The Political Correctness Haters' Club

[Cult Icon]

@Enrico_sw  have you heard about the controversy behind Battlefield V?   I find this game and Battlefield 1 to be very grotesque.  I can accept some historical inaccuracy but this is literally 10% history and 90% ridiculous.  The player can also play as a female black Nazi too!

[Enrico_sw]

20 hours ago, Cult Icon said:

@Enrico_sw  have you heard about the controversy behind Battlefield V?   I find this game and Battlefield 1 to be very grotesque.  I can accept some historical inaccuracy but this is literally 10% history and 90% ridiculous.  The player can also play as a female black Nazi too!

 

Yes, I've heard it and I find it crazy. Their goal was not to do some uchronia, they clearly wanted to do some historical game, they say so themselves: it's a "portrayal of World War 2". So, people are right  to expect a game with a lot of efforts on the historical accuracy. This game is clearly a ridiculous joke.

 

It has been made by a Swedish studio... these guys are soaked with PC ideologies. I like Swedish people, but the ideological drifts in their country are sometimes extreme.

[Enrico_sw]

The developpers of Assassin's creed are far better. They work with historians, and though they aren't always perfect, they put a lot of effort in historical accuracy (I've seen some TV reports that used images from AC2)

[Cult Icon]

^

There's also an increasing tendency to have games where the player plays as a little girl who overpowers and kills big bad men.  Same thing in film although not as severe.  RDR2- Sadie Adler as the lady killer who is a superior killer from the get-go...

 

 

[Cult Icon]

13 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

 

Yes, I've heard it and I find it crazy. Their goal was not to do some uchronia, they clearly wanted to do some historical game, they say so themselves: it's a "portrayal of World War 2". So, people are right  to expect a game with a lot of efforts on the historical accuracy. This game is clearly a ridiculous joke.

 

It has been made by a Swedish studio... these guys are soaked with PC ideologies. I like Swedish people, but the ideological drifts in their country are sometimes extreme.

 

In both games there's a tone deafness.  They try to invoke real world honor and sacrifice (and use some real world places) but then the game itself crosses the line.  It's fiction, not historical fiction. One of the main characters is a little girl with a hook for an arm.  The uniforms and equipment are a mixture of real and fake, and they are arranged on the characters in completely nonsensical ways.

[Cult Icon]

14 hours ago, Enrico_sw said:

The developpers of Assassin's creed are far better. They work with historians, and though they aren't always perfect, they put a lot of effort in historical accuracy (I've seen some TV reports that used images from AC2)

 

I agree.  I have noticed in the past that the French appear to be particularly interested in historical fiction.   The new games on Egypt and Greece look like they even have some educational value.

[Enrico_sw]

On 12/4/2018 at 2:00 PM, Cult Icon said:

^

There's also an increasing tendency to have games where the player plays as a little girl who overpowers and kills big bad men.  Same thing in film although not as severe.  RDR2- Sadie Adler as the lady killer who is a superior killer from the get-go...

 

I agree. The same thing happened with SJW ep. 8 (the "Last Jedi", one of the worst movies of the past decades). The SJW think they are guided by a "holy" mission, so they've lost all critical thinking. Apparently, their job is not to produce films or games any more, their job is to "correct" the world.

 

They have valid premises: there are women who are victims of violence and that's awful. But the conclusions they draw from these premises are daftly Manichean: "all women are victims" (which is wrong) and "all men are pseudo-aggressors" (also wrong). Then, their thinking goes on: they have to correct all this, by eduacting (= rehabilitating) the "populace" and by showing them "counter-images" (that are so caricatural, it's surprising that adults can produce this).

 

I like strong female characters like Ripley in Alien, because she's genuinely good; nothing looks artificial in her. She's good, because she's good (and nothing else matters).  They didn't need to use a "cause" to make her. They just crafted a character for the sake of making a good movie and it worked.

Nowadays, the characters are bland (like in SW ep.8), it's too obvious that they are tools for a political message and they're flawless which makes them tasteless.

[Enrico_sw]

Honestly, 15 years ago, the SJW movement couldn't have happened. Not because the social media didn't exist, but because people used to have critical thinking. The grown-ups used to know that, in the real world, there are a lot of uncertain things, there's complexity everywhere. So, of course, people moved forward despite these uncertainties, they took tough decisions, they had strong political opinions, but at least they weren't fooled by themselves.

 

Nowadays, the SJW movement is full of soldiers who are fooled by their own enthusiasm to be "the hero". In a sense, they haven't become grown-ups.

[Cult Icon]

Battlefield 1942 was a favorite of mine back in the day- according to the times it was produced with the popularity of WW2 tv shows/film.  Now with better technology instead they produced something that's completely marketing oriented and influenced by contemporary politics.. The WW2 generation is mostly no longer alive now.

 

The last halfway decent WW2 game came out in 2013..

[Enrico_sw]

^ These developpers are being influenced by contemporary politics, sure, but I think it's a very poor marketing strategy, because:

- the lack of historical accuracy annoys their customers

- their political beliefs makes them craft caricatural characters; hence the games/movies are not credible

- whether they like it or not, games/movies about war are mostly viewed by men between 15 and 40/45 years old. So, insulting their main audience is a risky business and it also annoys people who are not their core target (women, older men, etc.) and who get annoyed of being taken for fools as well.

 

If they want to make games/movies with strong female characters, fair enough, but they should do genuine characters that look real (like Ripley or Jyn Erso), not archetypical ones that don't fit in the time periods they've chosen.

[Cult Icon]

 

This is a case in point- the story and moral message is a typical post-WW2 politically correct/anti-war cliche - a tradition established originally with "All Quiet on the Western Front".  Good German vs. Bad Germans.  Germans as victims of the Nazis.  It is at odds with the enjoyment of a violent videogame and how strongly the german people supported the regime that they brought into power- this type of story has the emotional impact of removing the responsibility for their deeds and clouding the reality of why they fought. 

 

Company of Heroes 2's single player campaign was also tainted like this- it was essentially a moral story against communism/the Soviet Union.

 

A moral/political message like this doesn't belong in a violent videogame!

[Enrico_sw]

^ Yes, even more when their political messages are dumb and Manichean.

 

There are so many things that could be /should be said about pacifism.

 

Pacifism looks good, from a first glance: it's against war, for peace, against death, for life. Who would be against that? But it can be (and it has been) a dangerous ideology. When pacifists think that the peace has no price, they are ready to do very dramatic things, like sacrificing the freedom of their own country and citizens, or let them be invaded and let them suffer by the hand of the strong one. In the end, while pleading for no violence, they sometimes get even more violence.

 

One of the best politicians of the 20th century said to a forgotten man: "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war" (Churchill, the prescient to Chamberlain, the forgotten)

[Cult Icon]

^

I'll get back to you in full later; when I was out today I was thinking of the Battle of Caen as being one of the most misunderstood battles of World war 2 for a large number of casual factors.  :

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_for_Caen

 

 

 

I believe the main reason why is that the Battle was very controversial at the time was that its implications were devastating.  Montgomery was put under fire by the press.  The British and commonwealth forces took an entire TWO MONTHS to take the critical city of Caen, which was the D-day objective.  This greatly extended the duration of the campaign for Normandy and also had a massive effect on the structure of post-war Europe.   However, the struggle of the British 2nd Army  tied up the majority of the German elite formations in Normandy, allowing the United States to make gains with relative ease to the West and it was Montgomery's plan all along.

 

I also believe that the British/CW got an unfair rap for their performance in the battle.  Familiarity with the German army on the Eastern Front would be necessary to fully understand the capabilities of the elite formations assembled there to defend regions for prolonged periods of time while being greatly outnumbered.  But this was not how they were judged by historians or the public.  The counterfactual of the Allies reaching the Elbe weeks or months earlier to liberate larger portions of Europe is not as clear cut as it would seem.

 

A very strong argument can be made that it was the most important battle fought by the Allies (the Allied version of Kursk) and the most difficult defense to crack of the Western Front but as a consequence of these controversies it's hardly known in pop culture- as it was an embarrassment to patriotism and western democracies.   I've never heard of a movie made about it despite it being the most flashly battle fought by the Allies next to the Battle of the Bulge.  To confuse things for the public even further, it's battle that is inadequately covered by any one historian; to understand this complex and long battle would require reading a large number of books that cover its large number of operations and aspects.

[Cult Icon]

On 12/7/2018 at 5:28 PM, Enrico_sw said:

^ Yes, even more when their political messages are dumb and Manichean.

 

There are so many things that could be /should be said about pacifism.

 

Pacifism looks good, from a first glance: it's against war, for peace, against death, for life. Who would be against that? But it can be (and it has been) a dangerous ideology. When pacifists think that the peace has no price, they are ready to do very dramatic things, like sacrificing the freedom of their own country and citizens, or let them be invaded and let them suffer by the hand of the strong one. In the end, while pleading for no violence, they sometimes get even more violence.

 

One of the best politicians of the 20th century said to a forgotten man: "You were given the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, and you will have war" (Churchill, the prescient to Chamberlain, the forgotten)

 

I'm not against say- anti-war movies or messages- however the interpretation of war from an exclusively pacifist lens resembles (like you say) an ostrich putting its head in the sand.  There is such thing as too much pacifism and such thing as too little pacifism.  The German ww2 political correctness is a major example of that-  while they teach about the destructiveness of war and the misguided aspects, they do not teach what makes men WANT war,  want fighting and winning, and HUNGER for it despite knowing and experiencing in full the destructive aspects.    The rise of Nazism came from men that were brutalized from the first world war (or missed it, and felt left out- like Himmler) and were changed by it.  Instead of PTSD they found in it tremendous meaning in their experiences and turned it into a legend. There is a powerful blind spot that if fully revealed, would teach human beings much about their true natures. Artists and intellectuals can show us this with their capacities and skills but they chose not too.

[Cult Icon]

On 12/4/2018 at 5:49 PM, Enrico_sw said:

 like strong female characters like Ripley in Alien, because she's genuinely good; nothing looks artificial in her. She's good, because she's good (and nothing else matters).  They didn't need to use a "cause" to make her. They just crafted a character for the sake of making a good movie and it worked.

Nowadays, the characters are bland (like in SW ep.8), it's too obvious that they are tools for a political message and they're flawless which makes them tasteless.

 

Ep8 was particularly clumsy- a lot of diversity actors but they were poor.

 

With Games it looks like game manufacturers want more women to play their games so they have characters like the re-booted Lara Croft (and film) where Lara is no longer sexualized for male tastes.  Horizon: Zero dawn also has a killer little girl.  Also the younger people who grew up during the Great Recession and Obama have a far stronger liking for social justice and feminism.

 

What strikes me is media makers have the women doing such ultraviolent and in - congruent things (think Atomic Blonde or Kill Bill) and moving into traditional male roles.  Depicting women as warriors superior to best men (like in GOT)  , police detectives, or assassins and killers (Mad max).  In Crossfit and female body building, there are women essentially taking dangerous drugs to become more like supermen.   

 

These are not very inspired examples of female empowerment- I guess they want to show that women can "do it all" but these are not very desirable goals for the vast majority of people.  It is also not feasible for a woman to be the greatest warrior (ala Red Sonja) while looking feminine and not being on drugs.

 

 

[Enrico_sw]

18 hours ago, Cult Icon said:

There is a powerful blind spot that if fully revealed, would teach human beings much about their true natures. Artists and intellectuals can show us this with their capacities and skills but they chose not too.

 

A common practice in today"s "social sciences" is not to talk about "bad things", for fear that naming them will make them happen. It's a weird distortion (even a perversion) of some sort of nominalism. They fear that if they talk about the "bad side" of humans, it could wake it up or make it true. So, they find a scapegoat that takes all the blame, and the other persons are just fine (e.g. here, when they apply their thinking, they end up saying that the nazis were "just a few" and they were responsible of everything, while the population is just fine, they were just victims)

 

Artists and intellectuals use this scheme very often. To them, humans should only have a good side; sometimes, they see a couple of bad people (scapegoats) who should just be punished, but as long as the rest of the world is fine, their scheme is intact. It's a very christian approach (Nietzsche talks about it a lot and I think that the modern world would despair him).

 

What's funny and very revealing is that they exclude the "bad souls" from mankind. They are called "inhuman", they're outside of the pure human souls, they can't be part of their ideal humanity.

 

But I think these intellectuals are wrong. Naming problems doesn't make them happen; it makes them ready to be understood  (at least, a little) and it's the first step to finding solutions.

[Cult Icon]

^

There are certain topics that academics won't touch or rarely touch- it doesn't suit the advancement of their careers.  This is why I appreciate highly skilled amateur historians very much who have published high quality work.  

 

 

[Cult Icon]

I've been listening to this while working out:

 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07H2D4V81/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i2

 

The main reason why I am listening to it is because the topic is intriguing; examining 30 different types of happiness from 30 different countries.   However, at the same time this is easily the most social democratic audiobook I've ever listened to- resembling political propaganda - and it makes me wince every 10 minutes.  She inappropriately puts in a political message in every other segment.  She's ashamed of British History, she likes Justin Trudeau,  speaks of cultural appropriation, environmentalism, social justice, aborigines, labor regulations, feminism, etc...  She also uses all the "happiness" surveys/studies that naturally link to northern europe being a socialist paradise- despite their high tax rates.

 

"Helen Russell is a British journalist and bestselling author.

Formerly the editor of MarieClaire.co.uk, she now lives in Denmark and works as a Scandinavia correspondent for the Guardian, as well as writing for the Telegraph, The Times, The Observer, Stylist, Metro, Grazia, The Wall Street Journal and The Independent."

 

It's a shame as the rest of the book is pretty interesting and would inspire people to want to learn more.

[Stromboli1]

[Enrico_sw]

Quote

UK advertising watchdog to ban ‘harmful’ sexist ads

 

The UK ad watchdog is ready to reeducate the mass... Sinners, be ready to be re-educated by Mao the regulator.

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/12/14/health/gender-stereotype-ad-ban-gbr-scli-intl/index.html

https://www.positive.news/uk/uk-advertising-watchdog-to-ban-harmful-sexist-ads/

 

Quote

"Economic harm from stereotypes"

 

It's funny how weak journalism always have to use money as an argument, how they invent pseudo-scientific arguments or how they use "studies" as an argument ("a study shows this or that" - while no one has read the study past its title or summary...).

 

 

I have a better one (and this one's true ) "there's an economic harm from useless articles and regulators".