[FUPQ-04] Take responsibility for the face of the world

Day 3,670, 17:49 • Published in USA USA • by Pfenix Quinn


The Free University of Phoenix Quinn is a service of the Socialist Freedom Party, an open and welcoming internationalist anarka-syndicalist drinking club collective and mutual aid society based in e-USA


This is Lecture Number 4 of a 20-part series on Combating Tyranny. It's loosely based on Timothy Snyder's nifty little book ON TYRANNY, adapted to our New World context. The lecturer is R.F. Williams, a good-looking but dissolute youngster with no real plans for his life who nevertheless insists on carrying water for some long-toothed windbag named Phoenix Quinn.





Take responsibility for the face of the world.

Game life is political. The e-world reacts to what you do and say. Do not look away from the symbols of hate and the markers of subservience. Remove them yourself and remove yourself from them. Refusing and resisting the banality of evil is your birthright as a human bean and as a free player.

In the politics of the everyday, words and symbols, or their absence, count quite a lot. For example, dehumanizing people as pigs suggests slaughter. A neighbor portrayed as a pig is someone whose land one feels entitled to take away.

Those who follow such symbolic logic, who get caught up in such language, typically become victims of the same logic themselves. By 1945, Berlin had been reduced to 98 million cubic yards of rubble; 1.5 million Berliners were left homeless.

Boycotting or blacklisting those defined as Other affects how people think about e-economics too. A listed group in likely to be seen as "up for sale" for no other reason, whether the banning is "legit" or not. Envy transforms ethics. And not in a good way.

The wish for some group, or some type of players, or for a particular person to disappear, especially when such sentiments are leavened by greed, leads to situations where such markings eventually become accepted as a natural part of the gaming landscape. It is a compromise with a murderous mentality.

Symbols of loyalty are equally troublesome. Sources of pride easily become markers of exclusion. And thus the banality of evil ensues. A man marches in a parade or salutes a piece of cloth not because he really believes in it. But it is less troublesome than not marching or not saluting.

A declaration of loyalty is the only thing a repressive regime is capable of hearing. Codes can become much too familiar. Accepting prescribed rituals without question, accepting appearances as reality, accepting the "given" rules of the game -- this is what makes it possible for such a game to go on and on. Indeed, what makes it possible for it to exist in the first place.

What happens if no one plays such games?














At the conclusion of the lecture series, totally legit honorary certificates and degrees will be issued by Lecturer Williams based on responses provided in the comment sections of each lecture. Participation counts. Indicate attendance by leaving a brief comment below or endorsing the article. Higher degrees will be awarded in accordance with the degree of critical thinking, mindfulness and humor exhibited by responders.