#uncivilizable

[morlock-holmes]

So apparently there’s some kind of moral panic about whether or not Dungeons and Dragons should have “evil races” in the official materials. My hot take on this important question is “Who cares?” but D&D style evil races are a sci-fi and fantasy trope and the moral panic, combined with the fact that I’m working through Norman Spinrad’s The Iron Dream has me wondering what the origins of the trope are, and if anybody more knowledgeable about the history of fiction than I am can shed some light on this.

First, I have to define what is meant by “Evil Race”. Of course, like all tropes there are going to be edge cases but here’s a kind of capsule of what I’m talking about:

The Evil Race is generally human-like: They definitely have language, the capacity for abstract thought, individuality, and the ability to make and utilize tools. Often, but not always, they share many other features of humans, such as birthing and raising young or engaging in leisure;

Despite being able to demonstrate many of the features of human civilization they do so in a reduced, incapable way. They either don’t produce art, or produce only crude art focused exclusively on unpleasant subjects. Most of their civilization is bent towards war, backstabbing, greed, or some other thing we would call a vice, and they don’t produce anything of value that is not a tool for vice.

They are emotionally stunted; they are unable to feel love, compassion, honor, contentment, etc.

These emotional and technological incapacities are inborn. This is extremely important. If the Evil Race is technologically unsophisticated, it is not because something in their education system is lacking, but because each member of the species is, from birth, incapable of creating or conceptualizing better technology. If they are cruel, it is not because they grew up in a cruel society, but rather because each member is destined from birth to be cruel. Raising one in a kind and supportive society would do nothing to change their behavior. In other words, they are not merely uncivilized (A circumstance that might change) but uncivilizable

Stories about the Evil Race will therefore tend to revolve around the Evil Race’s incompatibility with civilized people. Our heroes have met a people with whom coexistence is literally impossible, how will they defend their way of lives from this threat? Tropes of these stories sometimes include things like the Evil Race offering a false peace or claim of friendship, which is believed by the naive or greedy but which our heroes see through because they understand the true nature of the Evil Race, or the hero reluctantly realizing that only the total genocide of the Evil Race will allow civilization to continue.

You can get a hint of my perspective from the tone of that last bullet point. I’m absolutely not claiming that anybody who uses these tropes is a secret racist, or that reading or utilizing these tropes turns people into racists.

What I will claim, though, is that the racism of the last couple of centuries deployed these tropes against real people: Blacks are incapable of producing the heights of civilization that whites can create, and if given freedom will instinctively and inevitably destroy white civilization through the incompetence, lust and violence that is their nature, say. Or Jews care only about each other, and are incapable of seeing non-Jews as anything but marks to be conned and plundered, so we have to work together to destroy them before they can bring their evil plans to fruition.

And my hypothesis is that the trope of the Evil Race in fiction comes after, and as a result of, the use of the trope in real life.

I can’t think of an example of the Evil Race in fiction or Religion that predates the invention of modern racism except possibly Demons and Devils in some (but not all) stories from Christianity or Islam.

But this is just a hypothesis, and it could easily be falsified by something that I don’t know about, so I’m curious to crowdsource it a little, and hear from others what the earliest version of this trope they know of is? 

#Dungeons and Dragons #Evil races #science fiction #fantasy #the iron dream

[ill-will-editions]

A New Call of the Wild: For a Political Ecology of the Unconstructible - Fréderic Neyrat (2019)

First published on Mediapart, July 2016. Translated by Ill Will Editions. 

"What kind of future do we want? The one in which we are forever confined to a planet until the final extinction, however far in the future this event may be, or do we want to be a multi-planetary species?" This question is not asked by a science fiction writer, but by Elon Musk, Silicon Valley's rising star, in January 2016 [1]. ‘Rising star’ is certainly an appropriate metaphor to describe the man who runs SpaceX, a US-based company specializing in astronautics and space flight. Musk prophesies the colonization of Mars in 2025: on this rescue planet, we will build an "autarkic city," and the human species, saved from the end of the world, will then be able to jump star-to-star, spreading new Silicon Valleys here and there, a galactic capitalism nourished by the energy abundance of the universe.

But SpaceX's space wings, like those of its rivals, are struggling to take off; they sometimes explode, like Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo in 2014. In reality, interstellar colonization is a technologically challenging project, anything but a pleasure ride. What awaits future explorers is not a Garden full of wonderful Natives to plunder and slaughter, but the nothingness of lifeless worlds. Moreover, human bodies are more suited to the conditions of life on Earth, and struggle to cross the interstellar void. Our organic makeup is not that of an underwater diver,; we are a life-form in relation to our environment. Far from being a simple external environment, the environment constitutes our interiority, we ingest it and inhale it until our last breath. It is the discourse of ecology that has helped us understand that we are interrelated, dependent, much closer to "compost" than the "posthuman", as the North American theorist Donna Haraway says. Contrary to those who fantasize about extraterrestriality, our motto seems to be obvious: “Return to Earth!" Instead of having our heads in the stars, let us have our feet on the ground, and let us recognize that we are beings who, fundamentally, belong to a territory.

Belongings [appartenances], Earth, and territories are the practical foundations of an ecological thought that pits itself against the extra-territorial imaginary of astro-capitalists who seek to deny and transcend their environmental finitude. As such, every true ecologist is on the side of the struggle at Zone à Défendre [ZAD] in Notre-Dame-des-Landes against the proposed airport project, this dart thrower of ecocidal socialism. 

Yet we all know that the extreme right also seeks to "defend" territories and their "identity" from foreigners, refugees and nomads. If we wish to avoid assuming the posture of a mere defensive shield, territorial thinking must recognize that no individual in the world can be reduced to any kind of belonging: each individual is always more than his or her assigned identity (whether national or sexual). We are always more than the sum of our ties. This excess over all identity is not only reserved for human beings, it refers to the that share of wildness [la part sauvage] that every living being carries within itself. This wildness defies geocapitalism, and the Anthropocene economy that promises to "save" us from global warming by controlling the climate through the prowess of geo-engineering - all the while inviting us, in the event of misfortune, to colonize another planet. Nothing can contain this share of wildness within us, which challenges the waves of concrete that are constantly pouring into the world, allowing us to survive - as best we can - the disasters of technoscience (Chernobyl). It will certainly prevent incoherent take-offs to Mars, but it will not allow us to simply stay stuck on Earth: if having our heads in the stars is ecologically problematic, harboring an inaccessible star deep inside our being is an indispensable condition of the policy that says no to geocapitalism.

More than a temporarily abandoned or poorly domesticated natural domain, the wild is the uncivilizable by definition, which irremediably deviates from any norm, which escapes any construction or economic appropriation, and declares itself to be ferociously unconstructible. Far from being oriented towards progress and the future, the unconstructible dimension is the affirmation in the present of what is elusive in our lives, the affirmation of an unknown distance at the very heart of our bonds. It is in the name of this unconstructibility, of this bottomless obscurity from which every free act springs, that a political ecology can refuse everything that makes our lives impossible.

***

[1] “Elon Musk: SpaceX wants to send people to Mars by 2025,″ CNN, Jan 30, 2016.

#Frederic neyrat #ecology #climate #autonomy #the ZAD #geocapitalism

[pudgy-puk]

so um. random question, but do you have a hot take on what is even up at the garlean leadership considering the 4. 0 stinger and that the 4. 2 trailer has asahi trying to offer an alliance with the empire? if you don't mind sharing, that is?

i DO have a hot take! i don’t feel i can go into as much detail as i’d like because my Hot Take re: the emperors of garlemald relies on other things i had been meaning to make a post about but haven’t yet because i am the world’s greatest procrastinator. but anyhow, the short version is: shit’s fucked. not irrecoverably so, and frankly not as much as eorzeans would LIKE, but shit is fucked.

now part of my belief re: this is that if there’s one thing i know, it’s that dynastic empires are REALLY FUCKING HARD. i have frankly lost count of the number of times i’ve read the “highly capable and effective man builds/conquers/acquires a huge swathe of territory, rules over and administers it well, dies, leaves it to his useless children/grandchildren, said useless offspring cock it all up, possibly losing most of the territory in the process, and inside of 30ish years after the original founder died, his descendants are being exiled or jailed or killed while another ambitious, capable person takes over” story. honestly it’s the most common way this shit goes. now, it’s certainly not the ONLY way this shit goes--sometimes this or variations thereof work--but it sometimes makes it hard for me to make the analytical leap over from realworld to fictionland, where those thousand-year empires on which the sun never sets are the rule, not the exception. 

now, that being said, solus was the founder of his dynasty and the architect of garlemald as an empire, not just a regional power--and after he died, there was an (offscreen, but) apparently very vicious succession war, which the ultimate victor, solus’s grandson varis, won via killing most of his family. and now varis is embattled, with two large occupied territories (ala mhigo, doma) lost and more vassalage-esque relationships (e.g. red kojin, hingashi) broken or weakened, the biggest obstacle to the empire (eorzean city-states) are stronger than they’ve ever been, esp with the addition of ishgard*, he’s discovered that a region/people he had dismissed as beneath his attention does actually pose a threat (the xaela of the steppe)**, AND he’s minus one crown prince (zenos)*** to boot. this is a bad situation. but it is not unsalvageable for him.

(* i honestly think ishgard entering the field of conflict is something garlemald absolutely wanted to avoid. the ishgardian state was intensely militaristic, had a large army, was regularly improving their martial capacity, and was accustomed to fending off threats airborne and armored on the land and all capable of shooting fire and lighting. as long as they were tied up with dravania, with fighting the broods of midgardsormr’s brood, that was GOOD for garlemald. and now that the war is not only over but they’re agreeing to ally with the other city-states and also pals with hraesvelgr’s brood--hraesvelgr being the child of midgardsormr--as far as garlemald is concerned, that should be considered a worst-case scenario).

(** i never had the occasion to talk about this on the blog, but i am very pleased that stormblood seemed to validate the answer i considered most likely to the question circulating among me and friends/acquaintances after the xaela were revealed in the leadup to HW: the question being “if they’re all from the steppe in othard, which is all up in garlean shit, then... why isn’t there any mention of the empire fucking with them in their lore bits?” and my considered guess being “because the empire’s probable reaction to fifty-plus weirdo tribes constantly warring with each other over a grassland is likely along the lines of ‘these stupid, base savages are uncivilizable, and their territory is a scanty grassland only useful for feeding their nags. punish their incursions and lightly reward their favors, otherwise they don’t deserve our attention’.”)

(*** i’d just like to uh. to observe the fact that a violent monster like zenos was never removed via institutional means from the line of succession does not exactly fill me with confidence regarding the power, wisdom, and discernment of the governing laws and institutions of the administration of garlemald. not at all).

now, the reasons why this is not unsalvageable for varis! first off, while losing a prince is still generally Bad, tbh there’s a good chance that this means the remaining princes are The Sane One(s) and thus zenos’s death is a net positive in terms of preserving the dynasty. second, while i did list off a lot of bad things that happened for garlemald, there were good things too, particularly concerning R&D and tech advancement. thirdly, garlemald has put down rebellions and insurrections before, and winning back lost territory, re-intimidating marginal powers, and weakening their enemies is still perfectly doable, which is what i think the “we want to negotiate an alliance!” bit is about, especially using eikons/primals as the wedge.

i am absolutely certain that this is not an honest effort by the emperor to learn to live with the people of eorzea and doma. this is an attempt to get some time and space to rebuild, recuperate, and re-evaluate the strategies. eikons/primals are the wedge, because this is the one issue where there is overlap between the goals of the protagonists (primals hanging out in our mortal plane of existence is Very Bad for said plane of existence) and the goals of the empire (godless subjugation of the globe to technocratic order and perfection). if the tip of the wedge can find a good landing spot, it can be used to divide the diverse peoples of the far east and gyr abania alike: a reasonable concern regarding sri lakshmi can be turned into suspicion and resentment of ananta in general, despite all the help the vira gave to the resistance, and a perfectly rational fear of susano can be used to manipulate opinion against the kojin in general, even though they were instrumental to the salvation of doma. indeed, as i understand it this was part of garlean campaigning against eorzea in 1.0, fomenting suspicion of people like the amaljaa that then turned into strife. so i see the “negotiating an alliance” as “buying time to regroup by getting our enemies to be quiet for a while, and if we’re lucky divide and destabilize them.” 

remember: as i hinted at in the bit on ishgard, in the situation i’m describing varis’s win condition is not limited, in the short term, to “total and utter subjugation and turning enemies to his unwavering allies.” he just needs their passivity. to use the steppe xaela as an example: varis doesn’t need to conquer the whole steppe and break the spirit of every tribe there, nor does he need to turn magnai and sadu and cirina and all the rest into his fearless soldiers. all he needs to do to win in the short term is to prevent them from honoring their pledge to hien for long enough for the empire to deal with hien. and there are many ways he could accomplish that. the emperor of garlemald cannot stand against the world united against him. if he’s smart, he won’t try to. instead, he’ll try to stop the union, via prevention or breaking it up as it forms. and the attempt at offering alliance suggests that he may, in fact, be smart.

but, of course, if he’s too transparent about his attempts to divide and conquer when he’s currently dealing with opponents who--absolutely crucially--have first-hand experience in how rebellions fail as well as how they succeed. he’s making plans, but against veteran opponents who know what they’re doing. 

and that, roughly speaking, is why i think “shit is fucked” re: garlean leadership. the position is bad, but can be recovered from, but also they’re starting to run low on things that can be sacrificed or losses endured in the process of recovery.

i said this was going to be short, and i lied

#ffxiv #Anonymous

[graphicpolicy]

Review: That Night a Monster

That Night a Monster is a cute graphic novel for the whole family #comics

It’s Tuesday so it’s Trade Tuesday where we review some trade paperbacks and graphic novels. This Tuesday we’ve got That Night a Monster a cute graphic novel about a young kid who wakes up to discover his mom has turned into a fern!

The graphic novel is by Marzena Sowa and Berenika Kotomycka and published by Odod Books and Unciviliz…

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[diannovpamungkas]

@unciviliz a.k.a DJ TreexPohon starts the key with his .mp3 before bands are running ➡ @raissafebriani a.k.a RERE B2B @agan_ahsan a.k.a Atonal uhuy sekali. #landofurgency #zombieland

#landofurgency #zombieland

[morlock-holmes]

"If a fantasy world has a race of uncivilized monsters that only know how to be destructive, they automatically represent black people. I'm not racist, you are." -Every single person who thinks orcs are racist. No exceptions.

Sure. Whatever. I don't think Orcs are racist, whatever that means.

I do find it annoying that people in this discussion keep eliding the difference between "uncivilized" and "uncivilizable"

In a number of the billions of D&D settings, Orcs, as well as a number of related monsters, are given the following properties:

They reproduce like people, building settlements and raising children;

They are able to produce the basics of civilization, such as industry, farming, language, art and organized warfare;

The kind of civilization that they produce is strictly inferior to that of other beings, and is crude, primitive and ugly;

It is inferior because of certain inborn traits possessed by every member of the species, which cause them to have both less intelligence and a narrower range of emotions then humans and other civilized beings;

Because of this they cannot be integrated into civilization, no matter how hard people might try.

I don't think that makes anybody who writes that into a setting a closet racist.

I would very much like to know the oldest example people can cite of this particular combination of tropes, because it's definitely been applied to real people after the invention of modern racism, and I can't bring to mind any examples that predate their use in the creation of racist theories.

I've seen people be like, "That just sounds like Christian depictions of Vikings" and, frankly, I don't buy it.

In the middle ages, Christian narratives emphasized the conversion narrative, they enjoyed the stock character of the virtuous pagan who, after many adventures, converts to the true faith.

Vikings may be uncivilized but it's by choice, not by fixed nature.

For the most part, whatever the political reality that faced individuals, the idea of a fundamentally uncivilizable type seems to emerge very late in fiction, parallel to its introduction into real world thought. It's not a characteristic of Norse Ice Giants, or Greek Titans, I don't believe it's a characteristic of Hindu Asuras, it's honestly not even a characteristic of Christian Demons, who can appear to be witty and sophisticated to illustrate the fact that all men experience the temptation to sin.

What is the earliest example you can cite of the particular tropes I listed up there?

#discourse