The Subtle Difference Between Justice and Contempt

Day 3,723, 14:11 • Published in USA USA • by Gnilraps

Date: Day 3723 of the New World




It was just minutes after publishing my election day “pweeze vote for eCP” article, in which I had called for a “clean campaign”, when a couple of eUSA’s more notorious “confused” took to the streets with a fresh spray of spittle spiked with stupidity.


When I see that stuff I am like most of you. I want to cry out, “PLEASE STOP THEM FROM SPEAKING!!!” But I had called for “clean campaign” and was determined to adhere to that with my own behavior, so I kept almost entirely silent in response.


But I know for a fact that I was not the only one hoping they would just shut up. It got so bad that one Congressman even called for [Censure] just due to general stupidity rather than some breach of protocol. You can’t make this stuff up.


And while the tin-hatters decried bias, sensible people have generally come to the realization that our little quirky community is spiked with a couple of people who really have absolutely no idea what they are doing. Watching them duke it out as factions in the same Party has been nothing short of entertaining, but that’s beside the point.


What I’m trying to get around to saying is that the response I wanted to offer was too important to get confused as “just politics”. I don’t want to address SFP or FS as opponants in the Political module, I wish to approach them philosophically as fellow travellers in eLife.


Today I’d like to publish my thoughts about Franklin Stone (and to a lesser extent, Rosa).






This is a framework I’ve found useful whenever dealing with willful contentiousness. FS is quite clearly contentious. Can anyone seriously argue with that statement? If you think my aspursions are equally spiked, just observe how often he posts complaints, as a Congressman, instead of starting [Discussions] or offering [Proposals]. Notice how often he starts his thread of nonsense, then fails to appear to respond to any response for days on end. None of his stuff is pragmatic for anything but fomenting discord.


We can argue about whether or not contentiousness is a fun way to play a game - there seems to be a minority group in every game we play who thinks so - but one thing we cannot reasonably argue: contentiousness is contentiousness.


That FS is willful about his contentiousness is probably a little bit harder to prove. What I would have to offer as evidence is the many, many, many, many times the community at large, as well as sometimes his own party has explained certain things to him under, over, sideways, and down, yet like clockwork he will raise the exact same question again the following month as if it is a brand new question never before discussed. That is either willful contentiousness or abject stupidity. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt.


The reason he gets the benefit of my doubt is because I have known FS as a very different player. I’ve worked with him at the Party level and at the MU level. He has had episodes in this game where he revealed the capacity to play well with others and not see boogiemen around every corner. I’ve actually witnessed Franklin Stone engaged in activities that were helpful for player education, development, and retention. Think about that. Did he get hit in the head by a meteorite recently such that he is a different person? Or has Franklin Stone intentionally chosen a path that he has identified as “opposed” to a perceived enemy regardless of the virtue of that path (and regardless of the inaccuracy of his identification of his enemy as lacking in virtue)? I say he has.





The only claim left to make when one is laid bare as willfully contentious is “misunderstanding”. It goes something like this, “The reason I am asking this exact same question for the 35th time in 36 months is because none of the people whom I asked the previous 34 times quite understood what I was asking.” I.e. “I’m misunderstood”.


Does FS think he’s misunderstood or does FS see himself as wilfull? He certainly exhibits enough wherewithall to observe himself as contentious. I’ll go out on a limb and guess that he thinks he’s right about most of the things he complains about, so my money is on a FS who truly thinks he’s being misunderstood by nearly everyone except for those in his own Party who are too party-loyal or “comradely” to tell him he’s nuts.


But FS is not misunderstood.


And if he’s not misunderstood, then he’s misguided. I don’t know what his compass is. I have a theory, which I will describe in the next section of my article. But whatever his compass, it’s pretty obvious that it’s pointing him in a terrible direction.


Hey Franklin Stone, you’re misguided, not misunderstood.








There will be no end to cries for Justice in the real world and in eRepublik. Nor should there be. Wherever injustice reigns, particularly where it is institutionalized, the only proper response is to cry out against it.



In my perception, the misguidedness of Franklin Stone is that his compass is pointing him toward contempt but he is interpreting it as pointing toward injustice.



Those who have followed his complaints know that they all fit into a well-defined box:
“Power is being abused by those who have it.” Never mind the fact that Politics is partially about the gathering of power, and never mind the fact that those who have it have worked fairly to get it. Nope. For FS, the existence of power is evidence of its abuse.



If he is actually right, that’s injustice. If he’s right, it needs to be stopped. If he’s right heads should roll, conspiracies should be cast into light, and some might even justly argue that power should be handed to those formerly oppressed so that they have an opportunity to right wrongs that the power-mongers are blind to. Remember affirmative action? Argue about it all you want somewhere else, but at least it was an attempt to correct some historical injustices in RL America. I’m pretty sure FS’s argument, were it ever to be coherently offered, would fall somewhere into this category.






So here’s the big question. Is Franklin Stone’s compass pointing to injustice? Or has the subtle difference between justice and contempt escaped him? Is FS stabbing windmills?


Contempt can easily mask itself as injustice. Both contempt and injustice evoke similar responses. Victims of both cry out. They mobilize energies to fight. They refuse to back down. They become convinced about the moral virtue of their cause. In short, they become fanatics.


But contempt is very different than injustice in one extremely important way. Contempt is what rises inside an individual when his personal version of justice is not adopted by the masses; when his version of justice is skewed by selfishness, narcisism, or a vision of “equality” that is itself totally unjust. Franklin Stone is not just contentious, he is contemptuous.


He is contemptuous because his cause is not just, his enemies are not unjust, and the system he rails against is the rule of law itself which has been carefully crafted over literally years by people from dozens of eRepublik Political Parties.


Franklin Stone’s aim is not true.


When fighting injustice, fanatics become heroes.


When driven by contempt, fanatics become villians who destroy peace. The result is a cabal.


SFP bad boy Rosa Violet Carson is the very definition of “cabal”. If Franklin Stone had any capacity to organize, he’d be another Rosa. Mercifully for FS, he’s not a good organizer so he has retained the veneer of sense within his Party. The cooler heads in SFP have kept it from becoming a cabal by not getting too close to Franklin. But that is also why all of the sensible SFP’rs have ostracised Rosa. SFP doesn’t want a cabal.


And while FS isn’t harmful enough to be treated with the same disdain as Rosa, SFP should at least come to the collective realization that it is bad for their party to keep running him into Congress where his biggest weaknesses are displayed on the grandest stage.


And so I have offered FS and SFP an “out”. Yes, I realize that the fact that this comes from me probably kills any chance of it being taken seriously, but I know for a fact that there are smart people in SFP, good people, and I hope they are listening. Because I would love to see a more highly functioning Congress overall, and no Congress with FS in it is ever functioning at its highest.


The idea was to encourage FS to step aside from Congress. He’s been around long enough to have shown what he’s capable of accomplishing there (essentially nothing, that’s a fact). He’s shown his Party all they need to see to be able to predict what another month with FS in Congress will be like. Bad for SFP, bad for eUSA, bad for Congress, heck probably even bad for Plato.


But most of all, FS stepping aside creates a spot for someone new. I believe SFP is a capable enough party to raise up good players. I know I’m not exactly authorized to speak for them, and I’m sure I’ll be criticized for doing so, but get past that for a minute. Come, let us reason together.


Yes, I know, Franklin Stone has just as much right to run for Congress as anyone else, and I will defend his right not only to run for Congress but also to access the Congressional discussion. I also recognize that SFP can do whatever game mechanics allow with its Congress slate. I’m not advocating injustice. I’m trying to lobby for sense.



I am calling upon SFP to do whatever it is that they do best as a Party to lovingly move Franklin Stone out of Congress. I believe it will positively impact literally everyone.




You may now return to your regularly scheduled clicking.