Concerns About Nazi Symbolism And Parallels

[ElderShrub]

(Don't know if this is the correct spot for this thread. Please move if not)

Hello people of MassiveCraft. This thread pertains specifically to role players so if you are a factions or survival player this doesn't have much value to you. I, and a number of players, have become concerned about growing Nazi symbolism in the lore of Aloria. This concern was sparked by our lovely Kalthof's recent post, as seen here. But this does not only apply to Kalthof's post, these concerns can appear other places in the lore as well. I do not intend to attack Kalthof, nor his character Reverend Buhr who is a lovely person, and interesting character respectively.

As a disclaimer, I am aware Kalthof is not a Lore Staff member and his direction may not be synonymous to the Lore Staffs direction and that he acted alone under the intent of his character. I would still hope, if possible, that I could to see some of the more fundamental parts of the lore changed so these parallels could not be drawn again by intention or by accident.

Why do I believe Kalthof's recent post contains Nazi symbolism?
Please note I believe these concerns are not isolated to Kalthof's post and many of the same parallels can be drawn without it.

1. The tones of racial purity and ethnic cleansing, this is overt and doesn't need much explanation.
   
   
2. The title 'The Altalar Question' is a reference to 'the Jewish Question', the name of the debate of the position of Jews in society during the 18th – 20th century. This ultimately lead to 'The Final Solution', German name for the Holocaust.
   
   
3. The term Überkultur might be a reference to the term Übermensch. While not originally associated with Nazis the term was frequently used by the Nazi regime. This is the German word for 'Super Human' and during the Nazi regime became the term for the most 'preferable' of races.
   
   
4. The use of eugenics. The core principal here is to not only eradicate the people or the culture, it's not just discrimination and segregation, but eradicating the bloodline and genetics through preferred breeding. This is an idea called eugenics and was core to Nazi philosophy.
   
   
5. The races chosen to be Großkultur. All the races chosen are based around Germanic cultures (England and Germany basically) while the Mediterranean (and French) based cultures are considered inferior.

Why do I believe this is a problem?
For me personally. I have trouble trying to reconcile the cognitive dissonance that occurs when I must play a character that, either through action or inaction, actively or passively, should accept Nazi ideas. I'm fine with discrimination, segregation, racism and other negative beliefs, but Nazism is too emotionally charged and politically relevant a topic for me to detach my OOC concerns from my IC concerns. Thus I get cognitive dissonance that I find thoroughly unpleasant as well as difficult to play my character as themselves and not me.

It is also worth noting that there is a rough consensus among Roleplayers that, while one can play an evil character, a heretic, someone who is anti-state or so on, they generally will not be able to ultimately upset the balance of power. This is because Aloria's lore is constructed carefully to give advantages and disadvantages to certain races so that none are more powerful than the others, and re-balancing this would lead to negative consequences. This is not a poor idea, I support it. However, it does lead to the unfortunate side effect of making anti-state characters very difficult to ever achieve success. As such the power structure in Regalia seems both morally good and inevitable, even if this is not the intent.

Finally, it is worth the simple statement that many younger people play on this server, and while a lot of adult themes are acceptable, we should not require young individuals to have to attempt to justify Nazism. Also, it is still an emotionally and politically charged topic, and we don't want the drama of that in MassiveCraft.

In conclusion
Briefly: If Kalthof wishes to continue this chain of events (and he is welcome to) I would advise he draw inspiration from another source, maybe the supposed mistreatment of pilgrims that helped spark the crusades.

Please share your responses in the replies to this thread. I am sure others have more arguments and counterarguments than I have. However, do keep in mind some people will be mildly disturbed by these claims, some people will be outraged by these claims, and some people will not care. There will be all three, so please try to be understanding of other people's views.

 

[Valentinian]

Your statements are unfounded and unnecessary. Refrain from making similar accusatory posts in the future. If you have an issue with a particular individual's conduct or roleplay, I suggest communicating with that individual first and then speaking with staff if you cannot reach a satisfiable conclusion.

 

[MonMarty]

I'll give a more elaborate staff stance response on the matter, but I will still echo Valentinian's statement. There was no reason to make a public debate over a matter that could have easily been solved with a few private messages. The problem with public appeals like these is that it is nigh impossible to make them not personal. Regardless of whether the intent was to publicly attack Kalthof, his name was mentioned 7 times when once or no-times would have been sufficient to get the point across. This makes it hardly excusable as a personal attack on him.

You've started your topic with a complex question fallacy: to pose a question with limited replies, while also adding the aspect of the appeal to emotion fallacy. By posing that Kalthof is not Lore Staff, you are challenging the Lore Staff to either agree with him, or to disagree with him. This is then turned on Lore direction as a whole by stating that Kalthof's post reflects upon Lore, and that the only solution is to remove aspects thereof to dissociate it with Kalthof's content, proposing that aspects of lore support Nazism, which in itself is an appeal to ignorance fallacy given that it has no actual factual basis.

Essentially, you are proposing that we Lore staff now have a choice, to remove aspects of the lore, or be concluded as "agreeing" with Kalthof's character's sentiments, whatever that even means. This is an appeal to emotion, because it implies that if we don't agree, we support Nazist policies, any such accusation would send less strong willed groups of individuals to cower into submission out of fear of being denounced as a Nazi.

The idea that the lore is "nazifying" is preposterous. Unionism and its core tenets have remained the same for years. A previous post detailing the "Silven Question" (in similar contrast to the "Altalar Question") was completely ignored both on the Forum and in backroom Skype Chats. IC Government policies have fluctuated over the years, but effectively and within margins largely remained the same. In fact, to liken the concept of eugenics to something uniquely Nazi, does a disservice to history and to the idea of posterity.

Racial theory was not something unique to the Nazi's, it's been an accompanying concept of Humanity at large. Pick any corner of the world, Norway and Sweden eradicating Sami culture, Germany wiping out Jews, France massacring protestants, Spain hunting the moors, Italians using biological warfare on the Ethiopians, English eradicating Irish culture, Turks genociding Armenians, Russians starving out Ukranians, Japanese killing Chinese, Americans mass-killing Native Americans, Muslims killing Coptic Christians, Tamils killing Sri Lankans, and even presently ongoing topics such as the Burmese state prosecuting the Muslim minorities and torching their villages. The point of this paragraph is to outline that an erroneous generalization has been made. That Kalthof's post or IC proceedings are somehow uniquely linked to Nazism and Hitler's racial theories is absurd when the reality is simply that Lore reflects a core theme that has been with Humankind for as long as they have been able to put pen to paper: What's us is us and what's them is not us.

To propose that this somehow creates an evil environment, or pollutes the minds of the children by somehow forcing them to be apologetic to Nazism is nonsense. If anything, it faces them to recognize parts of history that many nations make avid attempts to hide (Not to speak about the strange assumption that young ones will somehow be swayed into a political system because of a roleplay server when a hyper violent shooter game doesn't make them mass murderers either). After all, it is easy and comfortable to pretend that this "issue" is somehow unique to Nazi Germany, instead of the placid reality that every single nation has engaged in it at one point in time for a wild variety of reasons - Nazi Germany was just really good at it from a statistical perspective, though outclassed by the likes of Stalin and Pol Pot in savagery.

Kalthof's greatest crime, is using awkward terminology that bears striking resemblance to one such regimes, to that I can agree to. But that conclusion is mostly made from the perspective that Kalthof should have created his own creative terms instead of trying to appeal to a sentiment and feeling by using pre-existing terms and making only minimal effort to change them. He was uncreative and lazy. Not criminal and appealing to racism as a valid ideology.

Racial theory in MassiveCraft is just that - a theme. We strongly believe that our players will be able to tell the difference between a fictional theme, and a historical call to support a political system. Nobody is holding out picket signs to join the alt right movement and start driving over people. In fact - I could argue - Kalthof does a great service to the "anti-Eugenics" movement, by portraying an almost comically evil priest with his support for Ailor supremacy in zeal in contrast to the divine goodness that is Doc_Cantankerous's priest with his pro liberal policies - to the point that more players are probably turned away from the concept by truly understanding how jarring such rhetoric sounds in modern contemporary thinking and perception.

This is rough about the last post we as staff will communicate on the matter. The essential conclusion is that yes, Kalthof used terms he should not have, and I will contact him through an intermediary to ask him to moderate his work for creative uniqueness, but to assume that this somehow is a sign of greater evil machinations at work in Lore or MassiveCraft as a whole is wrong. We reject any further attempts to have the lore changed by appeals of emotion, and strongly recommend that any such topic such as these should be communicated with the people involved by talking with them, not talking at them or around them.