dsheinem wrote:It's not just about taste, as there is an association with the term with lower intelligence and unwelcomed behavior and choices beyond their gaming preferences. It would be like you suggesting that people who like rap music must be mentally inferior and destined for prison because you prefer "more sophisticated" classical music and consider yourself to be pretty smart.
Whoa, mentally inferior? That's a gross inference on your part. There's nothing in your examples cited to even remotely suggests that. If anything, your examples are great because they show that it's not a video game-related phenomenon, and thus is related to larger issues of perception and out society. But really, if there's no case of harm, and the perception of retrogaming's "ignorance" is overblown, whence the harm?
I still don't see it as anything but a discussion of tastes, and you really haven't at all shown it to be otherwise.
I guess I can't think of instances where elitism as a part of a structuring ideology has been a good thing. It was, in part, the basis for a lot of horrible things in history.
I suppose you could look at something like the Ivy League or some Fortune 500 companies as a place where "elitism" takes place and sometimes produces valuable things, but that kind of elitism is generally based on something more significant than one's choice of entertainment (it is based on grades, evidence of hard work, family or personal reputation, etc.).
I can guarantee that you feel superior to some segment of the populace for a variety of reasons. It's a natural part of human psychology. What I'm arguing is that it's not so much the feeling of "I am better than person X because of Y", but how you apply that. If you use that as justification for causing them harm then it doesn't matter what Y was (choice of hobbies, intelligence, etc).
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I guess I can't think of instances where elitism as a part of a structuring ideology has been a good thing. It was, in part, the basis for a lot of horrible things in history.
I suppose you could look at something like the Ivy League or some Fortune 500 companies as a place where "elitism" takes place and sometimes produces valuable things, but that kind of elitism is generally based on something more significant than one's choice of entertainment (it is based on grades, evidence of hard work, family or personal reputation, etc.).
I can guarantee that you feel superior to some segment of the populace for a variety of reasons. It's a natural part of human psychology. What I'm arguing is that it's not so much the feeling of "I am better than person X because of Y", but how you apply that. If you use that as justification for causing them harm then it doesn't matter what Y was (choice of hobbies, intelligence, etc).
dsheinem wrote:It's not just about taste, as there is an association with the term with lower intelligence and unwelcomed behavior and choices beyond their gaming preferences. It would be like you suggesting that people who like rap music must be mentally inferior and destined for prison because you prefer "more sophisticated" classical music and consider yourself to be pretty smart.
Whoa, mentally inferior? That's a gross inference on your part. There's nothing in your examples cited to even remotely suggests that. If anything, your examples are great because they show that it's not a video game-related phenomenon, and thus is related to larger issues of perception and out society. But really, if there's no case of harm, and the perception of retrogaming's "ignorance" is overblown, whence the harm?
I still don't see it as anything but a discussion of tastes, and you really haven't at all shown it to be otherwise.
Take a look at that urban dictionary citation of the term - there is strong evidence there that "brogamers" are understood to be mentally inferior to "hardcore"/"retro"/"other" gamers.
I also didn't say that "retogaming is ignorant", I said that the use of the term is ignorant to the extent that it implies those definitions in the urban dictionary (the flavor of which certainly pervades at least some of the comments from the forum that I pulled) and perpetuates a stereotype that unnecessarily stratifies and excludes. When communities continue to use them, it harms the community's image in my eyes becasue they are espousing an elitist and ostracizing mentality that I feel is antithetic to what gaming culture should be about.
I am not sure if I can state it more clearly, as I feel I've said it five different ways at this point.
Last edited by dsheinem on Tue Apr 03, 2012 1:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
I think where we differ is when it comes to judgments made. Another one of those low level mechanisms is the snap judgment we make based upon our initial impression to give us a first pass at predicting behavior. For example, I see someone dressed in a certain manner and it sets off warning bells in my head; I am now more alert to potential threats from that individual. So far in my encounters with people like that nothing has happened; we have passed each other on the street without altercation. No harm done.
By contrast, let's say I was a property manager for an apartment and the same individual came in to inquire about renting an apartment. Were I to deny the application without doing the standard background and financial checks, or were I to deny the application after doing said checks which came back clean, then I would be doing harm. That scenario is not ok. But the judgment mechanism itself isn't a bad thing.
On a completely unrelated note, why is judgment spelled without a middle 'e'?
Blizzard Entertainment Software Developer - All comments and views are my own and not representative of the company.
dsheinem wrote:I don't have any "real world" examples of "harm" being done to gamers who are labeled in this way
MrPopo wrote:What I'm arguing is that it's not so much the feeling of "I am better than person X because of Y", but how you apply that. If you use that as justification for causing them harm then it doesn't matter what Y was (choice of hobbies, intelligence, etc).
dsheinem wrote:I think we're on the same page here.
