're opposed to rioters and internet trolls.

Those philosophically opposed to social justice are another matter, but that's less applicable to this discussion. Nobody's defending them.

My problem is with people trying to simplify those of us who often argue with social justice proponents as ignorant or worse. The funny thing is, a lot of us think this is a complicated issue and not just a black-and-white "anything that anyone can get upset about is a problem that needs to be eliminated for the good of our culture". And we don't like our arguments being dismissed as "part of the problem".

[Jiggy]

Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:

Mikaze wrote:

meatrace wrote:

None of the iconics' sexualities has come into play in any published adventure, as far as I know, nor should it. It's a game about killing monsters and taking their s&~@.

That's what the game is about for some.

Not so much for others.

Not by way of disagreeing, but I'd say that the amount of ink dedicated to those topics in Pathfinder is considerably more than other RPGs which are widely available. It follows that that is the content that most people are interested in.

Derail:

Just to offer a different viewpoint here, ever since I joined the hobby I had always figured that the amount of rules text devoted to any given topic was proportional to how much that topic needed rules. Nobody needs a multi-layer rules system to determine what the next sentence of a conversation can legally be, or to resolve whether being bisexual is too much of an advantage over single-sex orientations without spending some character resources on it, and so forth. But determining who's stronger, who saw the ambush coming, or whether it's fair that you're good at shooting fire and stabbing; that all needs rules, because even very mature people need something to go by other than simply declaring "I block his sword!" and expecting it to work.

Thus, it's my belief that the difference in word count has more to do with what things need more/fewer rules than with what the game is built to focus on during actual gameplay. Not saying there's anything wrong with some folks wanting to just kill monsters and get loot, but I don't think you can infer that intent just from "amount of rules".

[Mythic Evil Lincoln]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

My problem is with people trying to simplify those of us who often argue with social justice proponents as ignorant or worse. The funny thing is, a lot of us think this is a complicated issue and not just a black-and-white "anything that anyone can get upset about is a problem that needs to be eliminated for the good of our culture". And we don't like our arguments being dismissed as "part of the problem".

Somebody will look at that statement, think of something they've been offended by, and think: "This guy thinks I am not right to be offended by that thing! What an a*#$&^$!."

And therein lies the problem.

[Mythic Evil Lincoln]

Derail continued:

But then, the situations you describe as needing clarification tell you an awful lot about the players' expectations, do they not? A fantasy game contains rules to handle fantasy situations, and a sci-fi game contains rules for scifi situations. A game that contains rules for social conflict with binding outcomes that has as many or more pages than the combat rules sets the expectation for the players that those are the tools used to solve problems.

I'm a big fan of playing diverse systems in RP, and it's a subject of great interest to me how the presentation of rules affects the expectation of the players. In the case of Pathfinder, the implicit gameplay is VERY MUCH based on combat with monsters. Not only that, but highly tactical combat. It is the presumed norm. Everyone knows when initiative is to be rolled, and most players actually conduct themselves accordingly.

That doesn't exist in all games. It's very interesting!

[thejeff]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

I simply can't agree with this. Social Justice Warriors are just...awful. Everyone should be philosophically opposed to them, the same way they're opposed to rioters and internet trolls.

Those philosophically opposed to social justice are another matter, but that's less applicable to this discussion. Nobody's defending them.

My problem is with people trying to simplify those of us who often argue with social justice proponents as ignorant or worse. The funny thing is, a lot of us think this is a complicated issue and not just a black-and-white "anything that anyone can get upset about is a problem that needs to be eliminated for the good of our culture". And we don't like our arguments being dismissed as "part of the problem".

The problem with this is that there's no agreement on what "Social Justice Warriors" are. Other than "awful people who argue for social justice", I suppose. I can certainly agree that those people are awful.

But then we get into which people who argue for social justice are awful and it all falls apart again. Little Mac, from the bit that started this thread lumps Paizo with SJWs and I've seen it in arguments here when they've put out something with a new LGBTQ character.

Which brings me back to "It's a term to throw at anyone concerned about something you're not." There may be some root meaning we could all agree on and agree is bad, but it's long since lost touch with it.

[Krensky]

Jiggy wrote:

Spoiler:

Nobody needs a multi-layer rules system to determine what the next sentence of a conversation can legally be...

Spoiler:

Never say that around a linguist.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Obviously, the term is misused sometimes. No term is perfect unless it's mathematical. Hell, if people are still calling politicians terrorists, I don't think we can be surprised that terms like "privileged" and "social justice warrior" get misused a lot.

Bottom line is:

Social Justice

Warrior.

And if you think 'Warrior' is a good thing to be when you're trying to use Diplomacy, good luck. They don't even have it as a class skill.

[thejeff]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Obviously, the term is misused sometimes. No term is perfect unless it's mathematical. Hell, if people are still calling politicians terrorists, I don't think we can be surprised that terms like "privileged" and "social justice warrior" get misused a lot.

Bottom line is:

Social Justice

Warrior.

And if you think 'Warrior' is a good thing to be when you're trying to use Diplomacy, good luck. They don't even have it as a class skill.

Right. Obviously Social Justice Bard is the way to go.

Or is that just for power gamers. You take Social Justice Warrior for the challenge.

Seriously, it's obviously a term that's meant to be derogatory. It's just a question of who it applies to.

And I think that's the difference between the two. SJW is an attack, even if it's sometimes a valid one. Privilege is actually a useful term, describing a real phenomenon that's easy even for those aware of it to overlook. This is true even if it gets abused.

[Kobold Catgirl]

"Privilege" and "Social Justice Warriors" are both negative terms, and both sometimes valid, real, and easy to overlook. I don't see any meaningful difference.

[Mythic Evil Lincoln]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

"Privilege" and "Social Justice Warriors" are both negative terms, and both sometimes valid, real, and easy to overlook. I don't see any meaningful difference.

To make them truly equivalent, you'd need to change the latter to be "overenthusiastic advocate of social justice" I think.

But as time wears on, "privilege" is acquiring more and more baggage which threatens its very usefulness.

[Alzrius]

LazarX wrote:

You're wrong. the people who mock, whose culture created the term "Social Justice Warrior" as a pejorative, DO believe in the power of media. Otherwise they wouldn't give a flying f&!$ about Fraiser wrote in her iconic writeup.

I disagree.

There's obviously a disclaimer that needs to be made in that I can't speak for anyone besides myself. Likewise, there are obviously a lot of people using the term "social justice warrior" who aren't concerned with the philosophy of what they perceive as the misapplication of social justice to art, fiction, and media.

That said, you seem to be implying that because people who mock "SJWs" are concerned with the media, that means they're acknowledging that the media has an inherent power to shape attitudes and beliefs. I don't believe that to be the case - you can acknowledge that something is important without believing that it's powerful. Showing concern for what other people are doing to the media does not mean that you're granting any sort of premise regarding the media's ability to influence people.

EDIT: On an interesting note, that pastebin has been removed.

[thejeff]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

"Privilege" and "Social Justice Warriors" are both negative terms, and both sometimes valid, real, and easy to overlook. I don't see any meaningful difference.

Privilege describes (or at least attempts to name) a real thing in the world outside of the discussion. If I understand correctly one of the motivations for the term was to be able to talk about the advantages certain groups have without being accused of calling them all racist. (It's obviously failed at this.)

Frankly, I don't see privilege as a negative term. Though it can obviously be used that way. It's a neutral term. You really need the concept to talk about how race and gender issues work.

SJW is just a term for people you're arguing with. You only need it to talk about the discussion, not to have the discussion itself.

[Caineach]

Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

"Privilege" and "Social Justice Warriors" are both negative terms, and both sometimes valid, real, and easy to overlook. I don't see any meaningful difference.

To make them truly equivalent, you'd need to change the latter to be "overenthusiastic advocate of social justice" I think.

But as time wears on, "privilege" is acquiring more and more baggage which threatens its very usefulness.

Privilege started with the baggage. People who have never heard the term start hostile to it.

Personally, I think there is a really simple line between social justice advocates and social justice warriors. If your rhetoric actively turns moderates away from your cause, your a warrior.

Pretty much every person below 25 I have met who actively advocates for a cause goes through a phase of SJW. Most of them grow out of it.

[Ragnarok Aeon]

I'm still not entirely sure what this "social justice warrior" is (haven't even heard or read of it until this thread).

But you know what is awful? Exclusionists. People who want to harass someone for including something into a game. Whether it's homosexuality, transgender, or women with nice t%+$.

[Voadam]

Alzrius wrote:

It took me a while to understand that the people using the term "social justice warrior" weren't using it to refer to anyone who believes in/advocates social justice. Rather, they seem to be using it to make a mockery of the idea that the principles of social justice should be applied to artwork, media, and fiction to the same (or similar) degree as to legal, workplace, and social situations.

Can you explain what social justice principles applying to legal, workplace, and social situations that should apply similarly to media you are talking about?

Those types of situations I mostly think of a positive duty not to discriminate but not a positive duty to be diverse or normalize minorities.

Social justice principles in government and law I normally think about positive programs only as the ones to help out the economically disadvantaged, whether the poor, the working class, or the disabled.

For minorities I normally think of the big issue as prohibiting discrimination with active programs like school integration, affirmative action, and minority contracting requirements being a much smaller issue for government and only applying to specific situations to address specific problems.

For social situations diversity and representation would be generally orthogonal. If you throw a party for friends whether the guest list is diverse or not is generally irrelevant. For social organizations there is only a strong duty not to be discriminatory, not a strong duty to be diverse and have visible minorities represented.

So for art, media, and fiction this would seem to translate to generally do what you want but don't be actively terrible in portrayals of minorities.

[Albatoonoe]

Okay, having been to (and even from) darker parts of the internet, I can tell you that SJW isn't a term just used for extremists. If you stand up for what's right that goes against the status quo, no matter how polite or diplomatic you are, you will get this name hurled at you. It's entirely a pejorative used to undermine arguments without actually engaging.

If you have a level head on your shoulders, how about you don't use the term at all. There is nothing good or descriptive of the phrase.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Albatoonoe wrote:

Okay, having been to (and even from) darker parts of the internet, I can tell you that [gay] isn't a term just used for [homosexuals]. If you stand up for what's right that goes against the status quo, no matter how polite or diplomatic you are, you will get this name hurled at you. It's entirely a pejorative used to undermine arguments without actually engaging.

If you have a level head on your shoulders, how about you don't use the term at all. There is nothing good or descriptive of the phrase.

I could do the same with "terrorist", "extremist", "privilege", "racist", "micro-aggression", "troll", and any other word that has negative connotations. Let me change a bit more and I could do the same with positive words, too—"epic" being an inoffensive example.

Words get misused. It's not even solely an English language deal, it's just how humans are.

Fictional Dude wrote:

Man, that cheeseburger was epic. But did you see 'How To Train Your Dragon 2' last night? Totally gay. I got in an argument with a guy who liked it, but I bet he was a troll.

[Albatoonoe]

That's not what I was getting at, Kobold. "Gay" and "Homosexual" are both different words that homosexuals use. That are actual words to describe this. Social Justice Warrior is a term invented to entirely undermine a good thing. It has no basis in anything. It has no good connotation. If you are going to have a good discourse, ditch the word and say things that are actually descriptive of things. Hell, "the other side of the issue" would be better and more descriptive.

[Kobold Catgirl]

KC wrote:

I could do the same with "terrorist", "extremist", "privilege", "racist", "micro-aggression", "troll", and any other word that has negative connotations.

I didn't know "racist" and "micro-aggressions" could be positive words. Maybe I've totally misunderstood social justice's goals...

[Kobold Catgirl]

Me calling you a Social Justice Warrior doesn't make you a Social Justice Warrior. You calling me privileged or ignorant about issues doesn't make me privileged or ignorant about issues.

Quote:

SJW is just a term for people you're arguing with. You only need it to talk about the discussion, not to have the discussion itself.

Oh, and with regards to this: This is a point that only makes sense if you believe that the sole point of the discussion is to draw attention to social justice issues. If somebody wants to draw attention to issues with social justice, however, critical terms like "warrior" are equally relevant. A balanced discussion would have one side contributing his views on privilege and one side contributing his views on Social Justice Warriors.

[Caineach]

Albatoonoe wrote:

That's not what I was getting at, Kobold. "Gay" and "Homosexual" are both different words that homosexuals use. That are actual words to describe this. Social Justice Warrior is a term invented to entirely undermine a good thing. It has no basis in anything. It has no good connotation. If you are going to have a good discourse, ditch the word and say things that are actually descriptive of things. Hell, "the other side of the issue" would be better and more descriptive.

SJW is a term I have heard many progressives use to describe rabid members of their own community. I have even heard people self-identify that way. I encountered it first used by someone using it to positively describe themselves.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Yeah, good thing nobody's implying I'm uneducated about issues and I'm not implying anybody's confused or unnecessarily aggressive. Otherwise we would have cause to worry.

[Kobold Catgirl]

For the record, I actually really like that this is becoming such a frequent topic on the Paizo forums. A lot of communities would shut down such potentially volatile subject matter on the spot, or, worse, would lean too far to one side to make any meaningful dialogue possible.

This is a very relevant, multifaceted issue and needs to be hashed out, and for the most part Paizonians have been awesome about keeping it civil.

[Albatoonoe]

Yeah. Still less civil than we could be, but hell of a lot more civil than anywhere else I've seen. We may not agree on everything, folks, but at least we are still in a place where we can like each other at the end of the day. Most of these volatile internet discussions don't end in such places.

[Mythic Evil Lincoln]

*selfbackpat*

yeah, we're so cool.

[Alzrius]

Voadam wrote:

Can you explain what social justice principles applying to legal, workplace, and social situations that should apply similarly to media you are talking about?

Presuming that I'm reading your question right, you're asking what are the principles of social justice that "social justice warriors" are understood to be trying to promote in the media, correct?

If that's the case, I'd posit that these principles can be summarized as "the greater inclusion of groups that have historically (and contemporarily) been marginalized in terms of their representation, and that members of such groups be treated with the same degree of respect typically afforded to the members of non-marginalized groups" - in other words, the basic idea of social justice itself.

Many (if not most) people can agree that the above is a positive duty - by which I mean, it is morally virtuous when this is done, and morally corrupt (e.g. immoral) when it is not done - in the context of legal, workplace, and social situations. The difference of opinion comes with applying the above principles to instances of art, fiction, and media.

A "social justice warrior" will posit that these principles are a positive duty when it comes to any instance of media, the same as they would be otherwise. If you write, animate, film, etc. media that violates these principles, then you've committed an immoral action. Immorality, here, is understood to not only be damaging to the community at large (in this case because it normalizes immoral values), but it is also understood that it is morally laudable (attempt to) destroy, suppress, or otherwise expel something immoral from your community (so long as doing so does not in-and-of itself entail taking immoral actions).

By contrast, those who oppose "SJWs" will re-classify the above principles when they're applied to the context of media; in such a case, the above principles become supererogatory - "above and beyond the call of duty" - which means that they're morally laudable if you adhere to them, but not morally corrupt if you do not.

To put it another way, both camps (broadly speaking) agree that instances of social justice in media are good, but one side holds that instances of their absence are immoral, whereas the other side holds that instances of their absence are amoral.

Sexualization and sexual objectification are popular topics in this regard. It's broadly understood to be immoral to treat women like sex objects; hence why we have laws, workplace codes of conduct, and social mores that object to such behavior (though it's widely understood - correctly, in my opinion - that such objections require further strengthening at all three levels). However, sexualizing a female character in the context of media raises the question of whether such a portrayal is immoral (e.g. it normalizes sexist attitudes towards women in real life) or amoral (e.g. virtually no one thinks that how a sexualized woman in a work of fiction is treated is analogous to how a woman should be treated in real life).

Hopefully, that makes the issue clearer.

[Caineach]

An interesting poll. Particularly pages 35-37.

Do you consider yourself to be a feminist:
25% yes 75% no

Do you consider feminist an insult:
14% No, 26% Yes, 60% neutral

One dictionary definition of a feminist is someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes. As you think about that definition, do you
think of yourself as a feminist or not?
60% yes 40% no

The survey I found linked to from this Huffington Post article on feminism.

[Kobold Catgirl]

Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:

*selfbackpat*

yeah, we're so cool.

Especially me.

Anyways, my opinion on inclusiveness in media is that it's "amoral", so I guess that's fair. I think it's good and adds a lot of flavor, but I don't automatically assume immorality when there's a movie like Frozen with almost all white people.

Though I do think it's something of a shame that they used so many great elements of Sami culture and still went with an all-white cast. Still, it was a nice touch. And kids' animation overall has a kinda complicated history on non-white or female leads, Not just Disney—Pixar and Dreamworks are also big offenders. In fact, you could argue Disney is one of the best thanks to its very frequent female leads, while Dreamworks only has a few, like "Monsters Vs. Aliens" and the upcoming "Home".

I'm really looking forward to Moana, by the way. Polynesian princess who sails the sea and goes up against gods and is a kickass navigator? HELL YEAH.

[Dennis Baker]

Crystal Frasier wrote:

Sutter tells the truth on this: I am rad.

That pretty much sums it up.

[Caineach]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Mythic Evil Lincoln wrote:

*selfbackpat*

yeah, we're so cool.

Especially me.

Anyways, my opinion on inclusiveness in media is that it's "amoral", so I guess that's fair. I think it's good and adds a lot of flavor, but I don't automatically assume immorality when there's a movie like Frozen with almost all white people.

Though I do think it's something of a shame that they used so many great elements of Sami culture and still went with an all-white cast. Still, it was a nice touch. And kids' animation overall has a kinda complicated history on non-white or female leads, Not just Disney—Pixar and Dreamworks are also big offenders. In fact, you could argue Disney is one of the best thanks to its very frequent female leads, while Dreamworks only has a few, like "Monsters Vs. Aliens" and the upcoming "Home".

I'm really looking forward to Moana, by the way. Polynesian princess who sails the sea and goes up against gods and is a kickass navigator? HELL YEAH.

Similarly, we have The Last Airbender movie (that I know many of you would like to forget). The source material is highly influenced and stylized by different Asian cultures, but for the casting call they specified everyone had to be white, except for the villains, who are all middle eastern.

Edit to clarify - this is an example of them doing something bad, whitewashing.

[Voadam]

Alzrius wrote:

Voadam wrote:

Can you explain what social justice principles applying to legal, workplace, and social situations that should apply similarly to media you are talking about?

Presuming that I'm reading your question right, you're asking what are the principles of social justice that "social justice warriors" are understood to be trying to promote in the media, correct?

If that's the case, I'd posit that these principles can be summarized as "the greater inclusion of groups that have historically (and contemporarily) been marginalized in terms of their inclusion/representation, and that members of such groups be treated with the same degree of respect typically afforded to the members of non-marginalized groups" - in other words, the basic idea of social justice itself.

Many (if not most) people can agree that the above is a positive duty - by which I mean, it is morally virtuous when this is done, and morally corrupt (e.g. immoral) when it is not done - in the context of legal, workplace, and social situations. The difference of opinion comes with applying the above principles to instances of art, fiction, and media.

A "social justice warrior" will posit that these principles are a positive duty when it comes to any instance of media, the same as they would be otherwise. If you write, animate, film, etc. media that violates these principles, then you've committed an immoral action. Immorality, here, is understood to not only be damaging to the community at large (in this case because it normalizes immoral values), but it is also understood that it is morally laudable (attempt to) destroy, suppress, or otherwise expel something immoral from your community (so long as doing so does not in-and-of itself entail taking immoral actions).

By contrast, those who oppose "SJWs" will re-classify the above principles when they're applied to the context of media; in such a case, the above principles become supererogatory - "above and beyond the call of duty" - which means that they're morally laudable if you adhere to them, but not morally corrupt if you do not.

To put it another way, both camps (broadly speaking) agree that instances of social justice in media are good, but one side holds that instances of their absence are immoral, whereas the other side holds that instances of their absence are amoral.

Sexualization and sexual objectification are popular topics in this regard. It's broadly understood to be immoral to treat women like sex objects; hence why we have laws, workplace codes of conduct, and social mores that object to such behavior (though it's widely understood - correctly, in my opinion - that such objections require further strengthening at all three levels). However, sexualizing a female character in the context of media raises the question of whether such a portrayal is immoral (e.g. it normalizes sexist attitudes towards women in real life) or amoral (e.g. virtually no one thinks that how a sexualized woman in a work of fiction is treated is analogous to how a woman should be treated in real life).

Hopefully, that makes the issue clearer.

Thanks, that does.

Treating people with respect I would agree with as being virtuous and we have a positive moral duty to do so.

However I would disagree about greater inclusion being a positive duty with your definition. Not actively working towards greater inclusion strikes me as morally neutral and not morally corrupt.

Not doing an active good in an action does not mean the action is morally corrupt, just like not doing evil does not mean the action is actively virtuous.

I don't see not actively working towards greater inclusion as morally corrupt in any of those contexts, legal, workplace, social, art, media, fiction.

I don't see it as a media vs other arenas issue but simply an issue of when do moral duties come into it.

[Liz Courts]

Removed an unhelpful post. Keep it civil and pleasant, thank you!

[Alzrius]

Voadam wrote:

Not doing an active good in an action does not mean the action is morally corrupt, just like not doing evil does not mean the action is actively virtuous.

Well, there's the rub.

This system of moral philosophy is called deontological ethics (though I should note I'm presenting a very simplified overview), wherein you determine the morality of an action by judging the nature of the action itself (rather the intent behind it, or by the consequences of it) on a ranked scale. That scale is as follows (as a note, the reason it's scaled is that - in the event of a conflict between tiers, you should follow the higher tier even if it's at the expense of the lower one):

1) The Negative Duties - these are the things that you must not do; they are immoral if you do them (e.g. murder).

2) The Positive Duties - these are the things you are morally obligated to do (that is, you must do them), and failure to do them is immoral. For example, "render assistance to someone who appears to be seriously injured, so long as doing so does not place myself or others at risk of harm."

3) The Supererogatory Duties - these are the things that are good if you do them, but not bad if you do not (e.g. spend your weekends volunteering to help the homeless).

The thing here is that everyone determines for themselves what falls under each of these rankings. As such, there tends to be differing views about what's grouped where - in my experience, there's a lot of disagreement between certain actions being on rank 2 or rank 3. Some people think that certain virtuous actions are important enough that a failure to apply them is immoral. Others think that such actions are virtuous, but not to the point where you're morally obligated to fulfill them each time you have a chance to do so.

As a note, this system works best when the actions ranked under it are highly specified, since that helps to eliminate ambiguity about how you'd define the action, and thus where it'd rank (hence why the example I give for rank 2 is so specific).

[Kobold Catgirl]

Caineach wrote:

Similarly, we have The Last Airbender movie (that I know many of you would like to forget). The source material is highly influenced and stylized by different Asian cultures, but for the casting call they specified everyone had to be white, except for the villains, who are all middle eastern.

Yeah, that ties into "movies have to be marketable" knot. Obviously, there are varying shades of "tainted by the marketability requirements". Say what you will about Frozen, but it did take some chances on a feminist front by not focusing on a romance, presenting a badass independent queen, and having a female protagonist almost commit murder. It was still insanely marketable and is now the highest-grossing animated movie in ever. Whitewashed movies and the like still lack an excuse.

Hm...I got cut off by almuerzo and posted when I had a bit more to say. What was it?

Oh, right. The problem some people have with, say, transgender characters in media isn't that they're there—it's that they sometimes feel forced. Sometimes, they're reminiscent of the kids' shows where every character was a different ethnicity or had a different disorder/disability/religion just to "check off the boxes". It's an objection to "the token"—the girl on the team who exists just because they needed a girl on the team, or the black guy who gets killed off first because, hey, at least they had a black guy to begin with!

I think the annoying thing about "the token" isn't that it's forced—it's that it's artificial. You might make a character bisexual and then never have them indicate any attraction to their own gender. You make a character Jewish and Amerindian and then never have them bring up anything to do with religion or race. So why include that rather distracting and intriguing combination to begin with? It's like making a character one-eyed and then never having it be relevant or explained.

Sidenote: I'm not gonna get into the "there were no black people in Medieval Europe!" b%~!##%~ some people try and spread around. Just throwing that out there. Yes, it's b!&~@@!&.

Back on topic, I really like diversity in fiction. But I especially like diversity that matters. Sajan is dark-skinned because he's from a "far-off land", and his origin country in turn ties into his backstory: He's from a culture with a rigid caste system that he abandoned. BREAKS LAWS?! MONK FALLS

I like Shardra because, while being transgender isn't intrinsic to who she is, it adds to the obvious confusion she dealt with as a kid. First, she feels out of place in her gender and identity. Later, she feels out of place because of torn loyalties. From a narrative perspective, it works so much better than it would have if Gimli had been transgender. Yes, that's a totally randomly chosen character. That's the point. Nothing about the choice to make Gimli transgender resonates or rings true. He's not a guy who struggles with his identity. He's just an honorable dwarf who develops a very close friendship with an elf.

The fact is, like it or not, something like "bisexual" is a character trait. Don't give a guy a gun if he's not gonna fire it, right? Don't go to pains to make it clear a guy is straight and then never put him in a romance or have him be a ladykiller or whatever. You are drawing attention to something that does not matter for the character. That is confusing and, in this case, makes you actually seem a little homophobic.

[RJGrady]

Drejk wrote:

Erik Mona wrote:

This is absolutely, categorically untrue.

No employee has even left the company since we published our trans iconic, so the theory is nonsense on its face.

Hypothesis... Story... Factoid... Blatant lie. But not theory!

*sigh*

Sorry, but misuse of the term theory is slowly joining my pet peeves list :/

Thesis! It's a thesis. :)

[meatrace]

Caineach wrote:

Albatoonoe wrote:

That's not what I was getting at, Kobold. "Gay" and "Homosexual" are both different words that homosexuals use. That are actual words to describe this. Social Justice Warrior is a term invented to entirely undermine a good thing. It has no basis in anything. It has no good connotation. If you are going to have a good discourse, ditch the word and say things that are actually descriptive of things. Hell, "the other side of the issue" would be better and more descriptive.

SJW is a term I have heard many progressives use to describe rabid members of their own community. I have even heard people self-identify that way. I encountered it first used by someone using it to positively describe themselves.

This. All the time. I see it used as a rallying call among, ya know, social justice advocates.

Thing is, I tend to hear social justice as a term (when used by someone to describe their own beliefs, not as a pejorative) when it comes to pretty radical agendas. I hear the terms LGBTQ rights a lot when talking about gay marriage or the rights of someone to present as their preferred gender. Social justice is a term I more associate with people who want to abolish urinals because they make trans people feel uncomfortable (not making that up).

[thejeff]

Alzrius wrote:

Voadam wrote:

Not doing an active good in an action does not mean the action is morally corrupt, just like not doing evil does not mean the action is actively virtuous.

Well, there's the rub.

This system of moral philosophy is called deontological ethics (though I should note I'm presenting a very simplified overview), wherein you determine the morality of an action by judging the nature of the action itself (rather the intent behind it, or by the consequences of it) on a ranked scale. That scale is as follows (as a note, the reason it's scaled is that - in the event of a conflict between tiers, you should follow the higher tier even if it's at the expense of the lower one):

1) The Negative Duties - these are the things that you must not do; they are immoral if you do them (e.g. murder).

2) The Positive Duties - these are the things you are morally obligated to do (that is, you must do them), and failure to do them is immoral. For example, "render assistance to someone who appears to be seriously injured, so long as doing so does not place myself or others at risk of harm."

3) The Supererogatory Duties - these are the things that are good if you do them, but not bad if you do not (e.g. spend your weekends volunteering to help the homeless).

The thing here is that everyone determines for themselves what falls under each of these rankings. As such, there tends to be differing views about what's grouped where - in my experience, there's a lot of disagreement between certain actions being on rank 2 or rank 3. Some people think that certain virtuous actions are important enough that a failure to apply them is immoral. Others think that such actions are virtuous, but not to the point where you're morally obligated to fulfill them each time you have a chance to do so.

As a note, this system works best when the actions ranked under it are highly specified, since that helps to eliminate ambiguity about how you'd define the action, and thus where it'd rank...

See I'd put it somewhere in-between.

There's certainly nothing wrong with making a movie that doesn't include a positive black representation, for example. There are plenty of very good movies where that wouldn't make any sense and even of those where it would work, not every one needs to.
The problem comes when the industry as a whole doesn't make any movies with positive non-stereotyped black representation. Or makes only token efforts to do so, at far below the statistically expected numbers.

Substitute whichever group we're concerned with at the moment and whatever industry you like.

It's almost a positive duty on the larger Industry level? Which doesn't make sense, really, because the industry as a whole isn't a moral actor. It's a matter of many, many individually justifiable (or at least not provably immoral) actions adding up to a moral wrong.

[LazarX]

Alzrius wrote:

That said, you seem to be implying that because people who mock "SJWs" are concerned with the media, that means they're acknowledging that the media has an inherent power to shape attitudes and beliefs. I don't believe that to be the case - you can acknowledge that something is important without believing that it's powerful. Showing concern for what other people are doing to the media does not mean that you're granting any sort of premise regarding the media's ability to influence people.

.

That makes absolutely no sense. The people who crusade in the banner of "GamerGate" are doing a ton of nasty things which they feel quite justified in doing so. How could something they hate be so important without being perceived as a threat?

What's important without being significant? If it's significant, it's because it's perceived as a threat, either to your person, or what you perceived as your "god given right".

[thejeff]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

Oh, right. The problem some people have with, say, transgender characters in media isn't that they're there—it's that they sometimes feel forced. Sometimes, they're reminiscent of the kids' shows where every character was a different ethnicity or had a different disorder/disability/religion just to "check off the boxes". It's an objection to "the token"—the girl on the team who exists just because they needed a girl on the team, or the black guy who gets killed off first because, hey, at least they had a black guy to begin with!

I think the annoying thing about "the token" isn't that it's forced—it's that it's artificial. You might make a character bisexual and then never have them indicate any attraction to their own gender. You make a character Jewish and Amerindian and then never have them bring up anything to do with religion or race. So why include that rather distracting and intriguing combination to begin with? It's like making a character one-eyed and then never having it be relevant or explained.

Tokenism definitely bad, but I've started to think it's a necessary step on the path to normalizing things enough that the group can just be used normally. There's the token stage, the "issue" stage (remember when the only movies with gays were all about AIDs or at best about how the gay character dealt with his gay life), and eventually people are comfortable enough that you can just have them as characters without it being the focus.

[RJGrady]

Alzrius wrote:

LazarX wrote:

You're wrong. the people who mock, whose culture created the term "Social Justice Warrior" as a pejorative, DO believe in the power of media. Otherwise they wouldn't give a flying f&!$ about Fraiser wrote in her iconic writeup.

I disagree.

There's obviously a disclaimer that needs to be made in that I can't speak for anyone besides myself. Likewise, there are obviously a lot of people using the term "social justice warrior" who aren't concerned with the philosophy of what they perceive as the misapplication of social justice to art, fiction, and media.

That said, you seem to be implying that because people who mock "SJWs" are concerned with the media, that means they're acknowledging that the media has an inherent power to shape attitudes and beliefs. I don't believe that to be the case - you can acknowledge that something is important without believing that it's powerful. Showing concern for what other people are doing to the media does not mean that you're granting any sort of premise regarding the media's ability to influence people.

EDIT: On an interesting note, that pastebin has been removed.

Many of my interactions with people who have a problem with "social justice" end up complaining about "censorship" and "reverse racism" and feminism ruining discussions. So, they clearly believe privilege exists, they just think that women, minorities, people with disabilities etc. have too much of it, and white, heterosexual males have too little.

LazarX wrote:

Alzrius wrote:

That said, you seem to be implying that because people who mock "SJWs" are concerned with the media, that means they're acknowledging that the media has an inherent power to shape attitudes and beliefs. I don't believe that to be the case - you can acknowledge that something is important without believing that it's powerful. Showing concern for what other people are doing to the media does not mean that you're granting any sort of premise regarding the media's ability to influence people.

.

That makes absolutely no sense. The people who crusade in the banner of "GamerGate" are doing a ton of nasty things which they feel quite justified in doing so. How could something they hate be so important without being perceived as a threat?

What's important without being significant? If it's significant, it's because it's perceived as a threat, either to your person, or what you perceived as your "god given right".

"The opposite of love is not hate; it is indifference."

[Kobold Catgirl]

Jeff hit the nail on the head, I think. Not every movie needs to have a black actor, or even pass the Bechdel Test. For instance, I wouldn't expect a straight romance to pass the Bechdel Test (you're kind of focusing on a romance, after all), and I wouldn't expect a martial arts movie set in medieval China to include Jews.

But I also wouldn't regard it as "wrong" if a western was all-white males, or a war movie failed to have any homosexuals. Are we expected to view the movie Coraline as racist because it has no black people? Are we expected to think Supernatural is sexist because the four main leads are male? No. Sometimes a writer just envisions a character a certain way. That doesn't make the writer thoughtless, it just means he has a vision for how the character looks (or is acted).

[Alzrius]

LazarX wrote:

That makes absolutely no sense. The people who crusade in the banner of "GamerGate" are doing a ton of nasty things which they feel quite justified in doing so. How could something they hate be so important without being perceived as a threat?

Because what they don't agree with, and what they perceive as a threat, isn't the media - it's the people on the other side of the debate, the "social justice warriors," whom they perceive to be trying to reshape the nature of what's acceptable in the media along ideological terms (or at least, ideological terms that opponents of "SJWs" don't agree with).

Quote:

What's important without being significant? If it's significant, it's because it's perceived as a threat, either to your person, or what you perceived as your "god given right".

It's not a question of "important without being significant"; you've substituted the word "significant" - which in this context is essentially a synonym for "important" - with "powerful," which was the word used previously.

Something can indeed be important to you without it meaning that that thing is powerful. The people with a philosophical opposition to "SJWs" don't - in my understanding of them - think that the media has much power (if any at all) to shape attitudes and beliefs. However, they do think that people have a great deal of power to shape the media. It's that attitude amongst the "SJWs" that's perceived as the threat - not as a threat to their person, or to their "god given anything," but that they don't agree with the idea that media is immoral if it does not adhere to the standards of social justice.

RJGrady wrote:

Many of my interactions with people who have a problem with "social justice" end up complaining about "censorship" and "reverse racism" and feminism ruining discussions. So, they clearly believe privilege exists, they just think that women, minorities, people with disabilities etc. have too much of it, and white, heterosexual males have too little.

To be clear, the discussion that I've been having has largely been about people who have a problem with "social justice warriors," rather than the concept of social justice itself. Notwithstanding trolls and other self-absorbed jerks who are using the term as blanket disparagement without giving any thought to the philosophy behind it, those who are concerned with "SJWs" have an ethical issue they're trying to debate; by contrast, those who disagree with social justice as a whole are coming from a very different place (in my opinion, of course - I don't speak for everyone).

[Voadam]

Kobold Cleaver wrote:

I think the annoying thing about "the token" isn't that it's forced—it's that it's artificial. You might make a character bisexual and then never have them indicate any attraction to their own gender. You make a character Jewish and Amerindian and then never have them bring up anything to do with religion or race. So why include that rather distracting and intriguing combination to begin with? It's like making a character one-eyed and then never having it be relevant or explained.

That's a matter of story taste. There can be a value of having such details as details only and not a plot point.

Why does Wolverine's hair go up in those points? A purely minor visual style thing, never a plot point as far as I know.

Colonel Fury's eyepatch, mostly just a visual detail and style thing, though they do weave it into one of the movies as a minor plot point.

In the first season of the modern Dr. Who two of the main charachters are a mixed race couple. This is never commented on or made into a plot point. This can be simply a descriptive detail or it could be deliberate silence to make a point of the normality of such a couple, to normalize such a mixed race pairing.

[meatrace]

RJGrady wrote:

Many of my interactions with people who have a problem with "social justice" end up complaining about "censorship" and "reverse racism" and feminism ruining discussions. So, they clearly believe privilege exists, they just think that women, minorities, people with disabilities etc. have too much of it, and white, heterosexual males have too little.

This. So much.