Quote:
Originally Posted by Bongo Bill
We've established that your reasons for finding the man's political views abhorrent are non-wacky. That doesn't explain why you seem to be fine with buying other games that have the involvement of other people whose opinions are, in all likelihood, just as likely to raise your blood pressure. What makes them different? Is it just that you don't know about it?
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I think there can be a difference. It's a lot easier for me to keep someone's (a movie star, an author, musician, athlete, etc) political views separate from the entertainment they're selling me on when
they keep them separate too, and that doesn't just mean not including them as part of their actual movie/book/song (and I'm trying to imagine how you could play a sport politically or something).
If you write a catchy song about killing orphans, I'm probably not going to like it. If you write a catchy song, and privately, carefully hiding the bodies, kill orphans in your spare time, I'll probably never know and happily buy your music. I think if we're honest we all realize that we can never truly know the full effect of where our money goes and what kind of monsters it's indirectly supporting. We could fight over how
much responsibility we have to research a given product before handing over our money for it, but I think we'd all agree that we're not going to be able to function well in society if we lie awake at night wondering about the socio-political leanings of the roofing contractor involved in building our house in the 70's and what kind of message we're sending by supporting him. There is a line somewhere; this (my post) isn't about deciding where that line is, but nod your head for now and stick with me.
So back to our artists and entertainers, on one side we've got people incorporating their objectionable orphan-killing in the product they're asking us to consume. No way! And on the other side, we've got people who kill orphans privately and efficiently while churning out irresistible pop bliss. Yes please! Are you with me so far?
Orson Scott Card is neither of those.* He is a musician laying down some funky beats we all love (or are at least indifferent to), and then saying to us "Hey, while I have your attention, let me tell you about some orphans and what you should do with them." His product is not his message, but he's taking advantage of the audience it gives him to spread his message. If he's asking us to listen to his views about orphan killing because we like his music, he has changed our relationship and it is not unreasonable for us to change our response.
The line we talked about earlier where a reasonable member of society can sleep at night without accounting for the implicit message sent with each and every dollar spent has moved, and it's the orphan killing musician that moved it.
None of this answers whether you should or shouldn't buy Shadow Complex, or support Orson Scott Card, or like Ender's Game, or kill an orphan. There are still a host of factors in just about every aspect of the issue to make any kind of sweeping statement like "you should boycott this game" or "you should get over yourself and enjoy this game." You're welcome to keep on debating those things, I'm not frowning on that, but just to be clear, I'm not weighing in on the specifics of those things.
But since Bongo Bill asked "That doesn't explain why you seem to be fine with buying other games... What makes them different?" Well, this is what makes them different, and maybe I didn't read the thread carefully enough, but I didn't see anyone addressing this point.
*in this case. He, I guess, has also put out books that were themselves objectionable, but that's not the case with Shadow Complex (apparently), which is what we're talking about supporting or not supporting here.
edit: And sorry if this response is a little out of proportion with the question Mr. Bongo, but I've seen the same question raised elsewhere and this is the first moment I've had to respond to it, so you got all the paragraphs I've been stockpiling.