Low Blows in Writing

by Pteryx

Recently, an editorial about the evils of realism and character development was written by someone as conservative as they come among gamers and sent to RPGamer. Being much more liberal, I disagreed with most of his points (for the curious, I do think that scantily clad, large-breasted women are there to give games a "sex appeal" that they don't need). However, that's not why I'm writing this editorial. I personally found the conservative writer's essay offensive, not because it presented extreme views that I disagree with, but because the writer repeatedly insisted that most people subconsciously agree with him.

To me, an essay or editorial should present one's view as clearly as possible. If that view is well-presented and sensible, then many people will agree, others will understand the view to a degree but still disagree, and the composition will have served its purpose. In short, an editorial or essay is there to put one's opinion on display and allow others to think about it. It is not a vehicle for forcing an opinion on someone.

Unfortunately, many people either don't know this, ignore this, or are so afraid of being thought of as wrong that they resort to low blows in an attempt to force people to agree with or listen to them, or at the very least seed fear-laced doubt. Religious declarations such as, "You will burn for an eternity in Hell if you don't see it this way," telling people what you believe they think or should think by saying things like, "I know you really agree with me and are just denying it," and peer pressure tactics such as saying, "Everyone I know agrees with me," are examples of such unscrupulous tactics. While this may bully the weak-willed into concession, those of a stronger disposition are simply offended and may even reject the writer's views out of hand -- even if they would have agreed otherwise.

Why do people do things like this? As I see it, this is a reflection of moral decay just as real -- if not as visible -- as school shootings like the one that took place recently in Colorado. Editorially, this is the equivalent of bringing a gun to a sword duel or bludgeoning one's genitals in my eyes. While most don't pay enough attention to scholarly matters to notice this sort of thing, it would seem to me that the result of these kinds of writing tactics is a vicious cycle of hatred: people use these tactics when writing, others read the results and are offended, and out of anger write rebuttals with similar hate messages. The sad result is that no one listens to anyone, a situation that can prove disastrous to a culture. After all, didn't cooperation have as much to do with the creation of this society in the first place as competition?

Original Editorial: Why RPGs Should be Severely Censored and Devoid of Character Development