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Author Topic: The Generation of Fear  (Read 886 times)

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The Generation of Fear
« on: November 15, 2006, 10:36:21 AM »
This year I didn't really get much accomplished in terms of Halloween.  There wasn't any specific "halloween themed" adventure, for the first time in years.  Sure, the guys in my OD&D campaign fought a couple of vampires, and in my Roman campaign the death of Germanicus and rise of Sejanus could be seen as horrific.  The closest to a real halloween special was in my Port Blacksand campaign, where the villainess of the story killed the wraith king and now controls an army of the living dead to serve the illithid.

But perhaps tonight, late on the ball, we will get something a little spooky going in my Traveller game. The PCs are, after all, virtual prisoners of the dreaded Bureau 13, and have at last apparently confirmed that there is an alien menace to humanity itself, a wierd and horrific, vaguely geiger-esque alien menace.

Still, I guess its fundamentally been a slow year for Halloween.  Maybe because here in Uruguay its not as big a deal as in north america.   Though these days, with less and less kids going out trick or treating, between the fundamentalist christian invectives against halloween, and americans generally being scared shitless of anything outside their own picket fences, the idea of their kids running around at night trick or treating has pretty much left the building.

What a sad situation for kids, being reduced to trick or treating in shopping malls and other controlled areas, if at all.  A nice way to train them, too, to start obeying their corporate overlords at an early age, and to value security over freedom.  Gone is the freedom of roaming the streets at night, up to mischief on the 31st of October, with toilet paper and eggs in hand, or just a bag full of chocolate. Now its granola bars and dried fruit at the local wal-mart. One generation of cowards and pussies creating another.

And then people wonder why it would seem that civil liberties, property rights, and freedom of speech, action, and information (if groups like the RIAA and MPAA get their way)  are being eroded away.  When the Bush administration suggests that American citizens might have their right to travel curtailed because of the bird flu scare, a nonsensical phantasm that MIGHT have killed 15 people on the entire planet, another generation would have been up in arms.  This one is likely going to agree quietly and let him turn their cities into big holding tanks for "citizens" that no longer deserve the rull meaning of that term.

Halloween was never about being afraid. One could otherwise surmise that people really don't need that kind of holiday anymore, scared shitless as they are on a daily basis these days.  But even back to its pagan roots, the raison d'etre of halloween was always to CONFRONT fear and overcome it.

It makes sense that the merchants of fear, the fucking would be modern popes and kings, preachers and corporate robber-barrons, would want to get rid of the holiday.  North America needs it now more than ever.

RPGPundit November 3rd 2005
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