Lethen
Nissan: commendable cars for Commended players
Forum Administrator
Supreme Chancellor
Honoured Citizen
Citizen
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Written by Lethen
On [you decide for yourself]
That was me, earlier today. I guess I did want something to do with it. God aren't I dishonest? Better just abolish my office. Oh wait.
h43r: Sometime after posting this thread (during some trail hiking and before seeing Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2), I began to play with the idea of an op-ed. It vacillated between being an emotionally-driven piece and something more clear-cut but still very much emotional in nature (namely, condescending and angry). After some reflection and some interesting conversations, I settled on this piece. It will hopefully be short and sweet.
For many of us, myself included, Europeia serves as a very good distraction from greater RL concerns and stressors. Perhaps paradoxically, I also use this region - as I'm sure some of us do - as an outlet, an area to vent about those concerns and frustrations.
From late 2013 to early 2014, my complaints heard by many were about working at a restaurant full of frustrating, stubborn, untrustworthy, and disingenuous coworkers that I had little patience for. From early 2015 to mid-2016, you all heard about my very close relationship with my then-girlfriend deteriorating before our friendship floundered and ultimately died not long after (though I am the one that finally mercy-killed it). How are these things relevant?
One reason I loved Europeia's community and players at the time was because I knew where I stood, and I knew where my friends stood. We could have serious political discussions without the sort of stubbornness and untrustworthy behavior of my RL coworkers. I couldn't hold them to higher standards, but I could hold Europeia to those higher standards. Another reason I loved the players is because one of my biggest gripes - outside of hypocrisy - is when someone will make assumptions about my responses, behavior, motivations, or how I'm feeling and try to tell me why what I'm feeling is incorrect, somehow.
Naively enough, I didn't think this had changed about our community. Apparently I am wrong. I expected a higher level of respect and public discourse than what the community is willing to offer - but not what the community cannot offer! I spoke with two players I rarely speak with, WritingLegend and Verteger, and both ended up carrying our conversations to the same conclusion: a greater public discourse is needed.
We are in a strange situation in Europeia, our community. We have always been a political region, but at some point, perhaps due to specific players or the increased popularity of first Skype and then Discord, our politics began to trump our public discourse and community discussions. Was there some sort of regional epiphany? Everyone is now cognizant of everyone else also being political actors - ironically during a period where I think we've seen the greatest influx of members that are decidedly non-political. And if we're all aware the other guy has political motives, then we can't talk to them about it or hint that we know. So we become more insular and withdrawn into our political party subforums and private Discord group-chats. We find refuge in our cliques.
Are there still community discussions? Yes. We can't end them entirely. But they aren't nearly as often or as in-depth as they once were. It is a political transformation, but it is also an ugly one. To paraphrase WL from our Discord chat (edits made so it flows better than disjointed logs, his permission was given):
WritingLegend makes some very good points, and I feel like this really should resonate with everyone. Especially that last line. Just as there is a difference between the political and people communities here, I think we need to recognize there was a shift at some point from public discourse and private politics (where the latter is secondary as a consideration) to private discourse and public politics.
The discourse not only needs to be more public, but it needs to be of a higher-quality. Namely, we need to remember to separate the people from the politics. Why?
Because we all see players in other regions that tell their enemies to drink bleach or ban every political actor working against their own interests, and we think "That is not us, we're better than that." So we climb onto that pedestal. And then somewhere along the way we read some uniquely pro-Europeian article, and we climb higher on that pedestal. Then we are reassured of how we love our politics and it isn't for everyone; so we perch ourselves ever-higher on that pedestal.
And then, as was show-cased at times today, we've become accustomed to wading into political discussions where we say wildly-inaccurate things and cast ridiculous assertions. We encourage presumptuous and nasty commentary that paints the broadest of strokes onto those well-nuanced players we are targeting that specific day; we turn them into black-and-white people worthy of being insulted and treated like they are lesser than. And for what? To win an argument? Or are we simply so out-of-touch with open dialogue and high-level discourse that we can only couch things in nasty politics?
Speaking specifically to the situation we find ourselves in today, I have already laid bare my thoughts in a few different threads. I will reiterate that I feel like this was a hard-and-fast approach. The artist wants three statues from a boulder? That doesn't mean you take a sledgehammer to the rock and hope three decent-looking statues simply appear.
I've already spoken with Verteger privately and we smoothed things over, but I feel like the law itself and everything that went into it was very poorly-handled. If the end-goal is an open dialogue and community discussion, there are much easier ways to achieve that. For one thing, I know I would have appreciated being approached beforehand for my own thoughts on curtailing the powers of the OSC and Mousebumples role. Instead I was blind-sided and instantly put on the defensive. While a dialogue has developed, there is a much faster and more efficient way to involve primary stakeholders in an open dialogue. Engage them. Talk to them. Ask for their input.
I would also like to echo HEM's comments in a different thread, and this applies to both the Office of the Supreme Chancellor and the Administrative Team, in asking: Where were these people that take issue with Mousebumple's behavior before? Why was HEM never approached as Chief Admin? Why was I never approached as Supreme Chancellor? I will say time and time again, we cannot operate under this assumption that HEM, myself, or any senior players in this region are going to defend our friends and allies at all costs.
I am not a person that is going to shut out all opposition and dismiss things out-of-hand to protect others that are perceived to be my friends. I care too much about our community to put anyone else above that entity in and of itself. I care about a community that puts public discourse ahead of politics, that does not let players be defined by their politics.
Don't you?
