This is a rant. It's hopefully a useful rant. But it is a rant. You are forewarned.
What's Pissed Me Off
The anti-woke (referred to from here on out as Grimas) crowd have been getting on my nerves for years. From their silly inability to understand basic plot points in movies to completely missing the point of stories to just hating everyone and everything that isn't 20+ years old... let's just say I haven't been a fan. My annoyance turns to anger, however, when they start making the ridiculous claim that somehow they're guarding something bigger and important than their own childishness. In so doing, they entertain the delusion that their silliness is related to people with any principles, at all.
Now, the lefties have gotten good at pointing this lack of any meaningful principles out. They point out (correctly) that the "anti-woke" miss basic touchstones of reality, that they're juvenile, and overall extremely unpleasant people. This is all legit. But where they mess up is the idea that the "anti-woke" are true representations of what they think of as the "Dark Ages" they have left behind. Crap like "The Death of Meaning" is something they can successfully strawman into supporting their position, because look at dumb the opposition is! And I just sigh and roll my eyes and ignore it as best I can but look at this embarrassingly stupid mess.
The problem, like any with other "conservative", is that Ages doesn't check his own assumptions enough. He doesn't sit down and ask why he's angry. Does he keep pushing until he's drilled down to his own assumptions, examined them, and comes to an actual understanding in the post? Nope. And it starts literally in the first sentence.
"Fantasy and science fiction are not mere escapism."
Excuse me? How are we wrong right here, at the beginning?
"Mere"?
Escapism, real escapism, is as virtuous as it gets. The "real world" can get really confusing and disheartening. Certain things about the "real" world confuse our ability to do good for us and others. If you mentally stay in that situation, you're only going to get more and more confused and wind up leaving the real world for something in your head.
Escapism, at its core, is about getting your head free of what you think the real is. You pull yourself out, remind yourself of what's true and good and beautiful, no matter what, and then you get back on the horse. You get your head clear and then go forward. Tolkien and Le Guin call escapism virtuous. We should be too. To start the post in this kind of a negative way is to fail to understand the very positive, very good, very real thing you're actually doing when you escape.
Let's see how the tree grows, given the roots are rotten.
"...the mythic mirrors we hold up to reality."
Okay, what the hell does this mean? The second sentence, and this guy writes the word "mythic", as if we're going to just nod along. But seriously: what the hell does "mythic" mean? Really? I go to Google, type in that word, and get:
- relating to or resembling myth."we explain spiritual forces in mythic language"- exaggerated or idealized."he was a national hero of mythic proportions"
That is useless. Functionally useless. I go and Google mythology and get:
1. a collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular religious or cultural tradition.
"a book discussing Jewish and Christian mythologies"
Similar: myth(s) legend(s) folklore folk tales folk stories lore tradition stories tales mythos
2. the study of myths.
"this field includes archaeology, comparative mythology, and folklore"
That is, again, functionally useless! That doesn't tell us what is different about the tales in their form and content! Ages is essentially relying upon vibes to get us to skate over a glaring hole in his opening statement. He wants you to just nod along without actually saying anything of substance. You know how difficult it actually is to get a working definition of myth, one which accurately describes a myth's point and purpose? I've actually found it frustrating. Because nothing in that paragraph is unique to mythology.
So far, we're two sentences in and all we've gotten are vague vibes. Vibes aren't enough.
It gets worse.
"Science fiction, in particular, has functioned as a prophecy machine—warning us of futures we might still avoid."
Say it with me: science fiction is always about what's going on right now. Classically speaking, prophets are not those saying, "This will happen" but "This is what's currently happening, and this is where it'll get us." Ages, by bungling this very basic point, completely misunderstands the point of 1984 and all science fiction. I was hearing this crap in my Catholic homeschooled middle school groups. I don't have to be an atheist to call it false and find it repulsive.
"I remember a time when players would stalk their GMs, begging for another session. "
I don't remember that time, I'm living it right now! I have children! They love playing with me! Every session is precious to them, they want to do it over and over and over and over again, to the point where if I let them all they would do are RPGs.
And Dice Throne
And Pokemon TCG
And the Star Wars Unlimited TCG
And I have a fantastic time with them, and I hope someday they understand just how much their joy saved me from apathy. I remember when I lost that zest for life, and then it kept dying. And dying. What you're talking about are the rosy-eyed glasses of nostalgia.
I have played many a session in my adulthood that was truly meaningful and beautiful. But it can't come naturally anymore, because adults have spent decades rotting away and must search out what they once had. They have to own it in a completely different way and be comfortable with the ambiguity of missing it.
"When we lived and breathed adventure, when missing a game felt like missing a chapter of history. Not because the DM was a literary genius, but because the world had meaning."
Because you were younger and therefore didn't have to look for meaning, it just came to you. You're absolutely correct that the world isn't as bright and sparkly as it was a few decades ago. But frankly, that has less to do with game systems than you. The older you get, the less meaning is handed to you and the harder you have to look. But what you find is yours in a way that was never a part of childhood.
Why It Pissed Me Off
All anger is a defense mechanism. Something valuable is threatened and so therefore you rise up in defense. But in order to defend something, you have to know what it is you're defending. And that means going back to basics, re-examining what and why you believe what you do. If you don't do this you just flail, uselessly, and look like an idiot.
The leftists, wokies, whatever you want to call them, did me a huge favor. By so fundamentally challenging so many assumptions, all at once, I had to go and drill down to the bottom of what and why I believed what I did. What I found changed me for the better and allowed me to start taking a journey that has made my life so much better. What I have discovered is so much more than stupid little pithy one-liners than our "cultural heritage". It's a completely different world. A world that's bigger, more beautiful, scarier, requires more, from me than I ever thought possible. It has helped me heal and feel things that I never thought I would, ever again.
So how could I ever hate those that pushed me along the path? That's insanity. I can't hate the events that made me, however horrifying that may be at times.
No, the thing that I hate is that a conversation with those people is impossible, because idiots, second-rate hacks, frauds like Ages loudly bray about "muH CUlchsuRE" and "VAluEs", the end products of an experience, as if they were the only thing worth talking about. It's reductive and is far more insulting to me than anyone who has had a difference experience. Different experiences can be compared, empathized with, and maybe we'll both get something out of it. I really hope that sort of thing can happen!
But these fools, who muddy the waters?
They deserve little more than "Please stop."
And that really is it.
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