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The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

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Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#81

Post by anigbrowl »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #28
anigbrowl wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote in the very first sentence that the point is not to change minds, which you inexplicably ignored. The point is to motivate people to fight against Nazism. The game is not about gunning down waves of random in an enjoyable spree of virtual destruction, but about gunning down Nazis qua proponents of genocide.

I wasn't really trying to pick a fight with you. I've played games for a long time and based on my biased experience with gamers, you don't play first person shooters because you're trying to learn something. You play them because it's entertainment with big explosions and escapism. Some people will learn something from it, sure. Hopefully they get through high school understanding that, though.

You keep responding to me as if I were claiming the purpose of the game were to educate people, when I have told you twice that I don't think that to be case.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#82

Post by olewhalehunter »

tptacek wrote: post #78
olewhalehunter wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>generic bad-ass those two seem to be mutually exclusive writers/designers like Nazis not because they're generic but because they were horribly weird, they were associated with multiple mystic organizations like the Ahnenerbe and the Thule society, they worked on crazy engineering projects like superweapons, megacities, and rocketry, they did lovecraftian experiments on people in concentration camps the reason peopl…

No, I don't think this "weirdness" is at all why writers and designers like Nazism.

which is why we have all this media about fighting robo-Ottomans during the Armenian genocide or protecting Huguenots from Catholic necromancers right?

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#83

Post by tptacek »

olewhalehunter wrote: post #82
tptacek wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I don't think this "weirdness" is at all why writers and designers like Nazism.

which is why we have all this media about fighting robo-Ottomans during the Armenian genocide or protecting Huguenots from Catholic necromancers right?

Nazis are used as all-purpose villains because the evil of their movement is universally recognized, not because of this Thule Society nonsense. It's because nobody likes Nazis.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#85

Post by olewhalehunter »

tptacek wrote: post #83
olewhalehunter wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

which is why we have all this media about fighting robo-Ottomans during the Armenian genocide or protecting Huguenots from Catholic necromancers right?

Nazis are used as all-purpose villains because the evil of their movement is universally recognized, not because of this Thule Society nonsense. It's because nobody likes Nazis.

http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/Thule_Medallion

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#86

Post by tptacek »

olewhalehunter wrote: post #85
tptacek wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nazis are used as all-purpose villains because the evil of their movement is universally recognized, not because of this Thule Society nonsense. It's because nobody likes Nazis.

http://wolfenstein.wikia.com/wiki/Thule_Medallion

Not interested, sorry.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#87

Post by anigbrowl »

tptacek wrote: post #77
anigbrowl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is carrying a battle flag, they're manifesting an intention to physically attack you. I already addressed your abortion point in more detail elsewhere, but briefly, anti-abortion activists are intervening on behalf of a third party, the fetus. Many who support punching Nazis feel directly threatened by Nazism. These are two wildly different situations.

That's just not true, and I think we both know it. The Confederate flag is literally the battle flag of militant American chattel slavery of black people, and virtually nobody who wears or carries it intends to physically attack you. (Apropos nothing: I was walking through Munich a week ago and saw someone walking down the street in a Confederate flag shirt. I wondered, should I say something? Maybe they just didn't…

I'm not talking about the confederate battle flag, but about the German one and its 'Kekistan' version.

http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1266803-kekistan

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#88

Post by anigbrowl »

tptacek wrote: post #67
anigbrowl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they're not. People who object to abortion clinics claim to be intervening on behalf of a third party (the fetus) whose legal status is that of a non-person in law and whose moral status is indeterminable by rational means. Quite a lot of the people who are willing to punch Nazis are, by contrast, people who feel their own persons are threatened, as opposed to being outsiders choosing to insert themselves into a p…

All you're saying is that you don't agree that abortion is murder. I don't either. Would that our agreement on this were dispositive of the abortion debate.

Thomas I can't help observing that you're completely ignoring my second point about what differentiates anti-fascist activists from anti-abortion activists.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#89

Post by tptacek »

anigbrowl wrote: post #87
tptacek wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just not true, and I think we both know it. The Confederate flag is literally the battle flag of militant American chattel slavery of black people, and virtually nobody who wears or carries it intends to physically attack you. (Apropos nothing: I was walking through Munich a week ago and saw someone walking down the street in a Confederate flag shirt. I wondered, should I say something? Maybe they just didn't…

I'm not talking about the confederate battle flag, but about the German one and its 'Kekistan' version. http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1266803-kekistan

Almost none of those people plan on hitting you, either.

Re: The Surprising Importance of ‘Wolfenstein: The New Order’

#90

Post by tptacek »

anigbrowl wrote: post #88
tptacek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All you're saying is that you don't agree that abortion is murder. I don't either. Would that our agreement on this were dispositive of the abortion debate.

Thomas I can't help observing that you're completely ignoring my second point about what differentiates anti-fascist activists from anti-abortion activists.

Could you re-state it? You know I'm not inclined to blow you off; you've been on my list of favorite commenters for something like 5 years.

I seriously do not see a distinction between the two perspectives, other than that the anti-abortion activists would be employing violence to actually stop what they believe to be real, immediate, kinetic violence.

Again, it's not like my argument here is novel. It's the ACLU's argument, from National Socialists of America v. Skokie.

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