Granted, the wordplay of that post heading is a bit of a stretch. But the point is a perceived somewhat bipolar nature of this website.
Let me start by saying that I grew up poor. Not destitute, but noticeably so to my classmates. I’m not complaining, but you know how kids are. Teasing me for offbrand jeans and homemade shirts. For always having a sack lunch. In middle school I bussed the cafeteria tables after other kids ate, to earn a hot lunch for myself.
To earn my way to church camp each year, I memorized a list of 100 Bible verses to recite to the church elders. (Their mistake, because I studied those verses in context and noticed how poorly church doctrine matched up.) And one year I did so for a gift certificate to a local Zondervan bookstore.
Where I found near nothing worth reading for a kid. I spent nearly all that money on art supplies and geegaws. But I did discover a C. S. Lewis sci-fi trilogy, and his Screwtape Letters.
Now we come to the point of this reminiscence. The Screwtape Letters is a collection of missives from the demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood, who has been assigned as tempter of a man in London during World War II. At one point, Screwtape chastizes Wormwood for allowing the man an hour of reading a novel during a Zeppelin bombing. Wormwood considered that escapism a frivolous temptation away from God. Screwtape told him the opposite, that the hour of escape was a gift from Heaven.
That thought gave me some comfort, years later, when I took a job as a game designer, while my church at the time preached against “America’s sinful preoccupation with fun!”
I came to the conclusion that entertainment is an honorable profession. A Friday night role-play group in a friend’s basement had gotten me through a decade of drudgery and fear of injury in factory work. And it built lifetime friendships.
So it strikes home when someone complains about having come to this website for game reasons, and is confronted by posts opposed to their politics.
On the one hand, this blog talks about game design, poetry, writing, and things I do for fun. The “fete” of life from this blog title, the celebratory party that life can be.
On the other hand, this blog critiques and often lampoons the politics and economic disparities of our nation. The cruelty of unchecked Capitalism. The un-Christian abandonment of the poor and suffering. Some people consider that critique “churlish.”
But recently, while responding to an email, it occurred to me that I never bring this stuff up with strangers at a game table or convention. Those places are sacrosanct, like that hour of escaping into a novel during a London bombing.
This blog is a different story, literally. It is a public journal, thoughts of life in which gaming is only a part. You must forgive its jumping from a photo about ICE and Klan, to promoting a friend’s Kickstarter or my own game designs.
Thank you.
I agree, Mike. Even at conventions I’m my usual Woke self and don’t put up with bigotry at my events.
The difference is that in my social media presence, much of what I post intentionally confronts, actively protests, and often lampoons that stuff. It’s my site, my microphone, my street corner.
But at a game table or convention I’m not there to bring up the topic. If bigotry rears its ugly head, I deal with it, but I don’t sit down and say right off the bat, “Trump is a fascist.”
Fortunately the conventions I’ve attended tend to weed out that element. But, hell, I’ve cut off my own brothers over Trumpism; it’s not like I going to put up with it from a stranger.
I completely understand that entertainment is for fun, and politics is for serious discussions, and the two don’t always need to be crossed.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit down and play a friendly game with Nazis.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.