I just finished reading an interesting piece academically written in an RPG e-zine. You can find it
here.
The subject of the article is the history of the moral backlash against role-playing games. Role-playing is a hobby of mine, and given that liberals are having a slug-fest right now with the religious right, I thought that it was rather fitting for the day.
The piece centers around the idea of moral panic surrounding role-playing games. Moral panic is a social phenomenon in which people suddenly react to a group or subculture that they see as a problem for society. There has been moral panic surrounding such things has heavy metal, ravers, and comic-book fans. The reasons for complaints about groups such as these usually turn out to be distorted, unfounded, and fantastic.
Recently, there has been a fresh outburst against secularists concerning Christmas. The wing-nuts apparently think that they are trying desparately to undermine the very nature of our wonderful holiday traditions. All of this bile against poor baby Jesus is motivated by the evil liberals' plans to replace our Christian American culture with one that is godless and decadent.
Of course, we good liberals and secularists don't really want to kill Christmas or anything of the sort. For the most part, we figure that it is not very harmful and would look really stupid to try to diminish.
Fortunately, Dr. David Waldron, the writer of the linked article, tells us what the role-players did to confront the religious right successfully.
- Not engage in activity that reinforces the nature of the claims. For us, that means not proclaiming the wonderful world we could have without a religious Christmas.
- Be rational. If we keep our cool, we can make the right look like the fools that they are.
- Make fun of them. They're being silly. We can make some jokes about them.
3a. Bate them. I don't know how this can work for us, but apparently it did wonders for the role-players.
- Use our Christians. Basically, one can be a secularist and a Christian at the same time. Showcase our examples.
- Create an identity. We've pretty much established that one.
Have a good evening.