The outdated 20th century ideas that critical theory is based on basically belong to the 'linguistic turn' as it was called, in continental philosophy.

Thisn is a vast oversimplification, but basically, it was based on the ideas coming out of structuralism that Saussurian lingustics could be used to study culture as a holistic system.  To put it in brief this is based on the idea that meaning is determined not by the essential qualities of the thing named but by it's place in a system.  So the meaning of a dog is not "four legged creature that barks" but in effect, "Not cat, not rabbit, not monkey etc".  Derrida's whole philsophy is based off this basic idea.  Whether or not this is a valid idea linguistically, this idea was seen as extendible to the study of thought and culture more generally, basically because thought and language were seen as basically synonymous (something which no longer seems plausible, in part because the strong version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis doesn't look like it holds)

What you get basically is a way of thinking that is all about considering things as systematic wholes, but has vast blind spots.

- It ignores the basic physical reality of things.  The dog in the example above isn't really considered except in so far as it fits into the overall system.  Nothing escapes the cultural system.  This is why unsophisticated critical theory completely insist on a biolgical blank slate and the slightly more sophisticated version will admit there isn't a blank slate and then act like there is anyway.
- It can only think in holistic systematic terms.  If there is racism, is must be systematic, if there is rape there must be rape culture.  This also explains why these things are often so poorly defined - basically they are assumed to be necessary due to basic philosophical predispositions and therefore not in need of definition.
- It really can't deal with how something can be taken out of one context and placed in another context.  If something is defined by it's place in the system you can't take it out of the sysem.

Systematic holistic system is useful but it can't be the whole of thought.  To use a scientific analogy.  Systematic thinking is ecology, and it's a vital part of understanding the natural world.  But a wolf isn't soley defined by it's place in the natural ecology.  You can take a wolf out it's context, domesticate it over several generations and you have a dog.  A way of thinking that can't account for this without some kind of painful linguistic contortions isn't something that should be held onto.

The painful thing is that none of this is political, it is philosophical, and even as smart people have broken down a lot of it's problems, it seems to have become increasingly naturalised among lots of progressive people, to the point that it seems like common sense.

This is the frustrating part, it's really hard to change people's philosophical views when they don't actually know any philosophy.  It also explains why it's so hard to argue with them.  Because it's not just what they think, it's how they think.

Quote from: TJS on May 22, 2021, 12:13:44 AM
The outdated 20th century ideas that critical theory is based on basically belong to the 'linguistic turn' as it was called, in continental philosophy.

That's really interesting; thanks for taking the time to put that together.

That said, it would probably be a good idea to veer the topic back towards games and gaming sites before we get too much farther onto this digression.

Quote from: Stephen Tannhauser on May 22, 2021, 12:46:43 AM

Quote from: TJS on May 22, 2021, 12:13:44 AM
The outdated 20th century ideas that critical theory is based on basically belong to the 'linguistic turn' as it was called, in continental philosophy.

That's really interesting; thanks for taking the time to put that together.

That said, it would probably be a good idea to veer the topic back towards games and gaming sites before we get too much farther onto this digression.

Considering Critical Theory informs much of leftist activism, and drives the ideologies of the moderation of RPG.net, I think it's on topic.

yeah, all this bashing the left shit sure ignores how the trump fascist right stormed the capital intent on kidnaping congressmen, how oin one state trump fascists planned to kidnap, try and murder a governor because they didn't like her policies, how trump governors are restricting  voting rights as much as possible.

The right is on a drive to turn america openly fascist, and you can swim the waters of de nile all you want, that's the fact.

Quote from: The Thing on May 22, 2021, 06:52:54 AM
yeah, all this bashing the left shit sure ignores how the trump fascist right stormed the capital intent on kidnaping congressmen, how oin one state trump fascists planned to kidnap, try and murder a governor because they didn't like her policies, how trump governors are restricting  voting rights as much as possible.

The right is on a drive to turn america openly fascist, and you can swim the waters of de nile all you want, that's the fact.

Why don't you go cry about this bullshit somewhere else? It has nothing to do with gaming.

Quote from: The Thing on May 22, 2021, 06:52:54 AM
yeah, all this bashing the left shit sure ignores how the trump fascist right stormed the capital intent on kidnaping congressmen, how oin one state trump fascists planned to kidnap, try and murder a governor because they didn't like her policies, how trump governors are restricting  voting rights as much as possible.

The right is on a drive to turn america openly fascist, and you can swim the waters of de nile all you want, that's the fact.

We're talking about RPG.net. If you can find a right wing RPG site, feel free to start a thread about how terrible they are.

Rpg.net seems to have taken a similar turn site-wise that the free republic forums (which are about general politics, so I won't say anything specific about them, only using them as an example) took. Go from being noticeably on a certain political spectrum to drifting slowly further in that direction to suddenly being all about calling current users out for not being X enough, or being X in the wrong way. I wonder if there's a specific type of tipping point that can be identified where a site's slide into the abyss gets sped up.

Quote from: The Thing on May 22, 2021, 06:52:54 AM
yeah, all this bashing the left shit sure ignores how the trump fascist right stormed the capital intent on kidnaping congressmen, how oin one state trump fascists planned to kidnap, try and murder a governor because they didn't like her policies, how trump governors are restricting  voting rights as much as possible.

The right is on a drive to turn america openly fascist, and you can swim the waters of de nile all you want, that's the fact.

So what? We are talking about RPG.net here. A better question is why does the injection of leftist ideas end in tyrannical dystopia for a game forum and worsen published game products to make them not survive in the marketplace?

Quote from: jeff37923 on May 22, 2021, 08:25:14 AM

Quote from: The Thing on May 22, 2021, 06:52:54 AM
yeah, all this bashing the left shit sure ignores how the trump fascist right stormed the capital intent on kidnaping congressmen, how oin one state trump fascists planned to kidnap, try and murder a governor because they didn't like her policies, how trump governors are restricting  voting rights as much as possible.

The right is on a drive to turn america openly fascist, and you can swim the waters of de nile all you want, that's the fact.

So what? We are talking about RPG.net here. A better question is why does the injection of leftist ideas end in tyrannical dystopia for a game forum and worsen published game products to make them not survive in the marketplace?

I think any game forum which goes too far in the direction of also being a political forum will become terrible if paired with over the top moderation. Really it's the expansion of moderator powers and the site owners not giving a crap what the moderators do on the forums that really matter. Otherwise you either get political discussions discouraged or banned, or a noticeable political slant to the forum but no pressure other than self-selection when it comes to posters staying or leaving.

Quote from: The Thing on May 22, 2021, 06:52:54 AM
yeah, all this bashing the left shit sure ignores how the trump fascist right stormed the capital intent on kidnaping congressmen, how oin one state trump fascists planned to kidnap, try and murder a governor because they didn't like her policies, how trump governors are restricting  voting rights as much as possible.

The right is on a drive to turn america openly fascist, and you can swim the waters of de nile all you want, that's the fact.

Welp you managed to dodge your ban and hold your shit somewhat together for almost 70 posts. My guess is this is a record for you, and probably a good sign of progress.

Even though everyone knew you were Matt Swain, we still engaged in your threads and treated you with more respect and kindness than you EVER would have received at RPG.NET. But you cannot help yourself. You just cannot.

You're all lucky I'm feeling exceedingly generous today, because if not I'd have to be permabanning a half-dozen of you for veering into off-topic general-politics on this thread after I specifically warned you not to.

So rather than pick and choose, or just ban you all. I'm going to close this thread.  And issue another warning. My patience is wearing extremely thin.

And as for The Thing: Post one more post on this forum anywhere outside the Pundit's Subforum that is the TINIEST BIT POLITICAL, and you will be banned immediately. I hope you fucking get that.