tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post1139384793975020938..comments2024-03-28T03:10:23.679-07:00Comments on Polemarch: What Am I Doing Here?The Polemarchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-48603893205057953712011-06-06T01:59:50.501-07:002011-06-06T01:59:50.501-07:00Thank you for your thoughts; it is a lot more comp...Thank you for your thoughts; it is a lot more complicated that first imagined.<br /><br />I do think that your 1 has some legs to it. Making a game out of suffering on an unimaginable level does sound a bit iffy. Films and novels (and non fiction) can examine the human effects of war in a way that wargaming doesn't. On the other hand, wargaming might answer some of the big picture 'why' a little better than, say, Catch 22.<br /><br />I'd tend to agree that your #2 is the area of the extreme minority, but they do crop up and have to be dealt with. There does seem to be a line, somewhere, which SS re-enactors cross and SS toy soldiers don't. Something about living it, I suppose - Ruraigh mentioned a while ago the stories that we tell inventing ourselves. Do we really want people inventing themselves as the SS?<br /><br />#3 is a bit tricky. Wargaming, at least in some of its forms, does acknowledge the violence and cruelty, and could act as a method for understanding and deflecting conflict. There are highly respectable departments of War Studies, for example. War may not be nice, but it is real and important, so I guess someone has to consider it.The Polemarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-18113318070803386372011-06-04T07:53:42.104-07:002011-06-04T07:53:42.104-07:00FWIW, as a wargamer and previously as an RPGer, I&...FWIW, as a wargamer and previously as an RPGer, I've never felt that 2 or 3 had that much force, but I have sometimes wondered about 1.<br /><br />I remember this issue being discussed in episode two of the View from the Veranda podcast and in Meeples and Miniatures podcasts when the modern skirmish games 'Ambush Alley' and 'Flying Lead' were discussed. One point that the different contributors made was that serving soldiers had no problem with this stuff. I remember thinking that this was fine as fas as it goes, but I wonder what the civilians involved would have thought?<br /><br />RegardsJWHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01637785437909299947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-71902908364200376142011-06-04T07:48:11.837-07:002011-06-04T07:48:11.837-07:00After a lot of thinking about this post, I think t...After a lot of thinking about this post, I think that there is a question - a few, actually.<br /><br />First, is wargaming disrespectful? Does it make light of the suffering of those who fought in the wars, or just as importantly, those who suffered as a result of them. If we know that say 27-28 million inhabitants of the Soviet Union were killed in the Great Patriotic War, or that some of those surviving soldiers then proceded to rape two million women in Berlin, should we feel comfortable about playing a 'Flames of War' Eastern Front battle? <br /><br />This problem is reasonably specific to wargaming, as it aims to make something enjoyable from something hideous. Narrative forms like drama and novels don't have to minimize or (largely) ignore the human suffering. Is the defence of wargaming, that it is only a game, on a par with that of German Generals who were only concerned with the tactics and strategy of Eastern Front warfare 1941-5?<br /><br />Second, does wargaming encourage violence or at best, promote extreme political views? I think that I have a hard time expressing this objection with its full potential, as I tend to feel from experience that this is absoutely not the case. The 'Salute SS' incident may stand for all of this problem in all its forms - do SS re-enactors/wargamers with 'evil' armies do so because they are at some level sympathetic with the causes those armies fought for? I think this is probably 99% untrue, but there might be a remaining 1% with something in it...<br />I tihnk mainly people get these armies because someone needs to play the baddies or that the baddies have the coolest uniforms/kit (this might apply to Star Wars as much as WW1, for example). <br /><br />Thirdly, and I think this is distinct from the other two, is it a sign of inadeqaucy in us as wargamers (although it would equally apply to military modellers, some RPGers and some re-enactors) that we play a game rooted (however far removed) in violence and cruelty (athough we are not supporters or practioners of any actual violence or cruelty)? Should we be doing something else with our lives? If we find all this war stuff fascinating, is that a sign that we are deviants rather than the fact that war is intrinsically interesting.<br /><br />ReagrdsJWHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01637785437909299947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-45668105469035996422011-05-21T02:02:40.934-07:002011-05-21T02:02:40.934-07:00I do think a lot of this comes down to the confusi...I do think a lot of this comes down to the confusion of the different wargame levels I've described before. <br /><br />I think, for example, that the dean does have grounds to object, but they are not the ones he did object on - copyright and defamation would be more serious charges than the one laid. But that is the one the press and politicians ran with, and the cathedral got bothered about. I wonder why that was? <br /><br />As another example, in the late 1990s a couple of teenagers somehwere near Seattle murdered a girl. it came out that they had been members of D&D groups, and the press had a field day about the dangers of FRP games. However, it also turned out that the teenagers had been thrown out of the groups for blurring the lines between the games and reality, which rather killed the story.<br /><br />Again, this seems to have been a simple blurring, by both press and teenagers, of the levels of game and reality. But it was the one that got a lot of attention. Is it just that wargaming is suc an oddball activity that the press enjoys these implications, or just sniffing an interesting angle?<br /><br />I'm not sure I've got any answers, but the question is "is there a question?"The Polemarchhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958736917525649927noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-39540578723395173462011-05-21T00:54:00.708-07:002011-05-21T00:54:00.708-07:00And I think the good Dean had pretty much no point...And I think the good Dean had pretty much no point at all about the physical space of the cathedral. I just can't see how that would really make people feel differenty about his Church in general or this church in particular. Does he really want to control the backdrops for others' fictions? He should have been more upset about the depiction of the clergy in, say, 'Northern Lights' and hundreds of thousands of people have read that.JWHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01637785437909299947noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5185876513552272723.post-42722829171646724112011-05-21T00:50:05.581-07:002011-05-21T00:50:05.581-07:00I think the 'problem' with the occasional ...I think the 'problem' with the occasional SS-thing which comes up in the hobby is that every so often we come up against a person who acts in such a way that we suspect them personally of using the hobby as a an acceptable vehicle for indulging their real political fantasies which are such that most people and most wargamers would find unacceptable. The 'SS' stuff is a convenient target because most examples seem to come from this side. However, I would feel just as bad about a British Zulu War player who seemed to be using his games/re-enactment as a vehicle for indulging some real neo-Colonialist fantasy or a Confederate gamer who seemed to be using it as a way of indulging an imagination that really wished to re-enslave black Americans. Such a thing would be pretty unlikely, but in theory I'd feel the same.<br /><br />Most wargames or re-enactments are fairly clearly totally devoid of any of this stuff.JWHhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01637785437909299947noreply@blogger.com