The Media Is Making College Rape Culture Worse - The Daily Beast

The Media Is Making College Rape Culture Worse - The Daily Beast

The Daily Bell - Victims Frantically Search For Offense

The Daily Bell - Victims Frantically Search For Offense

Microaggression. The word may soon be knocking on your door to demand supplication or another form of payment. Microaggression is the new politically correct campaign being launched by "disadvantaged" elites who are running out of even vaguely real transgressions to complain about.

What You Can Expect to Be Accused Of

Microaggression is unintended discrimination that demeans the "disadvantaged" even if the perpetrator does not intend to do so and is well-meaning. Coined in 1970 by Harvard psychiatrist Chester M. Pierce, it described unconscious racial insults delivered by whites to minorities. An example is a white teacher who asks a black student if he needs help with a math problem.

The concept includes micro-insults or insensitive communication such as asking an Asian coworker where she comes from; the question allegedly suggests she is a foreigner and not a true American. It also includes micro-invalidations that negate the feelings or reality of a black, such as speaking well of Southern cooking; the comment allegedly suggests an approval of past slavery. These behaviors lead to micro-inequities; the behaviors are conveyed through unconscious messages that allegedly devalue the "disadvantaged" in the subtle communication of facial expressions, gestures, tone, word choice, nuance and syntax.

In 1973, MIT economist Mary Rowe expanded Pierce's term to focus on discrimination against women. A classic example of microaggression against women is using the pronoun "he" to indicate people in general when it is also a gender-specific term. Merely substituting the pronoun "she," however, is microaggression as well because it sweeps the insult of the original situation under the rug.

The "disadvantaged" now include racial minorities, women, sexual minorities, the poor, the disabled ... that is, any group considered to be marginalized. It includes almost everyone but white males or any white female who disagrees with political correctness.

Who You Can Expect to Accuse You

A predictable vector of transmission is PC feminism. And, as with the current gender insanity, it will begin on campuses. In fact, it already has. But seeing microaggression in everyone everywhere is not limited to feminists.

In 2013, Prof. Van Rust was fired from UCLA due to microaggressions against black students. Susan Kruth of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education reported (Jan 8, 2014), "Rust's alleged offenses comprise his seemingly typical feedback on students' work. As demonstration leader ... Kenjus Watson argued, Rust created a hostile climate in his class by, among other things, correcting "perceived grammatical choices that in actuality reflect ideologies." Another of the alleged microaggressions appears to be that Rust required students to use The Chicago Manual of Style ..." In other words, he insisted that university students use the standard spelling and grammar they would need in professional life.

On December 5, Princeton University students set up a "Tiger Microaggressions" service through which students can anonymously report and publish microaggressions. The page calls this form of discrimination "papercuts of oppression" that are "small but slice deep." The National Review (Dec. 11, 2014) quoted the service operators as saying "microaggressions are all around us" and literally anything can qualify as a microaggression because "there are no objective definitions to words and phrases."

As a columnist for the Miami Herald commented (Dec. 29), "So if I write, The sky is blue you are perfectly within your rights to assume that what I actually meant is, 'Everybody but white guys should writhe in Hell for all eternity'. Because, really, who's to say?" His example may sound extreme ... but it is not because there is no reductio ad absurdum possible with political correctness.

That became clear in a column by microaggression advocate Jessica Valenti in The Guardian (Dec. 10) in which she claims to love everything about Christmas. Except one thing. Gender oppression makes her responsible for wrapping presents for family and loved ones. While women are being trafficked in Africa, raped in Afghanistan, killed for 'honor' and having acid thrown in their face, the gender oppression of Western women devolves to being surrounded by what Valenti says is a loving family who hopes you wrap your presents to them. That expectation, in her own words, makes Christmas into "a godd*mn clusterf**k."

Why the Utter Madness?

A seeming simply question, the answer is multi-layered. Addressing just two aspects of the madness:

1) "There are no objective definitions to words and phrases." Without becoming philosophical or providing details, this statement comes from the belief that there is no reality whatsoever beyond what is constructed by the culture through its language, texts, history, assumptions of biological sexuality, philosophy, legal theory, etc. Objectivity and conclusions through reason and evidence do not exist; only the subject narrative presented by voices exists. In order to radically change society, it is necessary to deconstruct the current narrative and replace it with a desirable one; it is necessary for their voices to be the ones that are heard. The deconstructionist approach dates back to the postmodern philosopher Jacques Derrida and has been adopted in a wholesale, cartoon version by gender feminism.

2) Politically-correct victims are desperate to preserve their own victimhood. In terms of gender feminism, this means preserving the myth of the "rape culture"; this is a culture that so profoundly encourages rape, "rape" becomes the one word defining the culture. This may be an appropriate description of Afghanistan but it is palpably untrue of North America. In order to sustain the myth, therefore, it is necessary to define more and more innocuous behavior as sexual assault so that words, attitudes and other non-violence become assault. Equally, in order to sustain the myth that the "disadvantaged" are being constantly victimized, it is necessary to define more and more innocuous behavior as acts of violence. Or, even worse, the need for definition is being trashed and a victim now self-defines him- or herself by an entirely subjective standard.

As insane and vicious as it seem to reasonable and decent people, micro-aggression is the new cutting edge of political correctness and its subset of gender feminism.

Conclusion

The claim of microaggression is a justification for censorship and social control. To advocates, the slightest hint of insult becomes evidence of epidemic oppression in society. What you say, what you don't say, when you do not show up either to speak or stay silent ... all of these can be evidence of microaggression. That is, as long as the act or non-act is committed by a white male or by someone who disagrees with the PC theory of victimhood.

The actual oppression occurs, of course, when micro-victims band together and harm those who have been "constructed" as oppressors, as they harmed Prof. Van Rust for requiring proper grammar. Those targeted by the micro-warriors are the true victims. And the self-righteous crusade of the privileged masquerading as the oppressed will continue until one thing happens. Individuals (especially white males) need to stop feeling guilty for their innocuous acts and non-acts. They must stop apologizing for the whiteness of their skin, their genitalia, their system of belief ... Individuals must stop apologizing for the hubris of peacefully occupying space on the planet.

Your guilt is the main weapon wielded by the politically correct. Take it away.

On Trigger Warnings | AAUP

On Trigger Warnings | AAUP

A current threat to academic freedom in the classroom comes from a demand that teachers provide warnings in advance if assigned material contains anything that might trigger difficult emotional responses for students. This follows from earlier calls not to offend students’ sensibilities by introducing material that challenges their values and beliefs. The specific call for “trigger warnings” began in the blogosphere as a caution about graphic descriptions of rape on feminist sites, and has now migrated to university campuses in the form of requirements or proposals that students be alerted to all manner of topics that some believe may deeply offend and even set off a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) response in some individuals. Oberlin College’s original policy (since tabled to allow for further debate in the face of faculty opposition) is an example of the range of possible trigger topics: “racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression.” It went on to say that a novel like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart might “trigger readers who have experienced racism, colonialism, religious persecution, violence, suicide and more.” It further cautioned faculty to “[r]emove triggering material when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals.”

....

The presumption that students need to be protected rather than challenged in a classroom is at once infantilizing and anti-intellectual. It makes comfort a higher priority than intellectual engagement and—as the Oberlin list demonstrates—it singles out politically controversial topics like sex, race, class, capitalism, and colonialism for attention. Indeed, if such topics are associated with triggers, correctly or not, they are likely to be marginalized if not avoided altogether by faculty who fear complaints for offending or discomforting some of their students. Although all faculty are affected by potential charges of this kind, non-tenured and contingent faculty are particularly at risk. In this way the demand for trigger warnings creates a repressive, “chilly climate” for critical thinking in the classroom.

Our concern extends to academic libraries, the repositories of content spanning all cultures and types of expression. We think the statement of the American Library Association regarding “labeling and rating systems” applies to trigger warnings. “Prejudicial labels are designed to restrict access, based on a value judgment that the content, language, or theme of the material, or the background or views of the creator(s) of the material, render it inappropriate or offensive for all or certain groups of users….When labeling is an attempt to prejudice attitudes, it is a censor’s tool.”classism, sexism, heterosexism, cissexism, ableism, and other issues of privilege and oppression.” It went on to say that a novel like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart might “trigger readers who have experienced racism, colonialism, religious persecution, violence, suicide and more.” It further cautioned faculty to “[r]emove triggering material when it does not contribute directly to the course learning goals.”

....

Some discomfort is inevitable in classrooms if the goal is to expose students to new ideas, have them question beliefs they have taken for granted, grapple with ethical problems they have never considered, and, more generally, expand their horizons so as to become informed and responsible democratic citizens. Trigger warnings suggest that classrooms should offer protection and comfort rather than an intellectually challenging education. They reduce students to vulnerable victims rather than full participants in the intellectual process of education. The effect is to stifle thought on the part of both teachers and students who fear to raise questions that might make others “uncomfortable.”

The classroom is not the appropriate venue to treat PTSD, which is a medical condition that requires serious medical treatment. Trigger warnings are an inadequate and diversionary response. Medical research suggests that triggers for individuals can be unpredictable, dependent on networks of association. So color, taste, smell, and sound may lead to flashbacks and panic attacks as often as the mention of actual forms of violence such as rape and war. The range of any student’s sensitivity is thus impossible to anticipate. But if trigger warnings are required or expected, anything in a classroom that elicits a traumatic response could potentially expose teachers to all manner of discipline and punishment.

Instead of putting the onus for avoiding such responses on the teacher, cases of serious trauma should be referred to student health services. Faculty should, of course, be sensitive that such reactions may occur in their classrooms, but they should not be held responsible for them. Instead, as with other disabilities, a student diagnosed with PTSD should, in advance, agree on a plan for treatment with the relevant health advisors who, in some cases, may want to alert teachers to the presence of a trauma victim in their classroom. The Americans with Disabilities Act contains recommendations for reasonable accommodation to be made on an individual basis. This should be done without affecting other students’ exposure to material that has educational value.

It is probably not coincidental that the call for trigger warnings comes at a time of increased attention to campus violence, especially to sexual assault that is often associated with the widespread abuse of alcohol. Trigger warnings are a way of displacing the problem, however, locating its solution in the classroom rather than in administrative attention to social behaviors that permit sexual violence to take place. Trigger warnings will not solve this problem, but only misdirect attention from it and, in the process, threaten the academic freedom of teachers and students whose classrooms should be open to difficult discussions, whatever form they take.

The UVA Gang Rape that Wasn’t | National Review Online

The UVA Gang Rape that Wasn’t | National Review Online

(Follow link for embedded links in article.)

So I am having a hard time getting my head around something. All week people have been calling me a “rape apologist” and “pro-rape.” I’m being constantly informed that I don’t understand “rape culture.” These often hysterical accusations tend to come from people who seem to understand rape culture the same way some people understand the geopolitics of Westeros or Middle Earth: They’ve studied it, they know every detail about it, they just seem to have forgotten it doesn’t exist.

Now, hold on. I certainly believe rape happens. And I definitely believe we have cultural problems that lead to date rape and other drunken barbarisms and sober atrocities. But the term “rape culture” suggests that there is a large and obvious belief system that condones and enables rape as an end in itself in America. This simply strikes me as an elaborate political lie intended to strengthen the hand of activists. There’s definitely lots that is wrong with our culture, particularly youth culture and specifically campus culture. Sybaritic, crapulent, hedonistic, decadent, bacchanalian: choose your adjectives.

What is most remarkable about our problems is that they seem to take people by surprise. For instance, it would be commonsense to our grandmothers that some drunk men will do bad things, particularly in a moral vacuum, and that women should take that into account. I constantly hear that instead of lecturing women about their behavior we should teach men not to rape. I totally, completely, 100 percent agree that we should teach men not to rape. The problem is we do that. A lot. Maybe we should do it more. We also teach people not to murder -- another heinous crime. But murders happen too. That’s why we advise our kids to steer clear of certain neighborhoods at certain times and avoid certain behaviors. I’m not “pro-murder” if I tell my kid not to walk through the park at night and flash money around any more than I am pro-rape if I give her similar advice.

Tax Gallantry, Get Less Gallantry

Of course, the problem is that feminists want to expunge any notion that women are gentler and fairer. This requires declaring war on chivalric standards for male conduct, which were once a great bulwark against caddish and rapacious behavior. Take away the notion that men should be protective of women and they will -- surprise! -- be less protective of women.

None of this means we’d all be better off with women in corsets on fainting couches. (I like strong, assertive women so much I married one. I’m also the son of one, and I’m trying to raise another.) But somehow feminists have gotten themselves into the position of adopting the adolescent male’s fantasy of consequence-and-obligation-free sex as an ideal for women. Uncivilized and morally uneducated men have, for millennia, wanted to treat women like sluts. And now feminists have embraced the word as a badge of honor. Call me an old-fogey, but I think that’s weird.

What Rape Epidemic?

But I digress. As Roman Polanski said, let’s get back to the rape stuff. A lot of implausible things have to be true for rape culture to be the problem feminists claim it is. First, the statistics on forcible rape have to be really out of whack. Forcible rapes according to the FBI are heading towards a 40-year low. So there must be a lot of rapes going on that are not captured in those statistics. And there surely are. Some women understandably but lamentably don’t come forward. But for a “rape epidemic” and a “rape crisis,” never mind a “rape culture,” to exist there’d have to be more stigma against coming forward today than there was in the past. Anyone think that’s true? Anyone? I didn’t think so.

Oh, and if that is true, if the stigma against reporting sexual assaults is worse today than it was 40, 50, or 100 years ago, could there be a bigger indictment of the feminist project? The women’s-studies programs, the support groups and crisis centers, the public-education and sensitivity-training programs, movies like The Burning Bed and The Accused, the Lorena Bobbitt apologias and all those nights taken back: and women are now more scared to report being sexually assaulted? If that’s true, pack it up, ladies/womyn, and call it a day. You are complete and total failures. Collect your gold watches (or hemp tote bags) and walk off the public stage as we politely golf-clap your exit.

Jackie’s Tale

I probably should have said earlier why I am being called a “rape apologist.” I mean, if you didn’t know I’d written a column calling shenanigans on the Rolling Stone story about an alleged rape at UVA you might be understandably confused, even a little worried. (“Gosh, Jonah never seemed too rapey to me.”) If you haven’t read it you probably should so I don’t have to recap everything. I’ll wait.

So, basically, I simply don’t believe the Rolling Stone story is true. As I say in my column, I’m sure some of the author’s reporting is true. But I just don’t believe Jackie’s story as it’s told in the piece. I think the dialogue is absurd. I think the sequence of events is wildly implausible. And I think the overall picture the author paints is propagandistic, not reportorial. How often does a reporter set out to find the perfect horror story to advance her agenda and then, with remarkably little effort, have it handed to her? Again, I don’t just mean the rape allegation itself, but all that follows it. I’ll admit if the story was just of the rape itself I might have believed it longer, but the conversations among her “friends” is so convenient it sent the needle on my b.s. detector past the red zone into the fine print that reads “Bull**** Detector By Ronco. Patent Pending.” Here are some examples I couldn’t fit into my column. Remember, these are Jackie’s friends -- who believe she was gang raped and beaten for three hours:

“One of my roommates said, ‘Do you want to be responsible for something that’s gonna paint UVA in a bad light?’ ” says Jackie, poking at a vegan burger at a restaurant on the Corner, UVA’s popular retail strip. “But I said, ‘UVA has flown under the radar for so long, someone has to say something about it, or else it’s gonna be this system that keeps perpetuating!’”  Jackie frowns. “My friend just said, ‘You have to remember where your loyalty lies.’”

And:

She was having an especially difficult time figuring out how to process that awful night, because her small social circle seemed so underwhelmed. For the first month of school, Jackie had latched onto a crew of lighthearted social strivers, and her pals were now impatient for Jackie to rejoin the merriment. “You’re still upset about that?” Andy asked one Friday night when Jackie was crying. Cindy, a self-declared hookup queen, said she didn’t see why Jackie was so bent out of shape. “Why didn’t you have fun with it?” Cindy asked. “A bunch of hot Phi Psi guys?”

I’m sorry, but those conversations didn’t happen. (One hint it didn’t happen is that if it did, a hole in the ground would open up, Satan would pop out in a swirl of sulfuric smoke, and tip his hat to Cindy.)

But don’t tell that to Diana Crandall (or, for that matter, “SluttySlutSlut1”). The LA Times, where an earlier version of my UVA column appeared, has a charming habit of rushing to post rebuttals of my columns as soon as possible. I really don’t mind -- it’s kind of a compliment and it’s actually a good idea in general. But the rebuttals, in my humble opinion, aren’t always that compelling. Enter Ms. Crandall.

I think her entire response to my column is fairly ridiculous, tendentious, and in relentless bad faith. But I’m not going to go point-by-point through her deliberate misreadings and non sequiturs. She works from the assumption that I have no personal experiences to support my view. Never mind that I’ve visited something like 100 campuses in the last decade or so (including UVA more than once). Never mind that, as I noted in the column, I talked to quite a few people in the UVA community before I wrote it. Never mind that I went to, and served on the board of trustees of, a college where feminism was The One True Faith. And never mind that my own experiences -- like hers -- are utterly irrelevant to whether or not the Rolling Stone story is true! Crandall & Co. hate the idea that the veracity of the story itself should be debated. What matters is the cause, not the details. So they shoot the messenger and change the subject.

I will say I loved the appeal to her own experience as a member of a coed fraternity. Apparently this gave her deep insights into rape culture. Um, ok. One question: If you learned so much about rape culture at this fraternity, why on earth did you stay a member?

But here’s the key point. Crandall writes:

Goldberg further shows his lack of familiarity with the problem of college rape when he calls the victim’s friends the “worst . . . imaginable” for not immediately reporting her brutal assault. Here, Goldberg fails to appreciate the very real fear of being chastised for reporting a rape. I’m not saying that the friends were right in not reporting it, and I’m not making a judgment on whether or not the assault happened. But it’s clear that Goldberg’s cultural distance from modern campus life and disregard of the social consequences of reporting an assault render him inadequate to judge the veracity of a rape allegation.

First of all, we aren’t talking about “a rape allegation” we are talking about this rape allegation. Crandall is simply wrong to say I can’t “appreciate the very real fear of being chastised for reporting a rape.” Her mind-reading skills notwithstanding, I can testify here and now that I can. What Crandall and countless others, including Sabrina Erdely, her editors, and their defenders can’t appreciate is that as onerous as the stigma on rape victims may or may not be, the stigma against rapists is worse.

No, really, it’s true. There’s a well-documented tendency for known or suspected -- and especially convicted -- rapists to be stigmatized. They’re shunned by polite society. They have trouble finding work. They often have to register as sex offenders and -- oh yeah -- they very often are sent to jail for very long periods of time. And this is as it should be.

But this fact is also why I am deeply skeptical of the story. Most of the UVA students I’ve met -- and I’ve met a lot -- are the sorts of kids who worry a lot about their permanent records. That makes sense; UVA is a truly great school with an impressive academic culture. And so while I can certainly believe sexual assaults and rapes happen there -- drunk and sober -- I simply cannot believe that nine men sat around soberly and plotted a brutal gang rape that would land them all in jail for decades -- never mind hinder their chances of working at Goldman Sachs! At least not as presented in Erdely’s story. Indeed, it wouldn’t just be nine men, because you can’t keep such plans a secret in a fraternity when the rape is an initiation ritual. You need to make sure all of the kids are down with committing a heinous felony. You need to make sure they all know where to wait to commit the deed. And you need to make sure no one blabs to that one guy who isn’t totally and completely down with “rape culture.” That requires conversations, lots of conversations. And lots of conversations make secrets hard to keep.

What baffles and infuriates me is that I am supposed to be pro-rape and a rape apologist because I want to get to the truth. If this story is true, these men (and, frankly, the dean) should go to jail. The whole fraternity should be prosecuted for running a criminal enterprise. Honestly, as a matter of justice I’d have no problem seeing Drew hang. Meanwhile the heroic enemies of rape and rape culture are outraged that anyone would want these men exposed and brought to justice. That’s bananas.

I understand why most of the debate in the press about the Rolling Stone piece is about journalistic ethics. That’s fine. But my complaint isn’t that she didn’t talk to the alleged rapists. My complaint -- or at least my claim -- is that the story isn’t true. The fact she didn’t get quotes from the alleged rapists isn’t Erdely’s crime, it’s evidence of it.

Updated:

When I wrote the “news”letter below, the news had not broken yet that Rolling Stone — and really the Washington Post — had confirmed what I believed all along: This story was bogus. My only regret is that I didn’t write the column a week earlier like I wanted. My immediate reaction to the story was “this is bull****.” But I didn’t want to write that without at least making some phone calls. Anyway, congrats to Richard Bradley and Robert Soave for beating me to the punch. And congratulations to Phi Kappa Psi; usually it takes a little longer to be vindicated, when it happens at all. I very much hope you sue Rolling Stone the way the Mongol Hordes attacked their enemies.

You see, I’m not a huge fan of fraternities, but I have the quaint view that when a major national publication falsely accuses an institution of being an organized criminal organization that specializes in ritual gang rape, they should be held accountable. It isn’t like Rolling Stone criticized a statistical hockey stick — if you know what I’m saying — they reported (and defended their reporting) to the whole world that this fraternity is an institutional rape gang.

The Microaggression Farce by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Autumn 2014

The Microaggression Farce by Heather Mac Donald, City Journal Autumn 2014

In November 2013, two dozen graduate students at the University of California at Los Angeles marched into an education class and announced a protest against its “hostile and unsafe climate for Scholars of Color.” The students had been victimized, they claimed, by racial “microaggression”—the hottest concept on campuses today, used to call out racism otherwise invisible to the naked eye. UCLA’s response to the sit-in was a travesty of justice. The education school sacrificed the reputation of a beloved and respected professor in order to placate a group of ignorant students making a specious charge of racism.

The pattern would repeat itself twice more at UCLA that fall: students would allege that they were victimized by racism, and the administration, rather than correcting the students’ misapprehension, penitently acceded to it. Colleges across the country behave no differently. As student claims of racial and gender mistreatment grow ever more unmoored from reality, campus grown-ups have abdicated their responsibility to cultivate an adult sense of perspective and common sense in their students. Instead, they are creating what tort law calls “eggshell plaintiffs”—preternaturally fragile individuals injured by the slightest collisions with life. The consequences will affect us for years to come.

The coming war between sex-positive feminism and affirmative consent | WashingtonExaminer.com

The coming war between sex-positive feminism and affirmative consent | WashingtonExaminer.com

Ever since the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights released its “Dear Colleague” letter in 2011, colleges and universities across the country — and the entire state of California — have been adopting policies that define consent so broadly as to be meaningless and nearly impossible to prove.

Now, under the “affirmative consent” or “yes means yes” standard, consent must be active and ongoing. Competitive Enterprise Institute counsel Hans Bader, a critic of these policies, has argued that they constitute “dry legal contracts” requiring every step of a sexual encounter to receive a “yes” or “no” response.

These new policies do not consider silence or lack of restraint to be a sign of consent, and consent is revoked if an accuser was intoxicated. But intoxication is never defined. Is it the same level of intoxication police use in a DUI arrest? If so, where can students get Breathalyzers to test their dates? And if there is no legal level of intoxication, how can a college or university accept a woman’s word that she was too intoxicated to give consent?

These new policies contradict the idea that women should be free to explore their sexuality. It’s hard to reconcile the idea that, on one hand, women shouldn’t be judged for engaging in drunken sex, using a standard under which they cannot legally give consent even if they consumed just a little alcohol. How can the same action simultaneously be a manifestation of feminine sexual liberation and an example of the heinous crime of rape? Feminists can’t have it both ways.

Now it’s not just that women can have as much guilt-free sex with as many partners as they want, but if they do feel guilty about any sexual encounter, it must have been rape.

I don’t see anything wrong with women enjoying sex as much as men, but just as men regret some sexual encounters, women do too — but that doesn’t mean they were raped.

The new definition of rape and sexual assault — that women are too weak to handle alcohol and therefore aren’t responsible for their decisions — flies in the face of those supposedly fighting for equality. Women should be free to get blitzed at parties and hook up with whoever they want — but just as men aren’t excused from being drunk, neither should women get a pass.

I know many will call this victim-blaming, but I’m not talking about women who say “no” or pass out and are raped. I’m talking about people who get drunk, consent to sex, and then wish they hadn’t in the morning.

The original sex-positive feminists opposed any kind of limit on consensual sexual activity. That belief is now being turned on its head by people claiming that consent is not consent if alcohol is involved, and that schools and government must redefine sex.

This new view of alcohol-fueled sex makes no sense in a truly equal world, as men have as much a right as women to claim they were too drunk to consent to sex. This discrepancy is highlighted in cases of same-sex sexual assault, when the patriarchy can’t be blamed.

For heterosexual men, the only rational response to this new contradiction is never to sleep with a woman who has had even one drink (and to be wary of bad breakups or “friends with benefits”). That seems to be what the current crop of feminists wants, but if men stop sleeping with women who are under the influence, doesn’t that limit a heterosexual woman’s freedom to engage in sexual activity?

The Authoritarian Left Was on Course to Win the Culture Wars... then Along Came #GamerGate - Breitbart

The Authoritarian Left Was on Course to Win the Culture Wars... then Along Came #GamerGate - Breitbart

by MILO YIANNOPOULOS
12 Nov 2014

In all of the distracting, hysterical, evidence-free and unfair allegations of misogyny and bigotry hurled at supporters of GamerGate, the consumer revolt that continues to surface outrageous misconduct in the video games press, something is being forgotten.

GamerGate is remarkable—and attracts the interest of people like me—because it represents perhaps the first time in the last decade or more that a significant incursion has been made in the culture wars against guilt-mongerers, nannies, authoritarians and far-Left agitators.

Industry after industry has toppled over, putting up no more of a fight than, say, France in 1940. Publishing, journalism, TV… all lie supine beneath the crowing, cackling, censorious battle-axes, male and female, of the third-wave feminist and social justice causes.

But not gamers. Lovers of video games, on seeing their colleagues unfairly hounded as misogynists, on watching journalists credulously reporting scandalous sexual assault claims just because a person was perceived to be “right-wing” and on seeing the games they love attacked and their very identities denied and ridiculed, have said: no. This will not stand.

The reaction in the press has been bewilderment and, then, apoplectic rage, driven at least in part by a media establishment that sees video gamers—the supposed dorks and basement-dwellers of popular imagination—mounting a credible and effective defence against the liars, frauds, neurotics and attention-seekers who have already destroyed morale and wrecked culture in the comic, sci fi and fantasy worlds.

In other words, some of the bitterness comes from people who are shocked that it took video gamers to say, “No more of this, thank you.”

Because hard-core gaming is overwhelmingly male—don’t believe cherry-picked statistics that tell you women now make up 50 per cent of gamers; they don’t, in any meaningful sense—and because those men are often of a stubborn, obsessive, hyper-competitive and systematic bent, it has produced an army finally capable of launching offensives against the censors—using the censors’ own tactics, such as advertiser boycotts, against them.

And thus a front has opened up in the culture wars; an opening through which others might peek and from which others should be seeking inspiration. The language of the authoritarian Left is quite often outrageously hateful—you can regularly hear even mainstream journalists talking about “killing all men” and excluding “all white men” from industries and cultures.

What gamers have done is draw insistent, unapologetic attention to the fact that, were the tables turned, such language would be regarded as socially unacceptable. They have exposed it for what it is: bigotry and hate speech. And they have not shied away from revealing the personal shortcomings of some of the far-Left loons who seek to poison their hobby with finger-wagging about “sexism.”

They are right to consider those shortcomings. The opponents of GamerGate include a former soft-core porn actress who claims to have stabbed someone in the face and killed him but not reported it to the police, and who, by her own definition, is a rapist.

They include a neo-Nazi who has written that Hitler was “my f—cking idol” and has written things about Jewish people not repeatable here. They include a dishevelled, psychologically unstable transsexual, said to have been the subject of a restraining order, who is a proven liar yet whose claims are repeated uncritically by a credulous press.

No arrests have been made as a result of her reports and many suspect her threateners are figments of her own feverish imagination.

And they include a former multi-level marketing scammer turned feminist heroine, who has never really been particularly interested in video games, but who can be seen at conferences revelling in her newfound fame and wealth which has come about not because her critiques are effective, but because she embarked on a massive press tour off the back of threats she says she received, not a single of which has ever been traced to a GamerGate supporter.

This is the pantheon of self-promoters, opportunists and oddballs who have made gamers’ lives a misery over these past few months. And yet: gamers are not going away.

For years, it was accepted that once the finger-wagging feminists moved in on your industry, you would capitulate quickly to their pseudo-academic treatises on the “male gaze.”

Video games, and GamerGate in particular, have bucked the trend, showing that with politeness and persistence bogus feminist critiques can be rebuffed and self-obsessed attention-seekers can be subjected to the same degree of scrutiny they set out to shine on others… with occasionally gruesome results.

There are signs of political consequence to this awakening—a realisation among gamers that in fact their hobby is intrinsically what we might call libertarian, since it focuses on individual agency, personal responsibility, ties between allies… all in service of goals and specific achievements. That is the essence of libertarian psychology.

Left-leaning media typically luxuriate in the helplessness of a perceived victim in the face of oppression, whether real or imagined. Observe the focus on narrative, and deprecation of gameplay, in soppy indie games such as Gone Home, to which the Left-wing press of course gave glowing reviews.

Jonathan McIntosh, the writer behind far-Left feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian’s videos, says that: “The core value of patriarchal masculinity is control. It’s not a coincidence that control is central to many video game mechanics & stories.” He intends this remark to be pejorative, but in fact it is individual agency that represents mainstream gaming’s greatest achievement: it gives power to typically powerless people.

It sounds odd, when the press is so full of claims that women are being victimised—never with any proof beyond personal testimony, mind—to say that gamers are the real victims in all this. But it’s true, just the same. Often marginalised, lonely people, sometimes with challenging psychologies, gamers retreat into “vidya” to escape a world in which they feel they have no control.

So video games aren’t an expression of patriarchial tendencies. It’s absurd to even call gamers representative of the patriarchy: at the risk of generalising, they are more often sensitive, introverted, sexually inhibited or even confused people. Rather, games allow people on the margins of society to experience what it’s like to have their actions matter, in a safe, virtual environment.

That’s the essence of the clash between GamerGate supporters and everyone else: most people don’t grasp what sort of people gamers are, nor why they play games. And how could they? Most of them have barely a passing acquaintance with the immersive action games that make up most of the libraries of most gamers. (Just enough of one to see a scantily-clad woman and cry: “Sexist!”)

Great art asks questions. It is provocative, and it empowers. That’s what immersive games such as Call of Duty provide for players. Feminised, infantilised, social justice-oriented art sets aside creativity in favour of politics, wallowing in faux victimhood, robbing players of agency and individualism in favour of identity politics and meditations on “oppression.”

So that’s the real war here. It’s not just about who slept with whom, and whether that affected coverage, nor even about whether some outlets have financial relationships with publishers that go beyond what readers consider acceptable. It’s a battle for the soul of the games industry and a wake-up call to journalists that their personal politics simply aren’t welcome in their coverage, because they don’t reflect anything like the views of their readers.

As Brad Wardell, CEO of Stardock, puts it: “The concern is that game developers and publishers will compromise the artistic vision of their game in order to avoid Metacritic-related punishment or negative editorial coverage rather than based on what gamers actually want to play.

“Many in the gaming press, see any objection to encouraging feminism, social justice and alternative-lifestyle representation in gaming as misogyny and bigotry. It doesn’t occur to them that most people who play games aren’t political and simply don’t like seeing game publications using their platforms to push their ideology on them.”

In perhaps the clearest sign yet that the authoritarian Left knows it is losing this war, perhaps because it realises gamers have the upper hand in numbers, intelligence and purchasing power, repeated personal attacks on supporters and even on sympathetic journalists are now a staple of coverage. This comes at the same time as lifelong gamers publish funerals to their own feminism and declare their support for the GOP.

Chillingly for free speech, mass suspensions of Twitter accounts that have the temerity to publicly support press reform and reject feminist critiques of video games as irrelevant, sneering, pseudo-academic drivel are now being attempted by impotent feminist groups whose only weapon is the silencing of dissent.

GamerGaters should be joyful. But they should also remember that, rather than responding in kind with personal attacks, doxxing, threats and totalitarian tactics, they should concentrate on the very real concerns they have and have had for a decade with a press that, swamped with discredited far-Left ideology and unintelligent, poorly-trained writers, refuses to tell basic truths.

Instapundit » Blog Archive » ASHE SCHOW: ‘Yes means yes’ laws also hurt women. “Studies have shown that men are far less likely…

Instapundit » ASHE SCHOW: ‘Yes means yes’ laws also hurt women. “Studies have shown that men are far less likely…

ASHE SCHOW: ‘Yes means yes’ laws also hurt women. “Studies have shown that men are far less likely to report sexual assault than women, but with a law like this, where the choice could be between seeing their futures ruined by an accusation or coming forward with an accusation — young men would likely choose the latter option. If the law remains as it is written, then women would become just as disadvantaged. If, as opponents predict, the law leads to an increase of accusations, anyone accused — man or woman — would be hurt by the lack of basic due process rights.” Since in our culture, women generally feel privileged to touch men without prior consent, one would actually expect more women to be guilty.

It may be time to herd college-age (and soon, high-school and grade-school age?) men into "consciousness raising" sessions where they will learn to file accusations against women who touch them without their consent.

Yes means Yes | affirmative consent | Ezra Klein | assault

Yes means Yes | affirmative consent | Ezra Klein | assault

I’ve written previously about California’s new “Yes Means Yes” law, which codifies a strict definition of “affirmative consent” as it applies to students on college campuses. It’s a terrible bill, but some liberals are touting its absolute failure to address any real problems as its greatest achievement. A group of professors at Harvard Law School recently published a joint letter in the Boston Globe begging the university to rethink its implementation of a similar standard:

We call on the university to withdraw this sexual harassment policy and begin the challenging project of carefully thinking through what substantive and procedural rules would best balance the complex issues involved in addressing sexual conduct and misconduct in our community. The goal must not be simply to go as far as possible in the direction of preventing anything that some might characterize as sexual harassment. The goal must instead be to fully address sexual harassment while at the same time protecting students against unfair and inappropriate discipline, honoring individual relationship autonomy, and maintaining the values of academic freedom.

28 professors from one of the finest law schools on the planet believe that these laws go to far. They’re not just a change in policy; they redefine the meaning of “sexual assault,” and “consent.” They’re a gross overreach into the lives of students that flies in the face of the basic concepts of justice and due process. Chief Voxsplainer Ezra Klein recently penned an article explaining why he believes affirmative consent regulatory overreach—and subsequent overregulation of the sex lives of young Californians—will eliminate the alleged culture of “sexual entitlement” on college campuses. In Ezra Klein’s illiberal utopia, we achieve that goal by making examples out of men whose only crime is that they are male:

The Yes Means Yes law is trying to change a culture of sexual entitlement. That culture of sexual entitlement is built on fear; fear that the word “no” will lead to violence, or that the complaint you bring to the authorities will be be ignored, or that the hearing will become a venue for your humiliation, as the man who assaulted you details all the ways you were asking for it. “No Means No” has created a world where women are afraid. To work, “Yes Means Yes” needs to create a world where men are afraid. For that reason, the law is only worth the paper it’s written on if some of the critics’ fears come true. Critics worry that colleges will fill with cases in which campus boards convict young men (and, occasionally, young women) of sexual assault for genuinely ambiguous situations. Sadly, that’s necessary for the law’s success. It’s those cases — particularly the ones that feel genuinely unclear and maybe even unfair, the ones that become lore in frats and cautionary tales that fathers e-mail to their sons — that will convince men that they better Be Pretty Damn Sure.

This idea that a law must first victimize the innocent in order to achieve social change flies in the face of the original concepts of justice. Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine points this out; it’s not that we expect campus disciplinary proceedings to exactly mirror judicial proceedings, but there is an inherent expectation that those sitting as judge and jury are there to suss out the facts, not settle the score in the Battle of the Sexes. Chait argues that this is exactly the case—that fans of this new law “[argue] for false convictions as a conscious strategy in order to strike fear into the innocent.”

And indeed, the notion of presumption of innocence has been decried, to me, in person, as "just what I'm talking about" as "rape culture".

I hate the phrase “hookup culture,” because it implies there’s some sort of implicit agreement between the sexes that by default, it’s going down; but the fact is that this sort of culture exists, at least in some fashion, and the result can either go one of two ways: you can either have a great time and leave the next morning happy (if not fulfilled,) or you can leave feeling sloppy, and dirty, and more than a little upset with what happened. Laws like Yes Means Yes assume for all of us that when this kind of sex happens, it happens towomen. They assume that women as sexual creatures are not only incapable of making choices, but will by default crumble under the fallout of their bad ones. At best, it is as Heather Mac Donald called it “neo-Victorian.” At worst, it is a mindset thatactually sets back women/feminism/the human condition back into the stone ages. What the philosophy behind “Yes Means Yes” means—and what Klein believes, even if he doesn’t realize it—is that a woman is only empowered by her ability to decide post facto that it is actually menwho are responsible for her now-regretted choice to have sex. In the real world, you would wake up from your encounter with Ted, toss the guy a water bottle, and throw him out with his pants still in his hands. You would sit on the couch and dial your friend and talk about how you’re going to shower for the next five hours because you drunkenly hooked up with some guy named Ted. Then you would move on with your life, because you are a grown woman who can deal with her choices. In Ezra Klein’s world, you would wake up from your encounter with Ted, toss the guy a water bottle, and throw him out with his pants still in his hands. You would sit on the couch and dial your campus counselor to discuss your options—as opposed to just doing some self-searching about why you chose to become so intimate with a stranger.
Did he force you? No.
Did he threaten you? No.
Were you into it? …Maybe?
Were you drunk? Definitely. I was definitely drunk.
Bingo. Now, instead of going to class on Monday, Ted is going to be having a very special conversation with a panel of bureaucrats about the consensual sex he had on Saturday. Ted is no longer a student. Ted, as it turns out, is a rapist without ever having committed a rape; and you, by default, are a victim who has pressed the statutory rewind button and changed the game after the fact. The Harvard professors understand exactly what these laws mean, and why Ezra Klein is so hopelessly wrong in his analysis of them. “Yes Means Yes” doesn’t institute a power shift; “Yes Means Yes” changes the rules and picks a winner in a hypothetical sexual assault scenario forced into reality. This isn’t justice. This isn’t empowerment. This is vindication on behalf of a particular class of women who have taken advantage of their sexual liberty, and realized that it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

GUN WATCH: Charles Cooke at National Review Writes About Threats based on Gun Watch Picture

GUN WATCH: Charles Cooke at National Review Writes About Threats based on Gun Watch Picture

Charles C. W. Cooke writes about it at National Review.com.   I would have been happy to have him use the photograph, with attribution, but perhaps, because the MDA page did not give attribution, he never contacted me.

He does a good job of covering the issue.  I would have been happy to give him more background.   From nationalreview.com:

Reacting to a photograph of a man standing at a checkout with a handgun holstered upon his hip, mom-who-demands-action Joyce Ward asks, “Why weren’t the police called immediately?” And “why,” Ward continues, “wasn’t he shot by the police for having a weapon”? Fellow poster LisaMcLogan Shaheen has a similar inquiry, wondering, “Why hasn’t someone called 911 so the cops can gun him down?” Others go a little further, proposing that they might help their cause along if they were actively to bring about an altercation. “Every time I see someone with a gun in a store I will call 911,” Jennifer Decker vows, “they’ll get tired of that right quick!!!” Even that plan is too limited for Ann Marie. “Just call the police every time you see someone with one,” she counsels, “the police will get sick of it eventually or have a run in with one of these clowns and then things will change.”

I am the person in the  checkout that they are discussing, so the threats are of more than academic interest to me.   If you  wish to read the original story, it is at this link.   To understand why the people making these threats are doing so, I have found this article by Sarah Thompson, M.D. to be informative.   For those of you who do not wish to read the whole article, she discusses  projection, denial, reaction formation, and rage.  

Are Students Afraid To Be Free? | The Beacon

Are Students Afraid To Be Free? | The Beacon

“WHY DO PEOPLE STILL ADVOCATE THIS?!”
The question was a great one. It gave us an opportunity to discuss how the incentives faced by policymakers may mean economically detrimental policies persist. But the student’s question got me thinking. Every year on campus there are always students staging some kind of demonstration. Sometimes it’s as innocuous as signing people up for a social club or organizing a sporting event. Other times, it’s a direct assault on what a university campus should be, a place where students can be free to express and explore ideas, a place where students are exposed to different kinds of people and new ways of thinking.
This second kind of activity is happening all across the country. From establishing “free speech zones” on college campuses, to school officials seizing Hanukkah candles from a student’s dorm because of a supposed “fire hazard” (note students were allowed to smoke in the same dorm), there is a disturbing trend of limiting liberties on college campuses. What’s more worrisome is that it’s not just political actors who advocate such polices, but students.
The question to ask is why? When there is no clear incentive for a person to advocate a particular policy, how do we answer this question? In one of my favorite papers, the late Nobel Laureate James Buchanan argued that individuals will continue to advocate for policies that reduce prosperity, cripple civil liberties, and grow the size of government. The reason—people are afraid to be free. He states,
[T]he attitude here is akin to that of the child who seeks the cocoon-like protection of its parents, and who may enjoy its liberty, but only within the limits defined by the range of such protection. The mother or father will catch the child if it falls, will bandage its cuts.... Knowledge that these things will be done provides the child with a sense of order in its universe, with elements of predictability in uncertain aspects of the environment.
[…]
[T]he state—steps in and relieves the individual of his responsibility as an independently choosing and acting adult. In exchange, of course, the state reduces the liberty of the individual to act as he might choose.
In discussing many current policy issues, from unemployment benefits, to healthcare, to education, to public prayer, there are really two courses of action. One course allows people the liberty to choose for themselves, to do as they will and not impose their preferences on others. The other option relegates these decisions into the hands of supposedly benevolent bureaucratic actors. In some cases, removing responsibility from individuals may sound appealing. But it is important to remember that such a decision involves costs. In many cases, the cost may be our individual liberties.
In my courses I aim to challenge my students. I want them to question their prior assumptions so they can critically examine the world around them. I encourage them to recognize that there are a variety of obvious and hidden costs to any policy, what Bastiat referred to as “what is seen and what is not seen.” College students should be lots of things. They should be curious, and question, and explore. They should pursue new passions and discover what the world has to offer. But there are things students shouldn’t do. I try to convince them they shouldn’t put off their homework until an hour before it’s due. They shouldn’t allow someone else to chart their course. They shouldn’t let someone else make their decisions. They shouldn’t be afraid to be free.

Trigger Unhappy | National Review Online

Trigger Unhappy | National Review Online

Before I continue, I should explain what a trigger warning is.
It started on left-wing and feminist websites. Like a spoiler alert in a movie review or a more specific version of the movie-rating system, trigger warnings are intended to alert very sensitive people that some content might set off, or trigger, their post-traumatic stress disorder or simply offend some people. According to most accounts, this was a conscientious accommodation of people who’d been raped or otherwise horribly abused.
But soon the practice metastasized. Trigger warnings were provided for an ever-increasing, and ridiculous, list of “triggers.” For example, one website offers a trigger warning that it contains images of small holes, lest it terrify people suffering from trypophobia, which is — you guessed it — a fear of clusters of small holes. Another website warns visitors that it will not tolerate any debate over the validity of its trigger warnings for, among many other things, trypophobia, pictures from high places, audio of snapping fingers, or images or discussion of spiders, food, escalators, or animals in wigs.
Now, the Internet is a very big place, and there’s nothing wrong with obscure websites catering to the boutique anxieties of troubled people.
But now the cancer has spread to the college campus. At UC Santa Barbara, the student government has formally requested that professors provide trigger warnings on their syllabi. The idea was initially suggested by a student who had been the victim of sexual abuse. Her class was shown a film that depicted a rape, and while she herself was not “triggered” by it, she felt she should have been warned.
I have no problem with expecting professors to warn students that some material may be graphic or upsetting, and my hunch is that most professors do that already.
But as is so often the case, common sense is barely a speed bump for the steamroller of political correctness. Oberlin College’s Office of Equity Concerns advised professors to avoid such triggering subjects as racism, colonialism, and sexism. They soon rescinded it, perhaps because they realized that if such subjects become taboo, much of their faculty would be left with nothing to talk about.
....
And what a strange madness it is. We live in a culture in which it is considered bigotry to question whether women should join combat units — but it is also apparently outrageous to subject women of the same age to realistic books and films about war without a warning? Even questioning the ubiquity of degrading porn, never mind labeling music or video games, is denounced as Comstockery, but labeling The Iliad makes sense?

Paradigms and Demographics: GMO’s: Scare Mongering at Its Worst! Part II

Paradigms and Demographics: GMO’s: Scare Mongering at Its Worst! Part II

You can make any accusation and frame it in the form of a question and not have to prove anything one way or another. But the thought is planted in people’s minds there’s something nefarious about GMO’s, and the companies producing them. This has been the scare tactic activists have been using going back to Silent Spring and the mother of junk science, Rachel Carson.Dr. Madeleine Pelner Cosman, Ph.D. notes that there are seven steps to this process and usually follow this pattern:

1.      Create a "scientific" study that predicts a public health disaster

2.      Release the study to the media, before scientists can review it

3.      Generate an intense emotional public reaction

4.      Develop a government-enforced solution

5.      Intimidate Congress into passing it into law

6.      Coerce manufacturers to stop making the product

7.      Bully users to replace it, or obliterate it

(Mis)reading George Will - The Washington Post

(Mis)reading George Will - The Washington Post

Columnist George Will wrote a column recently that has attracted a tremendous amount of ire, including calls that the Washington Post fire him.  The St. Louis Dispatch has now announced that it’s replacing Will with Michael Gerson. The announcement reads in part: “The change has been under consideration for several months, but a column published June 5, in which Mr. Will suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, made the decision easier. The column was offensive and inaccurate; we apologize for publishing it.”
Putting aside for the moment any other concerns that critics may have with Will’s column, the latter allegation, that he specifically suggested that sexual assault victims on college campuses enjoy a privileged status, is false.
What Will did write was the following:

Colleges and universities are being educated by Washington and are finding the experience excruciating. They are learning that when they say campus victimizations are ubiquitous (“micro-aggressions,” often not discernible to the untutored eye, are everywhere), and that when they make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate. And academia’s progressivism has rendered it intellectually defenseless now that progressivism’s achievement, the regulatory state, has decided it is academia’s turn to be broken to government’s saddle.

So Will is making two points here. First, that university culture encourages students to perceive themselves as victims, and those that can credibly claim victimhood are sometimes given higher status. I don’t think that’s reasonably debatable, as it’s exactly what the apparently common trope, “check your privilege” is about; students seen as “privileged” by dint of skin color, sex, wealth, etc., should shut up and let the more authentic and wise voices of members of societies’ victim classes proliferate. And the general rule is, if you subsidize something, you get more of it, and there’s  no reason to think this wouldn’t include self-perceptions of victimhood or self-identification as a victim. It’s notable that a recent well-circulated column by a Princeton student taking exception to the “check your privilege” meme took pains to note that the author himself is the grandchild of Holocaust survivors, the quintessential victims.

Ethics in Fantasy - Part 3

Ethics in Fantasy - Part 3

by Tracy Raye Hickman

PREVIOUSLY IN THIS SERIES

In the first two parts of this series, we have explored communication techniques which can help bridge the gap between critics and proponents of fantasy games. We also addressed the common concerns many people have about such games and, hopefully, have invited these concerned people to look into fantasy role playing for themselves. Now that we have brought them in, it's time to make sure that our games are as positive as we claim them to be.

HOW DO YOU KNOW? YOU'VE NEVER PLAYED!

Jeff's father is worried about his son being involved in this role playing game thing. Hey, there's been a lot of talk about it and not all that he's heard is good. Still, Jeff has talked with his dad and now, it seems, the two of them are going over to a friend's house to play the game together.
Doug is Jeff's friend and dungeonmaster. He's going to run their campaign, just like he does every other Friday night. Everything looks toward a promising evening.
The only question is, what kind of game will Jeff's father find when they reach Doug's house?
This isn't just a public relations question. While it may seem important that Jeff's dad find a wholesome activity it is more important that the game Doug runs really is wholesome. Role playing games, as we have said before, have a great potential for good. They also have a great potential for misuse.
Doug, the dungeonmaster or referee of the game, is the one that bares the burden and the responsibility for his game. Will Doug's game be real epic fantasy or will it be a lazy imitation filled with dark deeds? It's important the Doug knows how important this difference is.

THE RESPONSIBLE GAME MASTER

In the beginning of time, the first entertainment form was the storyteller.
As the family or clan sat around the fire at night, the storyteller would weave magic and history for his audience. He kept the ancestry for his people and their deeds and stories and beliefs from generation to generation.
Time passed and the clans became civilizations. With such progress came the theater and the tragedies of ancient Greece. Now a story was told by a chorus of people rather than by a single narrator. Places were build for such presentations and many people came from far away to experience them.
Traveling storytellers soon moved across the land. They would bring stories from places that people had not heard of and news from countries far away. These Bards could sing the songs of many countries and entertain with wonderful stories gathered from everywhere on the road the took.
Print changed that. Plays could be sent far abroad to be seen by people wherever the sea lanes crossed their path. For that matter, you could read the play without every producing it. Books were easier to carry than a Bard.
Technology soon took a hand. Movies brought the shadows of plays to places that rarely experience anything but local theatricals. Tales were soon told by radio. You could enjoy all the wonder and history right their in your living room. Radio with pictures soon came along and now we can watch it in living color.
Yet with all these technological advances, something was left behind. The thrill of the storyteller got lost in the translation. The personal experience was somehow missing.
Then, in the 1970's, a new entertainment form emerged. Fantasy role playing began to revive the social art of storytelling.
Now, the referee of such a game, or dungeonmaster, is the modern bard. With him lies the ability to bring a group of people together and, with their help, weave a tale that is wonderful and exciting.

Game Master is many things

The referee -- or gamemaster if you prefer -- is many things. He is primarily an entertainer who should be watching his audience carefully for signs of boredom or excitement. He is a referee who impartially interprets the rules of the game according to the current situation. He is an actor playing a thousand parts in the course of the drama. He is a game designer as he modifies his game to suit his players or drafts one from scratch.
He is also something he never wanted to be but must accept. He is a teacher.
The Game Master as a Teacher
This is a role which the game referee usually does not want and of which is most unaware. Yet it is perhaps the one role the game referee plays of which he needs to be most keenly aware.

People learn whether we want them to or not.

From the time we are born until the time we die, the experiences we have teach us. Much of who we are is based on a some of our God given talents, our life time of experiences and the choices we made on the basis of our talents and experiences.
While we may, from time to time, concentrate on mastering tasks and information, our impulse to learn is not something which we turn off and on. Schools and Universities provide us with concentrated data and experience. While there we are offered the opportunity to absorb data (facts & theory) as well as experience (lab & field work). However, this does not mean that we turn off our minds once we leave the classroom.
Think of a student returning home after a hard day of study. He comes exhausted to the door with all his books precariously balanced in one hand. He realizes that the door is locked and that his keys are buried deep in his tight jeans. He stacked the books he is carrying carefully and doesn't want to take the time to put them down. Pondering a moment, he traps the books between himself and the door, reaches for his keys and unlocks the door. Hopefully he will be able to catch the books before the door opens.
While this student may have come home thinking he was tired of learning, he still has learned something. He's learned how to unlock a door while carrying too many books. He didn't list that lesson along side his trigonometry, history and political science classes when he woke up that morning. It was simply another experience from which he learned during the day.
When a small child touches a hot plate of food for the first time, the child learns that they shouldn't do that. The baby didn't set out to learn about heat and pain -- it was simply that the experience itself taught the lesson.
Experience, as the saying goes, is the Great Teacher.

Game Masters teach whether we want to or not.

Role playing is one of the most powerful of experiences. People project their imaginary characters into the games. Most people who play the game, when they talk about it, do not distinguish their character from themselves. Ask a player what happened in the game. They will tell you the story by saying, "I stepped through the door ..." or "I drew my sword ..." They rarely say, "My character stepped through the door ..." or "I had the character I was playing draw my sword ..." While part of this is semantic (it's easier to say "I" than "My character"), a large part of it is because the player was pretending that they really were there.
Because of this heavy identification, players in role playing games learn lessons from their games as though they really were experiencing the adventure. They don't set out to learn anything. It's just a game, isn't it?
No, they learn from their experience in the game.
Some of this learning represents only game play experience without any real world application. How often, after all, do you 'listen at the door' before opening it? You rarely have need to know the attack and defence difference between a mace and a morning star. Do you work out a 'marching order' when you walk with your friends? Of course not: these things are lessons which you apply only to your games.
Yet there are other lessons which are taught that are not so obvious and which do apply to life.
I often think about an experience I shared with the players in one of my own games. I was the 'dungeonmaster' for a D&D game. We were playing 'Ravenloft', an adventure written by my wife and I about a vampire.
On the surface, this seemed like a typical old movie plot; Eerie eastern European location with lots of fog and fallen leaves. There was the obligatory castle high on the craggy cliff with the wolves howling in the woods. Sure enough, the vampire was up there in the castle.
To most of the players it seemed like a straight forward task: find the vampire and kill him.
However, Ravenloft had more to it than that. The plot of the story behind the game dealt with why Strahd von Zarovich, the Count of Barovia had fallen from grace to become the first vampire. As the game progressed, one of the players began discovering this background.
The vampire had once been a great and noble warrior. When he conquered Barovia and established the castle there he sent for his family to join him. There was a particular girl in the town that he wished to marry. In the end, however, the girl fell in love with the Count's younger brother. Strahd blamed his age for the girls rejection and vowed to live forever through the dark arts. He believed if he could rid himself of death that the girl would somehow find him attractive.
Of course, the brother was killed by Strahd. The girl threw herself from the cliffs of the castle but her body was never found. Strahd found that his pact with darkness had caused that he should not die but that he should not live either. Thus did he become a vampire.
At the end of the game, my friend held the sword which could destroy Strahd. As his companions fell upon the vampire, my friend found that he couldn't kill the monster. He saw all the sadness and tragedy which the mans life had once been. Ultimately his companions in the game were forced to finish the job.
After the game, we spoke. "He deserved to die better than that," my friend said.
"Yes," I replied, "But that is how it is with people who fall from greatness. He chose his end when he first chose to kill his brother. How could it be any different?"

Just what are we saying here? (Unwanted lessons)

What we are saying is that people are going to take something from your games and incorporate them into their lives whether you want them to or not. The experience of your game is going to teach them something: perhaps not big lessons but subtle ones. Do thieves always get away with their crimes in your game? Do player character assassins murder at will? Do your players use torture without being tortured themselves? Are towns being ravaged by players without fear of retribution from the king?
If you answer yes to any of these or similar questions, then you are not only misusing the game but you are teaching false and negative lessons to your players. These lessons are false because they do not properly represent the nature of consequence in the world. They are negative because they elevate bad behaviors above good ones.
Games that allow such things are not only teaching the wrong lessons, they are bad games. The entertainment experience and enjoyment is far less than in a game with conflict, consequence and a firm handle on good and evil, notwithstanding anything you may have heard to the contrary.

FANTASY IS A MORAL MEDIUM.

Science-fiction, Cyberpunk, Fantasy and Epic Fantasy are all part of what I will call 'Fantastic Literature' Within Fantastic Literature, there seems to be a clear range of moral ground where these categories fall.
Cyberpunk as a literary medium is clearly counter-moral. It challenges our viewpoint with a depressing view of society and the future. Drugs in Cyberpunk are an accepted release from problems and heros (or non-heros) are those who do the worst violence. Not exactly a viewpoint I would want to advance in our society.
Science-fiction comes a bit closer down the line with its broad themes ranging from depressing dark futures to utopian inspirations. While moralistic science fiction has been written, the genre itself is amoral -- that is, it can as easily be written to portray a counter-moral viewpoint as it can portray a moral viewpoint. Science fiction spans the middle ground with a wide range.
Fantasy, however, and particularly epic fantasy has traditionally dealt with the conflicts of good and evil is fairly clear terms. Theirs little doubt about who's wearing the white hats in the Lord of the Rings.
Epic fantasy has heros who must conquer the foe. We all want to see ourselves as heros of some kind, vanquishing the bad things around us. We identify strongly with the hero or heroine in these adventures because we want to be them. It is this desire that makes fantasy such an appealing genre.
I believe that the notion of fantasy as purely escapist fiction is false. Epic fantasy deals with real questions of good and evil. Escapist fiction is only a distant relative.

CONFLICT: THE HEART OF LIFE AND GAMES

At the heart of the epic is the struggle of good against evil. There are good reasons for this. Conflict is what makes a game work. It is the overwhelming of resistance in the game by the force of our play that makes a game such a pleasant sensation.
Years ago, there was a great deal of effort put into designing a game that was totally cooperative. The desires in this were very noble. When one person 'wins' a game, the other players tended to all 'lose'. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all play a game where we weren't pitted against each other.
What we soon found out was that games without conflict are -- well, boring. Without some obstacle to overcome, the essential feeling of mastery and accomplishment just wasn't there.
Take most popular board games, for example. In Monopoly you must combat your fellow players in a contest to see which of you can bankrupt the other first. Sorry! asks children to not only race around the track but to continuously send their playmates back to their starting positions in order to win the game.
Even in board games which have no obvious conflict or resistance it is still there. Life, for example, does not require much participant interaction but does determine a winner at the end of the game based primarily on who has the most money. The conflict in this game is represented by the rules themselves. Once again, we have one winner and a host of losers.
Role playing games themselves have often been portrayed as 'cooperative' gaming. This is, however, misleading. The game is filled with conflict -- between the players as a group and the referee of the game. The players pit the force of their characters scores and their own wits against the game design and the wits of the referee. The adventure itself, then, provides the conflict for the game.

GOOD VS. EVIL; THE CLASSIC CONFLICT

As fantasy as a genre is basically a moral medium, so, too, should be the conflict within fantasy role playing games. This makes the adventure true to the fantasy form, but there are more important reasons for using this basic conflict.
Good against evil is an easily recognized form of conflict. When you say, "We go to fight the Garg, Lord of Evil!", everyone knows where they stand. When you say, "We go to fight Garg, Lord of Situational Ethics!" you may find your players at something of a loss.
By putting such conflict into the plots and backgrounds of your games, you give your players high ideals for which to fight rather than self interest alone.

TRUTH WITH CONSEQUENCES: HONEST GAMES

Games which allow action without consequence are, at best, lazy. At the worst, such games teach a false view of the world to their participants.
The nature of conflict requires consequence.
We expect things to work a certain way. If they don't, they should at least work consistently wrong. If this weren't true, we wouldn't be able to plan anything. Imagine a world where every time you tried to use a hammer, it worked differently.
In role playing games, we expect our mace to do a certain amount of damage when we strike an opponent. If it didn't, we'd suspect there was some magical or other reason for it. Otherwise, we would all start complaining to the referee that he was being unfair or not following the rules.
This simple rule of action and consequence seems to be an obvious one. Unfortunately, the rule is seldom extended to the adventure or campaign. Pillage a town? Sure, as long as you don't mind the Baron and his army riding in hot and unending pursuit. Poison the King? O.K., so long as your prepared to deal with his brother, the paladin, and his army. Kill hostages? Fine, if you remember that each of those hostages has nearly a hundred relatives who will be willing to pay any price for your hide.
The characters actions in a role playing game must have lawful consequences just as surely as we expect a mace to do damage. Anything else would be a lie.

Games without consequence cheat their players

But it's fun to play an evil character, you say? I suppose it would be fun to be a bank robber if there were no police and other people didn't mind my taking their money. You threaten people with a gun and they give you money. You go down to the store and buy a stereo. You go to another bank, threaten people with a gun and they give you more money. You buy a car. You go to another bank ...
Is this real? You wave a gun in a bank and you might not live long enough to wave anything else again. Assuming you do get out of the bank, how far can you get before the police seal the roads? Escape on foot? Steal a car? It didn't work in Denver, folks. A T.V. News helicopter followed the guy wherever he went. Assuming you live through that and somehow do manage to get away, the money you have is most likely marked. A guy at the car dealership is going to sell you that nice new car for $24,000.00 -- all paid in crisp, new twenty dollar bills -- without reporting the transaction to the police?
An evil characters life in a properly run fantasy campaign should be a colorful, short one.
Interestingly, you are cheating players of evil characters by letting them get away with so much. Any thrill associated with doing dastardly deeds is dulled when you get away with it all the time. Where's the challenge? Where's the excitement?
Your evil thief character walks into a city. He goes to the richest neighborhood. He locates the house of a wealthy merchant. Picking the lock on the gate, he enters the front door. Everyone is asleep except the butler who's blind and deaf. The thief kills everyone in the house. He finds the treasure and walks out with a bizillion pieces of gold.
In this example, the character has pulled off some horrible crimes including senseless murder. Not a single character run by the referee has made any effort to prevent it. In doing so, not only has the referee given a horrible lesson to the player (killing is o.k. if it is expedient?!?) but has also cheated the player out of any challenge that playing his evil character might have given him.
In a game with consequence, the story might be a good deal different.
Your evil thief character walks into a city. The guards in the city probably will not allow him entry, since his reputation seems to have preceded him. The thief is forced to enter the city by climbing the wall at night. It only takes him four nights to do this since he was caught on the first three nights, beaten with staves and tossed rudely out the main city gates. Eventually he makes his way into a wealthy neighborhood in the city. There are more guards here and his ragged dress would give him away to them in an instant. He is required to take on a disguise as a beggar. Eventually he locates the house of a wealthy merchant. Late at night, he picks the lock only to be confronted with two guard dogs. He manages to kill these, but not before there is a terrible combat. The thief now limps from the bite wounds on his legs. Entering the house, he finds everyone asleep except the butler who is blind and deaf. The thief managed go find the strongbox and gets the bizillion gold pieces. The butler may be deaf and blind, but he is not stupid and his sense of smell has been greatly enhanced over the years. The thief, still in beggars costume, smells to the rafters. The butler sounds the alarm. The thief struggles with the butler but hears the rest of the household awakening and the local constables are breaking down the front door. The thief begins to flee, but the bizillion gold pieces weigh him down. A bizillion gold pieces weighs quite a bit. The thief is forced to leave the gold and leap out the back window. Loud cries from the authorities seem to fill every street. He disappears down into the sewers to make his escape. There he wanders for several days, the wound in his leg festering in the disease-filled environment. Having had his fill of roasted rat, he finally emerges from the sewers -- into the waiting arms of a guard. They all saw him going into the sewers and knew it was only a matter of time before he came out.
We leave our thief hanging by chains on a high wall, stripped of his weapons and clothing. His execution will be in the morning.
What a challenge for the thief!

CHOSE YOUR ETHIC: WHAT ETHICS DOES ONE PORTRAY?

A fantasy campaign without an ethic is devoid of direction. The question which then confronts us all is what kind of ethic should our games and campaigns portray?
Some ethics on which we may agree
There are many different cultures and ethics which exist in the world. Everyone has their own view of these ethics and their relationship to them. Still, there are some common elements to many of them on which we may be able to agree as a basic ethic for fantasy games.

The Omniscience and Omnipotence of God

That there is some order to the universe is a central theme of fantasy. Such order implies thought and conscience.
I have often been asked, how can I, as a Christian, write fantasy games with pantheons of different gods. Writing fantasy is the easiest of the genres for a Christian because of fantasy's moral basis. God is implied in all my writings and games. He may not be there in white flowing robes; He may be represented by intermediaries; but He is there nevertheless.
Putting someone in charge of your universe lets you set up the rules by which your universe is run. It insures consistency so long as you remember who is in charge.

The good redeems its own

This does not mean that the good guys will always be saved at the last minute by the cavalry. Bad things happen to good people from time to time. Good redeems its own in that good acts add to the better state of all humanity. When we help someone, we improve all life in some small measure. Ultimately, those who practice the principles of good -- even to their own discomfort from time to time -- are ultimately rewarded for their work.

Evil feeds on itself

This does not mean that evil will always fail right away. Hitler ruled most of Europe for years before he was finally beaten. Evil characters will, from time to time, be victorious.
However, those who are evil either make a mistake in their arrogance or, once they have conquered, find their fellows suddenly turning on each other. Devoid of sufficient outside threat, the self-centered evil nations quickly fragment themselves in contention with each other.

Man may choose for himself good or evil (Free Agency)

Central to the conflict of good and evil is the idea that man has the ability to choose for himself between the two. Free will allows men to see both the light and the dark around them and to gain perspective from the contrast of the two.

Consequences for our choices are mandated by nature

All actions have consequence. Establish this as a law. It should be the basis of all families, villages, towns, cities and kingdoms which your characters enter. Towns have laws and rules. Disobeying them should have consequence.
The god in your campaign will also have laws. That god, too, will require consequences for those who disobey the divine law.
Your own ethic is best.
As to the details of your game ethic, you know your own beliefs best of all. It is easiest to convey your own belief in a game setting, if for no other reason than it is far more convenient than trying to research out a philosophy different than your own.
If you believe in nothing at all, then I am sorry. Faith and hope are the wellspring of dreams and imagination. I cannot conceive of life without these things. I would encourage you to find those things. It won't just better your game -- but it will better your life as well.

SUMMARY: ETHICS IN FANTASY ROLE PLAYING

Fantasy is not escapist fiction; it is a morally based genre. Good fantasy demands ethics and good fantasy role playing demands ethical play and design.
Ethics is not something which is outmoded; truth is not situation nor relative and we shouldn't pretend that it is. Our games are teaching people around us not just about a fantasy world, but about how we deal with each other. If we cannot learn to deal with each other honestly in our imaginations, how can we hope to deal with each other face to face in the real world?
Basing a fantasy world or character on evil is lazy: it's a cop out and a cheat. Creating a fantasy world that requires true heroism may not be as easy -- but it's a whole lot more fun.
There's one more benefit to Ethical games: when Jeff brings his dad to watch your game you can open the door wide. 'Come in and have fun. I think you're really gonna like this game!'

---

Ethics in Fantasy -- Part 3 / The Moral Imperative of Fantasy
Copyright 1989, 1996 by Tracy Raye Hickman. All Rights Reserved.