So straight white science fiction author dude John Scalzi has created a bit of a hubbub amongst straight white dudes on the interwebs with a blog post called Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is. The post, later reposted on Kotaku, is basically an attempt to talk to fellow dudes in their own language about the concept of privilege “without invoking the dreaded word ‘privilege,’ to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon.” (And they do.)
Scalzi’s thesis:
Dudes. Imagine life here in the US – or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world – is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?
Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.
This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.
Scalzi should have added “cis” to “straight white male,” but otherwise I’d say that’s fairly spot-on.
Of course, as Scalzi himself points out, life for straight white (cis) dudes is not always peaches and cream. They may have any of a number of disadvantages in life that make things difficult for them. They may have been born poor, or in a war zone; they may have been abused as children or the victim of crime or violence as an adult. Or faced any number of other problems and conditions and disadvantages.
Scalzi deals with this issue a little more obliquely than he could have, noting that some people begin the grand game of “The Real World” with more points than others, and that this can make a good deal of difference.
But do straight white cis males face disadvantages stemming from being straight white cis men? I honestly can’t think of any that have affected my life in any serious way, and these small disadvantages pale in comparison to the many advantages. Yeah, I had to register for the draft when I turned 18. Of course, when I registered there was no draft, and there still isn’t one, and the draft has virtually no chance of being resurrected in the foreseeable future, so I can’t say this requirement has affected my life in any tangible way.
As Scalzi puts it:
If you start with fewer points and fewer of them in critical stat categories, or choose poorly regarding the skills you decide to level up on, then the game will still be difficult for you. But because you’re playing on the “Straight White Male” setting, gaining points and leveling up will still by default be easier, all other things being equal, than for another player using a higher difficulty setting.
Anyway, Scalzi got a lot of responses to his post, many of them from straight white dudes outraged by his assertions. So he wrote a followup taking some of these critics to task. He was particularly amused by the criticism that by “picking on” straight white males he was being racist and sexist.
This particular comment was lobbed at me primarily from aggrieved straight white males. Leaving aside entirely that the piece was neither, let me just say that I think it’s delightful that these straight white males are now engaged on issues of racism and sexism. It would be additionally delightful if they were engaged on issues of racism and sexism even when they did not feel it was being applied to them — say, for example,when it’s regarding people who historically have most often had to deal with racism and sexism (i.e., not white males). Keep at it, straight white males! You’re on the path now!
I am sure there are many gems of obtuseosity in the comments, and in the Reddit thread on his original post. But it’s Friday night, and I have a migraine — which sucks, but it’s not because I’m a straight white cis dude — so I’m going to let you guys find them for me.
EDITED TO ADD: Thinking a bit more about Scalzi’s central metaphor here, and I don’t think it completely works: he assumes that obstacles other than racism, sexism, and homophobia can be explained as the equivalent of having started the game with fewer points. But it you have, for example, a disability, that’s something that makes you life harder every day; it’s more akin to raising the difficulty level than to starting off with fewer points. (Not to mention that you’re likely to face bigotry because of it as well.) This doesn’t erase the privileges a straight white male with disabilities gets from being straight, white, and male, of course, but it does ratchet up the difficulty.
You are a pathetic excuse of a liar and goalpost mover. I am not going to go back and repeat everything you said just so you can lie and claim you never said that again.
I don’t.
Superbloop’s version of intersectionality appears to be “but sometimes black people can get affermitive action and can blame the system for their failures.”
Dude, I don’t know what you think “being discriminated against” entails, but for most groups it entails having a harder time accessing health care, being more likely to live in poverty and less able to obtain wealth, and not having the same educational opportunities as other groups. Discrimination isn’t this abstract energy bar that goes down when people are mean to you or whatever, it results in direct and measurable harms to classes of people.
Which is why I linked it right in front of you. That you are attempting to weasel out of it because you did it in slightly different words does not change that you did it, it just means you don’t have the intestinal fortitude to stand by your words.
It is a rejoinder after shredding your facetious crap. Absent context, it is pointless. As a venomous reminder that you are a witless piece of shit without a decent argument, it most certainly has a point.
So if someone says I don’t care who you fuck faggot then if a gay person is angered the gay person needs to “take a chillpill”?
Shorter super bloop — ARGLEBARGLE!! Guys, this is starting to read like gaslighting 101…with derailing for dummies outlined point by point too.
Yeah it’s David’s subjective opinion, which is where “he can censor people all he wants” comes in.
“The only thing that is bad around here is that there is no gay marriage. But there is also no polygamist nor incestual marriage. All three are wrong, but only the first gets talked about.” — I’ll be sure to let all possible sex partners know that I’m a terrible person for having more than one of them, that should cause much laughter.
“Why have we wandered so far from that point?” — because, like our usual trolls, you enjoy playing goal post shifting games.
“Sorry for thinking that not having access to health care, money, or education are worse than being discriminated against.” — um…those are forms of discrimination as we said back on page one
“Then why do you?” — see previous
I’d be more upset I failed blockquotes if super bloop seemed to be able to actually read.
Oh he said suggestive, not subjective…how is quoting the comment policy suggestive? (and of what? suggestive cannot stand alone the way subjective can)
@Argenti
The gaslighting is strong in this one. I seriously do not want to deal with that right now though but I will point out just one of his lies:
you said: How so? The social mockery would be bad in some social circles, but there would be niches where one could fine acceptance.
Gaslighting or just stupid and self-absorbed?
This implies that its
a.) not widespread
b.)The only discrimination they would face would be socially.
You forget that there is a reason I said what I did. I was responding to those two claims, if you had not said that I would not have responded in that manner.
I’m still trying to figure out why superbloop thinks not having access to money/health care/ education ISN’T discrimination.
Oh my god, fucking meriken. Your right to free speech is not the right to be granted a bully pulpit by everyone you demand it from. It means that in a public(ly owned) space, the government has no right to prevent you from making speech. This is not publicly owned space. banning or moderating you on my blog is not ZOMG TEH CENSORSHIP, it is kicking you out of my fucking apartment because you are an asshole. If you have to be ejected with force, it says nothing positive about you.
Cassandra — denying what he just said and then claiming we need to take a chill pill is classic gaslighter behavior, this one is going beyond the usual goalpost shifting with his denials of things we can scroll up to find.
GingerSnaps — 5:1 odds he’s going to come back with how he never said it wasn’t, just that we don’t think it is.
Low income cis hetero white men face classism, but guess what, so do all other low income people, and they tend to experience it more harshly and have less mobility.
Bah, I’d rather talk about LoTRs
re: Elves thinking they are better than everyone else, I definitely got that impression (also, there’s hierarchy among the elves, Valar, Noldor, Sindarin…). It’s esp. obvious in regards to Elrond’s parents situation (the resulting situation is interesting in other ways too, with his brother choosing to be human and the resulting line of descendants and Elrond’s interaction with them) and the whole thing with Thingol. Though considering Elrond vs. Thingol, it could be argued that the situation improves somewhat over time, but that could also be because of Elrond’s own personal history. Though it is worth noting that Elrond’s elven parent is also the grandchild of a human (the one who marries Thingol’s daughter). All three of our examples of human+elven intermarriage are human men and elven women, all three are within Elrond’s family. Galadriel seems to be okay with intermarriage and she’s one of the older elves (she’s far older than Elrond but she’s also a rather socially rebellious character on a number of other occasions).
Anyways, we can be absolutely certain that Arwen and Galadriel had extensive behind the scenes interactions, Galadriel is her grandmother and Arwen lived with her for decades. Most of Arwen and Aragorn’s romance took place in Lorien…
Galadriel was one of my favorites, I liked her every bit as much as Eowyn. Especially when you read her backstory in the Silmarillion and such. Galadriel is awesome. She rebels, she’s prideful, powerful, guesses very early that Sauron’s bad news, but also makes hard choices and refuses to engage in war crimes or to become evil herself. She protects her forest against multiple assaults from Sauron’s army too.
Lobelia has a special place in my heart too, not just because she’s one of the few female characters, but because she’s a very humanized character. She is also willing to stand up directly to extremely powerful people even without any backing or support. She goes from annoying relative who steals the spoons to brave political prisoner. Even Frodo has a host of powerful allies behind him, Lobelia only has herself. She attacks her oppressors with an umbrella, that’s real guts there.
“it is kicking you out of my fucking apartment because you are an asshole.” — not an apt you live in, or where even invited to, but more like “can I borrow some sugar? no? LET ME CHECK YOUR KITCHEN FOR SUGAR!!!”
Seriously, wander off before you reach ejected by force.
And I figured out who he reminds me of btw — Pell/John Thomas.
“Remember guys, if there are people starving in Africa, you can’t complain about LGBT suffering in the first world. So sayeth super bloop.”
There are millions upon millions of people starving to death. Kind of worse than being denied te right to marry. That’s all I have been saying.
“You know going out in drag and encountering the wrong people can get you killed, right?”
Still safer than not eating food for days on end.
“a sample size of 1! That is not a fucking statistic. (Is it just me or do I end up trying to teach ALL our trolls basic stats?)”
…Again, that was when I was asked about my personal life. I was not trying to form a statistic.
“so why are you wasting time online, don’t you have starving children to be feeding? (A large portion is LGBT than is you, seeing how you’re 1:6,000,000,000~)”
I acutally have considered. However, I abadoned the idea due to personal reasons. Much deeper than I can say here.
“Affirmative Action is only rarely a matter of law to begin with, you fuckwit.”
Citation please.
“No, it isn’t.
http://econ.duke.edu/~hf14/teaching/povertydisc/readings/bertrand-mullainathan2004.pdf
White dudes get more attention in hiring, for the same effort.”
Error.
“I did present my argument, I’m just capable of writing well; that means not announcing everything I’m doing in the most bombastic way possible. Most readers possess comprehension beyond that of a concussed gibbon; if you insist, I can lower my writing to such a level, but I will make sure you regret it.”
Actually, that statement wasn’t regarding you.
“And make less money for it on average.
http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/05/26/explaining-gender-gaps-by-education-and-age/
Notice that this already is accounting for full round workers, and women are actually more likely to pick a profitable major, not less.”
I am aware of this. Again, I have not said that oppresstion didn’ exist for women.
“Not in my quick availability folder, not going to do your homework for you. Fair enough if you don’t believe me, but the data exists and is not kind to your argument.”
Then where is it?
I would be more keene to do my own research if I wasn’t disrespected at every turn.
“Seeing as I’m a human in a deeply bigoted culture, that’d be correct, it’s just also true for you and I actually try and correct both myself and my culture, unlike you; you’re too busy making excuses for the majority. Now, that said, nothing about what I said is bigotted, you just do not understand something before attempting to parody it.”
If be excuses you mean me meerly saying “The majority has to deal with discrimination, too!”, then yeah, I guess they are excuses. And although it is not really bigotry, femnists to use the word a lot.
“You are digging your hole deeper. And no, that does not remotely approach what ‘taboo’ means.”
Okay. Just replace “taboo” with “socially unacceptable” then.
“Oh what if your parents or friends asked if you were dating someone and you were going out with someone of the same gender? I mean would you still hold back? what if you were marrying someone of the same gender? Would you feel any fear about inviting your coworkers/friends/family to the wedding? ”
They’re fine with it. Of course, you are going to spin this and claim I think everyone is fine with homosexaulity.
“Also have you ever seen people bash someone for liking someone of the same gender in real life?”
Yes. The same is true for excess sex, being black, being white, etc. A much bigger problem that nodoy really wants to recognize, hatred of people not like us. Much like that exhibited on this blog’s comments.
“I have heard people say a LOT of nasty things about liberals in my life (I live in AZ), but “you don’t care enough about classism or ableism” has never, EVER been one of them. ”
Maybe liberals was to much of a blanket statement. But the ones onn this page are caring more about sexual orientation and other things. It really shows how fire we’ve strayd from topic.
It appears superbloop doesn’t grasp that it’s possible to care about more than one type of suffering at the same time.
darksidecat — I haven’t read the Silmarillion, but from what I recall of the trilogy Galadriel is nearly as bad ass as Eowyn (and I only say nearly because Eowyn rode straight into what everyone figured was a suicide mission) — I didn’t realize Arwen and Galadriel were related, though I think implied off screen interaction doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, it probably does get the books a pass though (just not the movies)
Speaking of Eowyn’s death march though, I think that makes us the Riders of Rohan — riding against the face of evil with nary a second thought — and they’re a large group, so we can all be Riders 🙂
(Ignoring the troll because his spelling, grammar, and poor logic is giving me a migraine.)
Galadriel is pretty awesome, actually. She’s part of why I don’t think Tolkien was consciously sexist so much as just of his time and therefore not really sure about how to write women’s inner lives, or women interacting with each other.
I’ve decided supertroll is typing from a phone or some such device with automatic wording, which is why zie spells words right but uses the wrong ones.
Also, super, you can’t really get away with saying “well maybe not all liberals, but YOU LIBERALS” because commentary on classism/ableism is fucking par for the course on manboobz. You would know this if you were familiar with the community before commenting.
Um, not remotely…being beaten to death, shot or stabbed is deadly — whereas humans can survive for at least a week on just water. Fuck, you can survive 3-5 days without even water.
Survival skills are apparently something else he sucks at, big surprise. I am likely done now too, that not eating for a few days is less safe than being killed was just too appalling not to bring up.
I think between the Silmarillion mention, the Radagast thing, and Lobelia, those who did not know what I wasted my childhood doing have now had it made clear. XD
Oh, also, some of those starving people are also queer, fyi, though superbloop probably doesn’t care, because equal rights are wrong, everyone else should be not wrong and become heteros like him (i.e. no one’s buying the shit you’re shoveling there superbloop).
Okay just because we are talking about it now does not mean its the only thing we care about you fuckwit.
And for the last time no one is saying that dying of hunger is not more important than the ability to marry. Just because we don’t focus on it for one second does not mean we don’t care.
Let me play your game: When has anyone anywhere is this thread said that they only care about sexual orientation?