Tales from the Infrared: Origins!

I’m mad and a bit hurt.
It’s the Halo 4 thing.
Here’s the ironic thing: I don’t trash talk hardly ever and I’m an “occasional” online player at best. I’m mostly single player or single console multi player.

But to pull this bullshit…this just solidifies females as a special, protected class (in a largely male space, natch!) reinforces horrid stereotypes, reduces the amount of free speech in a goddam GAME, makes it so male people will have less rights to defend themselves than female people, and takes away a source of (at least physically) harmless steam-blowing for some men.

Now I have to wonder if I’m even going to buy the game. I know I won’t be playing it online. And I’ve been looking forward to Halo 4 for years.

Clarence,

I have to agree.

Online bullying is juvenile and offensive but the simple fact is that people often play online games as stress relief and throwing around filthy insults is part of that.

I think what should happen, for those that strongly wish to avoid trash talking in video games, is for an optional no-naughty/nasty-words setting or filter to be avaliable so they can game in environments where trash-talking isn’t tolerated.

I mean, sure, we can go on about how many gamers aren’t acting in a polite and civil way. I agree with that to an extent, but the thing is that being civil and monitoring one’s language is a chore (especially in an environment where people have hairtrigger responses to being offended). People play video games to relax and vent, and trying to police men’s expressions in video games just ends up taking away an opportunity for men to vent.

And then the feminists act all confused when their opposition starts accusing them of promoting censorship.

Cyberstalking and online bullying and harassment are problems, but simple block/ignore controls and optional “no naughty/nasty words” settings for games fixes things easily.

But you know what I think? I don’t think that the goal is to help people avoid uncivil speech. That’s a rationalization. The REAL goal is to police a predominantly-male space’s speech and expression.

Why?

I’ve said it before, but “political correctness” is based on the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis – the proposition that language controls thought. As such, spaces in which men are allowed to say nasty things about women are spaces which, according to this hypothesis, creates misogyny (note the order of causality… bad speech causes bad ideas, NOT the other way around).

Thus, according to this logic, if you want to stop misogyny, stop hate speech against women. If you want to stop rape, tell people to stop making rape jokes.

This is why many feminists are analyzing and attacking “geek culture” and framing it as a Rapetopia… they literally believe that geek culture, as a “boys club,” provides a breeding ground for rape culture/misogyny, and thus feminists must police it.

Bullying is terrible, but their interest isn’t in limiting the damage caused by bullies. Their interest is in policing how men speak so as to change (how they believe) men think. It is an attempt at thought reform, albiet one doomed to fail because the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has been disproven.

I don’t know, YetAnotherCommenter, “Blue Pill” language does seem to have an effect on molding thought. Though I guess the real effect is achieved through the restriction of information. If the mind’s only input is lies, thought can absolutely be controlled. Limiting speech because it “harms” people’s feelings or influences them in the “wrong” way is just another lie.

I’m so sick of people taking zero responsibility for themselves. You’re offended by what people are saying online? There’s a mute button. There’s group/party features that allow you to form your own network of trusted people to game with. They already have solved this problem!

“I know linguistic-determinism is at the very least out of favor in academic circles, although people are still doing a lot of work with the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, focusing on the inter-relation of language, cognition and culture.”

YAC, Whorfianism is as laughable to linguists as creationism is to geneticists and paleontologists. It gets you laughed out of the room as fast as prescriptivist peevology i.e. whining because actaully observed Englsih langugae behavior doesn’t abide by the bogus invented rules one learned in 3rd grade.

Nevertheless…

“I don’t see any reason to bring the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis into it. If some people use homophobic and/or transphobic slurs, and if other people accept the use of homophobic and/or transphobic slurs, it teaches some lesbian, gay, and/or trans people to be ashamed of who we are. I know this from personal experience.”

Marja is dead on the money here. You don’t have to break all Whorfian on this. We aren’t talking about how language shapes a person’s perception of reality, we are talking about how cultural values are passed through language, especially vocabulary. If for instance “German” becomes a synonym for Nazi or “Slave” becomes the standard ethnonym for African-Americans, this will have real-world effects on how those groups are viewed in society.

And this is why these jeremiads about “bullying” in gaming and these blue-nosed attempts to invade, colonize and regualte a men’s sapce in gaming are so foul. They reinforce the notion that women are fragile creatures and that men have some kind of duty to walk on eggshells around them as if they can’t handle rough language, situations, anything, when these same men know very well that they are going to be expected to then immediately turn around and treat them as equals. It’s just bullshit.

Titfortat said: “Can you imagine an NFL offensive lineman complaining when the D linebacker says out loud to him, “youre my bitch now”?”

LOL! Ain’t it the truth. Masculine cultures such as the NFL are, or will be under attack soon I am sure. Viva Moral Agents! lol