r/SubredditDrama • u/[deleted] • May 24 '16
Racism Drama Paradox removes a mod aiming to "get rid of multiculturalism." Some in the Stellaris subreddit applaud this move while others see it as hypocritical and overly PC. Let's boldly go where we've all gone before.
In short, someone created a mod in Stellaris, Paradox's new 4x game (it's pretty fun. The game, not the mod). The point of the mod was to delete every non-white human in the game. Paradox was fine with this until the mod creator added the description "No multiculturalism here." The description, according to the community manager, turned it from a random mod to a political statement pushing an agenda, which they did not appreciate. So, they banned it.
Some are happy with this decision. Others say it's "overzealous censorship." I'm sure the vast majority of the world doesn't care.
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u/Dink_Cray May 24 '16
Ah, cultural marxism at work.
Heh, the WD-40 of internet complaints.
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u/finfinfin May 24 '16
WD-40 is cool and useful.
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u/Obie_Trice_Kenobi May 24 '16
And it smells good
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u/Biffingston May 24 '16
And it burns like crazy producing a lot of heat, but flaming out quickly.
This analogy keeps working.
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u/finfinfin May 24 '16
It isn't an indicator of some ridiculously densed, yet all-encompassing omnibigotry.
Nice colour can too.
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u/doctorgaylove May 24 '16
That sounds like exactly what a cultural marxist would say.
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u/finfinfin May 24 '16
Too late! I've already fluoridated the ice cream, Mandrake, children's ice cream!
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u/VWSpeedRacer May 24 '16
But it's a terrible lubricant.
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u/finfinfin May 24 '16
Oh god. People, seriously, WD-40 is not a fucking lubricant. It doesn't try to be. It doesn't claim to be. Do not use it when you need one!
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May 24 '16 edited May 24 '16
It doesn't try to be. It doesn't claim to be.
It does on both counts, actually. WD-40 contains lubricants that remain behind after the rest of the product has evaporated. It's a very low-performing, low-viscosity lubricant and you should use pretty much anything else for serious jobs, but it's a lubricant.
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May 24 '16
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u/GrassWaterDirtHorse May 24 '16
I spray WD-40 onto my monitor whenever I see people talking about cultural marxism as a form of physical censorship. It works pretty well, but now most of my screen is blurred out.
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u/SarcasticOptimist May 25 '16
Same if a person accuses another of being a SJW without irony. Or actually treats them as responsible for some minute corporate or creative decision (usually regarding videogames).
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u/papaHans May 24 '16
Do you know that WD-40 is good to spray on your fish bait? It's made of fish oil and gets rid of the human scent on the bait.
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u/Roflkopt3r May 24 '16 edited May 24 '16
I still have a hard time to grasp how popular this term has become. It's a big alarm bell yelling "far right conspiracy!", the sort of stuff that certified lunatics like Alex Jones talk about, in insane talks like "The U.N.'S Push for a Marxist One-World Government". In fact, crazy talk show hosts were the only ones I heard using this term. Now it's all over Reddit.
Hell, I remember KIA complain about the Wikipedia curators moving Cultural Marxism from "Articles about Marxism" to "Conspiracy Theories". Which on at least the German Wikipedia it always was:
"Cultural Marxism" ('Kulturmarxismus') is a political catchphrase by the US-American New Right, describing an alleged leftist conspiracy.
I think the only time I saw this term pop up in the German public discourse was when Anders Breivik's ramblings made it into the media.
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u/lakelly99 May 24 '16
I don't get what the fuck it's supposed to mean. Like, does nobody know what Marxism is anymore? I don't exactly see how Paradox are analysing society through the lens of class struggle by removing a Nazi mod.
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u/DblackRabbit May 24 '16
Cultural Marxism is the conspiracy theory that state that equality movements, like civil rights, and post modern art are secretly plans for communist to take over the world. Its basically facists trying to pretend to be the good guys.
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u/potatolicious May 24 '16 edited May 24 '16
The word does make sense in a perverse way (oh dear God am I about to defend the alt-right).
This goes along with the alt-right's beliefs in entryism, and also the general nerd oppression narrative. The idea is that "cultural marxists" invade cultures in order to make it their own, which to them has shades of wealth redistribution/communism.
So, in this case, gamers invent gaming culture, but now the hordes of cultural marxists must come and take that culture away from them, water it down/corrupt it, and distribute it to the masses - like hypothetical communist hordes who forcibly take rich people's property.
This also feeds into a lot of their racist/bigoted views - the reason why the cultural marxists need to "steal" other people's culture is because they're incapable of creating any worthwhile culture of their own. These beliefs also line up along racial lines where other races are accused to trying to consume/corrupt western cultures. They see themselves as part of some kind of cultural elite and the "cultural marxists" as unworthy/incompetent/inferior who must steal.
Somewhere Ayn Rand is smiling from beyond the grave.
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May 24 '16
They are engaging in game-developer Marxism by adding diversity to their incest-and-genocide simulators.
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u/PaperCutsYourEyes May 24 '16
It is an epithet that has been stripped of all meaning. They just use it as a way to insult people with whom they disagree politically.
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May 25 '16
CULTURAL Marxism, the ideas have expanded since Marx himself. At a point people realized the Marx conception of Marxism wasn't working so they decided that other aspects of society had to be changed to make changes to the organization of labour possible.
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u/Ashevajak May 24 '16
It's pretty scary how popular the term has become. Up until a few years ago, it was used by Paleo-libertarians, the LaRouche Movement, Neo-Nazis and people like Anders Behring Breivik/counterjihadists. And virtually no-one else.
Now, it's getting play in major newspapers (Daily Mail, Telegraph have had articles treating cultural Marxism as fact, or at least a valid theory) and, as you say, is all over social media. Given cultural Marxism is often seen as not very subtle code for "Jews", that is especially worrying.
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u/Roflkopt3r May 24 '16
Given cultural Marxism is often seen as not very subtle code for "Jews", that is especially worrying.
And that's where it gets especially crazy. Antisemites today want to have us believe that Jews are both the capitalist overlords and the anticapitalist Marxist. Apparently cumulating in some form of master conspiracy that wants to push "crony capitalists" like Wall Street to the top, through a communist revolution...
It takes an exceptional twist to both the understanding of capitalism and Marxism to think that this forms a coherent model of reality.
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u/codeswinwars May 25 '16
I would argue that appearing in the Mail and the Telegraph says more about where those publications have moved in the last few years than anything else. The Mail was always a shit pile but the popularity of Mail Online has let them take it to a new level of inane bullshit whereas the Telegraph has been on a long, depressing slight rightward as it tries to gain some form of relevance. There's something to be said of the far-right gaining influence since the recession and brining their noxious ideological positions with them but those two publications in particular have different problems well beyond just that.
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u/Ashevajak May 25 '16
Also very possible, it's true. Apart from a couple of writers (OK, being honest, Peter Oborne) I can't say I've followed them all too closely.
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u/cruelandusual May 25 '16
Given cultural Marxism is often seen as not very subtle code for "Jews", that is especially worrying.
It's an obvious code for "academic leftist". Playing up the supposed antisemitic origin of the jargon is itself a conspiracy theory.
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u/Ashevajak May 25 '16
Except that the history of Cultural Marxism as a phrase is inextricably linked with that of the Frankfurt School, and that the "Jewish" nature of the Frankfurt School and its supposed promotion of "Cultural Marxism" is directly referenced by a vast number of Neo-Nazi and alt-right websites.
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u/ThinkMinty Jun 11 '16
Yeah, I first heard it when I got into a net-scuffle with a Neo-Nazi a while back.
Can we agree that anyone using the term is no longer allowed to be offended by accusations of fascism?
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May 24 '16
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u/Ashevajak May 24 '16 edited May 24 '16
They're...bizarre, to say the least, but surprisingly influential. If you want to do some reading, I recommend checking out Political Research Associates, and especially their archives. The LaRouche movement actually coined the term Cultural Marxism as it is currently used.
I'm not really much of an expert on them, but from what I can see, the LaRouche movement is what happens when you combine revolutionary Communism's enthusiasm for violence with early Italian fascism, a personality cult, conspiracy theorism on a grand scale and a mental breakdown.
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u/CVance1 May 25 '16
Breivik was the first time I'd ever heard about it, and that was only a couple months ago when I read One Of Us
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u/mompants69 May 24 '16
"Cultural Marxism" is a term that my 65 year old Repub dad and friends would say. It just makes you sound like an old coot.
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u/Randydandy69 May 25 '16
Cultural Marxism is an extension of Cultural Bolshevism, which is a theory that the Nazis came up with.
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u/Uglycannibal May 24 '16
There's nothing hard to grasp about it if you read the communist manifesto and see the goals Marx outlines. Things included being the establishment of a strong centralized state, destruction of the family unit, high income taxes, free eductation, centralized banking and a host of other things, many of which have come into fruition in the US and Europe since this was written.
The modern world is full of people who do not call themselves Marxists, but buy into cultural movements that promote Marxist principles, hence cultural marxists. You will find high numbers of socialists and communists in LGBT, feminist, pro-refugee, and other generally progressive movements, and in their leadership and intellectuals you will find people much more radical and indeed Marxist than the greater whole of the movement.
Using social issues to promote political agendas is nothing new, and dismissing it as conspiracy is a bit disingenuous. Powerful people have always used their organizations as voices to enact their will, why somebody finds it implausible that gay rights activists or nationalists would do the same is really beyond me. And make no mistake, I don't believe in some hyper-organized Marxist cabal, but I do believe in many different billionaires pushing Marxist ideas through political funding, media and policy support.
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u/IAmAN00bie May 24 '16
I do believe in many different billionaires pushing Marxist ideas through political funding, media and policy support.
Like who?
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u/Felinomancy May 24 '16
Where did Marx ever talk about "destruction of the family unit"? And apart from that, everything else seems to be perfectly fine and good. Ethical, even. If this is Marxism I'm all in it.
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u/pilgrimboy May 24 '16
Of course it is PC. Paradox makes PC games after all.
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u/GrassWaterDirtHorse May 24 '16
Because crusading is the politically correct thing to do in 15th Century Europe.
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May 24 '16 edited May 24 '16
A Stellaris player here, apparently some Eurogamer article posted something that left out essential information regarding the mod description including some blatantly shifty language as well as a link to a white supremacy Youtube vid and channel.
The other 'one race' mods on the workshop that didn't possess an agenda are still up.
But a LOT of the bigots crawled out of the woodwork to moan and rant about censorship, their freedums, and basically outing themselves as the reactionary bigots they are. Lots of "this game allows genocide and slavery so it should be okay", happily ignoring that fictional bad things, and endorsing real life bad things are distinct. It also misses out the fact that the game includes at best specism. Every race in the game (unmodded) pre-made or player generated regardless of other traits, is fundamentally a racially diverse one, with differing colours and skin tones. The game might allow you to roleplay some space limpets who hate their neighbouring space foxes, but there is no officially supported way to hate the green space limpets because the dominant purple limpets think they're sub-limpet filth.
But prior Paradox games due to their detailed nature does enable every nationalist day-dreamer to theoretically live out their fantasies, and a mod also said in a comment the sub had got brigaded, so a mix of outside bigots and some internal bigots = frothing drama over a non-issue.
As another commenter on the sub says, I to sorta didn't realise just how many bigots I share the Paradox community with and I wish I didn't know.
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u/Garrand May 24 '16
As another commenter on the sub says, I to sorta didn't realise just how many bigots I share the Paradox community with and I wish I didn't know.
Just think of how many you share the world with.
"You guys are totes allowing racism in-game so it's fine to use your game as a platform to promote real-world hate!"
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u/AntonioOfFlorence May 25 '16
"You guys are totes allowing racism in-game so it's fine to use your game as a platform to promote real-world hate!"
Y'know, this kind of bullshit argument is most often touted by the same people who screech hysterically every time someone suggests that games might have an effect on their behavior. Their kneejerk defense is always "I know the difference between a videogame and real life! It doesn't affect me!"
Yet here they are, making an absurd argument like: "There's racism in your game so I should be able to use it to promote racism in real life!" without an inkling of awareness that maybe that videogame that they "totally understand it's not real" contains those mature themes to make a statement and to tell a story that someone could use to gain some perspective or to reflect on themselves, their attitudes and beliefs. But no, all of a sudden, this videogame that they know isn't real is a direct 1:1 comparison to real life. "If it's in your game, then it makes it okay in real life!"
These people aren't mature enough to be playing these games that they constantly defend, and (as with all reactionaries) lack the self awareness to see how blatantly they advertise their immaturity and lack of understanding of ANY significant real-world issue. In rabidly defending themselves and their games, they become a perfect example of what they deny.
Unbelievable.
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u/MGStan May 25 '16
That's the problem with the internet. It makes the open space between bigots smaller.
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u/NudoJudo May 24 '16
Hopefully Obama will decide to send arms to the more moderate Stellaris players to defeat the growing radical insurgency.
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May 25 '16
The "moderate" players being the ones who roleplay as the Imperium of Man purging each and every xenos they come across.
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u/PlayMp1 May 24 '16
For an idea for others reading, EU4 lets you forcibly "culture convert" provinces. It's never been clear whether that means straight up genocide or something more subtle, but you can easily eradicate cultures given enough time and diplo points.
CK2 makes it a random event. Every so often, a province you control that's not your culture will become your culture. Less genocidal, more melting pot (in fact there's a melting pot event that creates English culture if there's a Norman ruler of England, which until that point is Anglo-Saxon).
However, nomads can still commit genocide by pillaging. Interestingly you don't see as much love for nomad genocide... my guess: they're not white, therefore them committing genocide is actually bad, unlike when white people do it.
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May 24 '16
For an idea for others reading, EU4 lets you forcibly "culture convert" provinces. It's never been clear whether that means straight up genocide or something more subtle, but you can easily eradicate cultures given enough time and diplo points.
It's usually a waste of diplo points, though. Might be worth it in especially high value provinces, but I wouldn't blanket an entire nation I just happen to hate with culture conversions. Religious conversion, however, usually makes a lot of sense, and so you'll often wind up theociding(?).
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May 25 '16
EU4 lets you forcibly "culture convert" provinces. It's never been clear whether that means straight up genocide or something more subtle, but you can easily eradicate cultures given enough time and diplo points.
Sounds to me like the Native American Boarding Schools.
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u/QuartzKitty May 25 '16
As pointed out elsewhere, many of the same people whining about banning this mod were previously upset about how a father hacking a Zelda game (to make Link female for his daughter) was an insult to the devs intention and 'like defacing the Mona Lisa'.
No, they are not just a hate mob, Where ever did we get THAT idea....
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May 25 '16
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u/QuartzKitty May 25 '16 edited May 25 '16
Read the comments: http://kotaku.com/dad-hacks-zelda-so-link-can-be-anyone-not-just-a-boy-1760475743
http://kotaku.com/5958918/father-hacks-zelda-for-his-daughter-makes-link-a-girl
For comparison, here is the Kotaku article on the Stellaris story: http://kotaku.com/paradox-pulls-stellaris-mod-that-makes-all-the-characte-1778413944
Some of the user names OUTRAGED at the mod being taken down were previously upset about the Zelda incident, comparing it to defacing the Mona Lisa.
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u/Sheeperina May 25 '16 edited Jun 13 '26
Change da world. My final message. Goodbye.
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u/QuartzKitty May 26 '16
What is amazing is how incredibly close they sometimes come to actual self-awareness, but it always seems to be perpetually out of reach.
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u/ScrewAttackThis May 24 '16
This guy currently has 9 comments with the following pasted at the end:
BANNED: Congrats SRD brigaders, you've killed yet another place for discussion.
Are they OK?
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u/Thromnomnomok May 25 '16
"I'm getting downvoted, maybe people here just think I'm an asshole.... no, no, it's the SJW's who are to blame!"
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u/OnyxMelon May 25 '16
Are they OK?
They have a racial superiority complex so I wouldn't rule out other mental issues.
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May 24 '16
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u/GrassWaterDirtHorse May 24 '16
I think it's because SRD has a tendency of molesting child comments with unwarranted downvoting.
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u/Galle_ May 25 '16
Games they don't even play? I'm pretty sure SRD actually has a pretty big Paradox fan contingent.
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u/DblackRabbit May 24 '16
Damn paradox for not wanting neo Nazi shit to appear in their workshop page.
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u/BrobearBerbil May 24 '16
This is like that Stardew Valley mod that made the one part-black female in the game white.
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u/layoxx May 24 '16
Seeing the community reaction to that was hilarious. My favorite was the one where it turned every character, item and texture map to variations of Demitrius' face.
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May 24 '16
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u/Tacitus_ May 24 '16
You can purge the xenos filth. I mean literally, there's a button called "Purge" that kills that population, with the option of purging every population of that species on that planet.
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u/Jaggedmallard26 May 24 '16
Its more 4x than grand strategy tbh but yeah, people are going to racist even when playing as mushroom people, I've seen people talk about how they're fungus empire purges all the captured non-white people.
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u/[deleted] May 24 '16