Cold as a Blizzard: Why Political Correctness is a Form of Dangerous Escapism.

Cold as a Blizzard: Why Political Correctness is a Form of Dangerous Escapism.

“What you resist, persists.” Carl Gustav Jung.

One of the reasons that I left the Debate Team was that matters of actual significance, including How We Treat One An Other (Public Policy, as opposed to Ideology) were never open to discussion but presumed upon (with egregious hypocrisy) in order to win rounds. The National Parliamentary Debate finals featured four young men whose only truly distinguishing factor was hairstyle, though perhaps my near-sightedness rendered me colour-blind as well. The Given Topic was swiftly forgotten in response to a trumped up (no pun intended?) Racism Kritik that seemed, by its very nature, to bite itself. I usually love “K’s” and hate the suggestion that a truly Philosophical Argument is supposed to be any thing BUT paradoxical and self-contradictory. But I draw the line at blatant hypocrisy and projection. And any accusation of “racism” whatsoever bites itself, for the simple fact that a colour-blind person would no more think to call an act of bullying “racism” than a mentally handicapped person would think to call it “ablism”. And having both been a first-generation immigrant and a mental health out-patient in only the first score of my tender life, I absolve myself of any accusations of ignorance, though I will leave my identification with any “victim group” at that. There is no such thing as a “victim group”. A victim always suffers alone. If you have the luxury of solidarity, YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM.

The opponents tried their damnedest to respond to the Kritik. In the process a wire was tripped whose identity is just as lost to me at present as was the initial Prompt for the Debate. The big-haired pale Hispanic proto-Fascist with the hipster glasses, who played acoustic guitar at the Talent Show whilst shouting “hands up; don’t shoot” alongside a portly young black woman, who exempted me graciously from being “white” (probably because I still had my Jewish Beard Dreads coming in at the time) and on an elevator noted several older men “passing privilege” when they greeted and took their leave of one an other with a grace that I’ve not seen once in my age group outside of Customer Service* (mind you: this was in Cleveland, Ohio.), was the source of the complaint, interrupting his opponent’s speech to draw attention to an ostensibly “racist” remark made by the speaker, who at this moment I must have noticed to be FORMALLY pale. At this point you could practically see the neck pores squeezing out the sweat beads as the gringo, who was in shade pretty much identical to the Kritic, (again: from the perspective of a near-sighted person) fumbled to atone for the “mistake”. Instead of telling the albino cholo to just fuck off, as a DECENT person would, he apologized for what he said, admitting he was “racist because of how [he] was raised”, implying this to be not only a just excuse but a binding principle for all ostensibly “white” people. In more decent times, his remark would have affronted both the Left and the Right, the former as an excuse for offensive rhetoric, an excuse more offensive to the Human Heart than the rhetoric itself, and the latter for its hypocritical stereotyping of an entire group. And since the Left has an interest in the latter, and the Right has some stake in the former, both factions would have been unified in criticism of this exceedingly naïve coward who couldn’t just tell it like it is: that the albino latino was delusional. And mind you: as an albino immigrant, I reserve the right, as aforementioned, to call the Draconian proto-Fascist into question. But by the same token, I maintain that this is not my true identity, and neither is it his.

*Perhaps their millennial critic mistook basic friendliness for a business deal.

Today I opened gingerly my most recent issue of Game Informer magazine. I was expecting the usual: caffeinated game gossip, sleek stills of slender C.G.I. babes, and a monolith of information on the cover, which in this case was Mega Man, a figure so classic that he was bound to lend himself to controversy between die-hards and n00bies, as well as within each of these warring factions. Game Magazines should be every bit as delightfully combative as the games they detail. SO WHAT GIVES?

Things have changed since I was in Middle School, and it’s not just me noticing what was all ways there. My nostalgia for Debate (which is, I’m told time and again, essentially a GAME comparable to Half-Life* and Monkey Island) was titillated by a small block of text entitled “Shape Up Or Shut Down”. I confess: it was really the corollary image that caught my eye: one of a rosy-hued elfin girl with bangs and curves (Latina curves, mind you.) in a tight fitting hero suit (with a suggestive colour pattern), lounging against what might have been a primer gray vehicle, holding a pink pistol up to the magenta sky and blowing bubble gum.

*Hands up; don’t shoot.

The text was less satisfying. They hooked me with the opening line: “There’s currently a heated debate [going on about whether it’s right…]” I’ve decided that the whole is more ridiculous than the sum of its parts, so here’s the Op.Ed. transcribed in full, truncated only parenthetically by the writer:

There’s currently a heated debate going on about whether it’s right for developers to moderate the social behaviours of their online community.

Mind you: the question was not phrased “whether it’s right OR NOT”.

Blizzard announced it is trying to curb the toxic behaviour of some players on Overwatch, but many are arguing that the attempt to create inclusive “safe spaces” infringes on their personal freedoms and that they should be allowed to behave as they please.

As per usual, the Nerd of the Month is astute in delineating both sides with political correctness that is shameful in its semblance to true compassion. At any rate: he had me going up until this point. It’s the classic sophomoric discussion of Freedom of Speech versus Virgin Ears. On the one hand, we know that Verbal Abuse is a problem. Any one of any political leaning and any “group” can be affected by toxic language and other narcissistic behaviour. Even in several incarnations of my own political psyche I remain traumatized by some of the things that people have said to me, even in excess of a YEAR ago. But what is most chilling is this realization: that they GOT AWAY WITH IT. Political Correctness only gave them an excuse to be abusive; I was supposed to be allied with them against this Totalitarian infringement on our freedoms, which Slavoj Zizek described famously as being “worse than overt racism”. But this desperate ally proved a traitor whenever he (or she!) chose arbitrarily to spew insult at me, calling ME the traitor to our cause when I got offended. Thankfully, one of these traitors was a Communications Major who taught me many things about conversation prior to her suicide in this year. One of those critical distinctions is that of Insult and Offense. Offense is unintentional, and it is the fault of the Offended. INSULT is deliberate. And it does not take long to figure out that one is being deliberately offended by a bully. Why did I put up with this? Put simply: I expected better of them, because I felt that I had no choice. I could have simply called the bully a spick, or a cunt, etc., and that would reflect less of my own “prejudices” and more of what I KNEW would hurt and potentially incapacitate the Verbal Assailant. Political Correctness never helped me to stop true abuse, especially because, whenever a bully found my weakness, it was usually so TOPICAL to me that I was hard-pressed to cite a meme (e.g. “That’s racist!”) in order to retort and make myself clear to the Global Community. A true victim of narcissistic abuse, I had to suffer TOTALLY ALONE. My only refuge was in my own FREEDOM: that I could at least say whatever *I* wanted to say, and usually without consequence. I knew the world was imperfect and that bullies have all ways been a problem. But when I repeated their behaviour, sometimes only in retaliation, I was made to bear THEIR burden by the community. The traitors ended up HIDING in the same system of mind control that we had both been allied in trying to eliminate. The very people LEADING the Social Justice Crusade were Fascists and Sociopaths!!

So of course I was excited to find that the Gaming Community saw both sides of the Matter. On the one hand: none of us WANTS to live in a world of verbal abuse and manipulation (except Eric Cartman). On the other: since we MUST, the least that we can do is use our most advanced technology and budding art-form – Video Games – not only to ESCAPE the Cruel, Cruel World, but in order to CONFRONT it in a manner that at least, like all of the Cathartic Arts, from Ancient Theatre up through Film and Rock and Roll, allows us to process the emotions without risk of physical harm. Unlike Nightmare on Elm Street, you don’t die in real life if you get killed in a dream. You just wake up more Enlightened.

Someone apparently should kill Lewis Hiigel in a dream, because what followed broke my Heart of Hearts:

I disagree. I ran retail stores for nearly a decade, and if a customer was being abusive to others customers, they would be asked to leave and would not be welcome in the store again.

There was a time when the only way that you could feel “safe” in any “space” was by standing up for yourself. Sometimes that obligated you to employ aggression. Sometimes you might even have developed an ethnic prejudice within a community that had a troubling gang presence. Yes: it sucks to be lumped in with people who look like you. But the greatest threat is not that prejudice. Gangs of every colour, as evidenced in Prison, lump together according to the same prejudice. It helps to know that you could pass for one if you have any interest in stopping them. The offense only becomes a PROBLEM when you were hoping to REMOVE YOURSELF from the ACTUAL PROBLEMS in your own community! Somehow, bureaucratic liberal society produced the “not my problem” employee, and that produced the liberal victim. In the Tarot, this was the Hanged Man card. It is considered one of the most dangerous trump cards (again: no pun.) in the entire deck, (which byfar outnumbers our contemporary French Deck) because he HANGS HIMSELF with HIS HANDS BEHIND HIS BACK. Are the hands tied? Or is he waiting to ensnare whoever might have sympathy for him?

People in Sicily never idealized the gangsters who oppressed them; they even relied upon the protection of the Free Masons in keeping the Mafia at bay. If you see gang graffiti of the “Boss of Bosses”, this isn’t glorification; “No Mafia” appears right next to it. People have all ways had their own means of dealing with bullies; the name of the game was only not to BECOME a bully in the process. But like a game of chicken, the game was all so one of coming as close as possible, so as to prove one’s courage.

As an introvert, I have no reason to complain about things that happened only to me; I can deal with those in Solitude, as always. But the price of peaceful Solitude is a Moral Public Life. So when I see fit to complain, I know that it is because the problem is Bigger Than Me. If this were merely a matter of my troubled history with Retail Managers who abused Customers and tried to police not only my behaviour as an employee but theirs, I would be spared the burden of remembering them in writing. But when I see one of my favourite magazines publish a letter by a retail manager who seems to believe that video games should be run like retail stores, I get the creeps. Not only did I USE video games to COPE with the drudgery of micromanagement in a corporate outlet, a form of coping that was no mere Escape but rather an engagement of those parts of the brain and psyche that would otherwise have atrophied under the bullying of Jean the Night Shift Leader. I all so know a proto-Fascist when I see one. To say, “this is how we do things here, so that is how they MUST be done there.” is one of the most dangerous applications of the Naturalist Fallacy that one can make. All examples can illustrate a point, such as in my use of Sicily, the point must be something more than simply: This is what I’m used to. Therefore we must.

I don’t care how much he spent; I would rather have 100 happy customers than 10 abusive ones.

So much for inclusion; Lewis has just demonstrated scape-goating. Think for a moment: what is the only legal form of Fascism in this country? Psychiatric Health. Why are people with neurological disorders oppressed? Because of [their] "behaviour". Why are people forced to receive injections? Because of Herd Immunity. What was the plight of the German people? The Jews. Those “ten people” you have excluded from your store are blamed for, apparently, the other hundred LEAVING. Why can’t they co-exist? You claim not to care about “how much he spent”, as though that made you immune to bribery. But let’s be frank: one hundred happy cows makes a lot more profit than ten wolves, usually, unless each of the wolves spends about ten times as much as does a cow. True Inclusion would at least tolerate the EXISTENCE of wolves in such an environment, as in any natural environment, and all though that too might sound Naturalistic and Fallacious, keep in mind that this is Human Nature that we are dealing with. INCLUSION demands that we ACCEPT the wolves in mankind, lest we become them. What’s the worst that can happen? Will verbal abusers really scare ALL THE OTHER CUSTOMERS AWAY? Or are you afraid that those other customers will become CORRUPTED and will all so resort to verbal abuse? At that point you will be dispossessed of your ABILITY TO DISCRIMINATE, for you will, as the Authority, no longer be capable of discerning the assailant from the retaliator. And only then will the retaliator become totally FREE, for so long as you remain in Power, he will be suspect of assailing. This remains the rule of law in Russia to this day.

There is no reason why an online game (which is run on Blizzard’s private servers) should be any different.

Really. You can’t think of ANY reason? Not even ONE?

So, good on Blizzard for taking steps to create a positive playing space and establish Overwatch as a welcoming place to have fun.

Lewis Hiigel

via email

Murder me right now. After all: it’s what I CAME HERE FOR.

People who actually HAVE it rough NEED games to vent that frustration. I’ve even known cops to RECOMMEND this. And it’s easier to do so INTERACTIVELY. I don’t play online, but I know that this has been a function of the Internet for a LONG time. It’s safer than the Real World and more effective than Solitary Activities. As I’ve stated: Solitude is only as good as your Outer Life. And sometimes what your Outer Life needs most is a shot of retaliatory aggression. Tell me, all you wounded out there: who would DESTROY this perfect coping mechanism? Who would REGULATE IT and MANIPULATE IT, sanitizing it just to preserve his Easily Offended Ego? THE NARCISSIST. It is the BULLY that mirrors his victims by feigning offense. The only way AROUND THIS is to create an environment where the rule is that, no matter what, you are NOT ALLOWED TO GET OFFENDED.

When people try to create this sort of Dyonesiac frenzy is the Real World, the results are disastrous. Rape, betrayal, and abuse are justified to the minds of sociopaths by the conviction that their “politically correct” victims are simply trying to create a “perfect world” devoid of violence. The bully pretends to be DOING A FAVOUR to the victim. And hence aggression and injustice build and build under the tyranny of political correctness. Some safe space.

A certain Sagittarian fellow I knew who lived up to the Sign’s Adventurous Reputation once visited Belarus. He said that it was the safest place that he had ever been in. But it was all so a police state with an officer on every corner and outside every apartment building.

Thankfully: we can HAVE our release of animal energy in the form of ART. ARTISTIC LICENSE is the first and last human freedom; HENCE THE FREEDOM OF SPEECH IS THE FIRST AMENDMENT. But mind you: it remains but an Amendment. Freedom is not freedom to do whatever you want. It is to find MEANING in Life. And there is no sense to be made in abuse. But there IS sense to be made in venting.

The narcissists of society are trying to create the perfect world that they accuse their victims of aspiring to; the narcissists’ perfect world lets him get away with whatsoever he wants to do to others. But the victim knows that through ART, in the context of a SIMULATION, REMOVED from Reality, he can come to terms with the IMPERFECTIONS of the World that the narcissist has created.

Perfection is Death. And Fascism must all ways restrict Art in order to keep its leaders in power.

This is what Game Informer had to say about Lewis Hiigel:

At some point gamers just accepted – and have even come to expect – that playing a game online will expose them to awful people saying horrible things. But Lewis is correct: You wouldn’t accept having expletives and racial slurs hurled at you every time you went to the grocery store, and we shouldn’t expect less from our gaming communities. The fact that we do is a real problem, and it’s up to the companies providing these social spaces to find a workable solution.

Sounds like YOU’RE the problem, buddy.

The best job I ever had was in Downtown San Diego. There, you could hear “nigga” on a regular basis, even at the Seven-Eleven, though people tempered their use of profanity by force of Common Sense and Urban Compassion. (To be clear: the term “Urban” carries a meaning indefinable to me. The closest approximation I can muster is the poetry of Tim Levitch.) People had REAL problems, not just fears of an imperfect society. Society was imperfect and they knew it. “The world’s a mess. It’s always been a mess.” Can it improve? Yes. Arguably as evil grows more intense so does goodness. Video games all ways gave us a simulation in which to explore the dynamic battle between these forces, in a state of Absolute Freedom that simulates Life. If we start introducing Police Agents into Virtual Reality, ought they not all so to be virtual?

Verbal abuse is a problem in intimate settings. But in public, things are fair game. Cat-calling, jeering, slurs and street fights: these are the risks you assume by leaving the house. An extravert might prefer that it be otherwise. But an introvert knows that he has all ready sold out by setting foot off his porch. The most he can hope for is that aggression be direct and not passive. Such is the Hero’s Adventure.

They are not YOUR gaming communities, “Boss”. They are not OUR gaming communities, nigga. It has become fashionable to call people “boss” now in place of “man” or “bro”, a parody of corporate global culture. But keep in mind what the function of a “boss” was in video games since the very beginning. If video games could ever come close to rock and roll in Artistry, they must stick it TO THE MAN. Indie Developers would do well to mirror indie bands. Think of songs like “Barracuda” and “Death on Two Legs”, or how about “Have a Cigar”? The more that corporations tried to regulate Music, the more Music fought back. What happened, man?

There is no “community”. There are only People. If you want to find Solidarity, embrace your Individuality. For it is only by so doing that we stand any chance of fighting abuse and breeding TRUE compassion, again. Video Games will only ever be an “Escape” from Reality, as opposed to a part of it, (that is, paradoxically, removed from it, as all True Art seems to be paradoxical, like the phrase “True Art” itself) when they reflect the Illusions of Our Time.

Dm.A.A.