He Gets It
http://techraptor.net/content/gamergate-media-gave-away-america
There is someone out there whose faith in Leftism was shattered by Gamergate, and the scales fell from his eyes. I had assumed Leftists, one and all, would do their typical Doublethink trick and ignore reality, and not see what the media is. My faith in mankind is restored.
After Tuesday, I don’t know that I can call myself a liberal anymore.
It’s not that I don’t want to call myself a liberal. After all, as I understand liberal ideals, I still believe in most of them, if not all of them. No, I guess I’m not a liberal anymore because Bustle, The Verge, Salon, Polygon, Kotaku, Gamasutra, The Mary Sue, The NY Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and others spent the last 2 months telling me I’m no longer wanted as an unashamed, voting liberal. They did this based on my primary hobby and the Y chromosome I was born with. They did this after some of them told me I was dead or needed to die for the crime of holding my primary hobby as a part of my identity. They did this because some people I don’t know made threats against people I’d never heard of before; subsequently, I was told I needed to die because of my Y chromosome and my hobby.
And for what? The nebulous notion of making gaming “better” than it is now? To stroke the sense of entitlement of self-proclaimed “game developers”? To turn game developer into the third vocation in human history that is competence optional behind politician and journalist (apparently)? Equality of Outcomes between AAA game development, good independent game development, and terrible independent game development? An esoteric notion of games as art, based on meaningless definitions of “gamer” and “game” combined with a pejorative definition of “consumerism”? A wanton desire to usurp the will of the consumer and the creative process?
I hope character assassinating gamers without regard for collateral damage over the last 2 months was worth it.
Tuesday resulted in several firsts for me. I’d never voted full ticket—not in 20 years of participating in my civic duty. I did on Tuesday. I’ve often considered or voted for third party candidates when at the polls over the last 20 years. Tuesday I did not. Over the past 20 years, I’d spent between 2 and 6 weeks studying candidates and ballot measures to be as informed as possible. This election cycle, I was finished in hours. On this day, I stand before you to say that I did my part to hand the Legislative branch of the American government to the Republicans. Not that one vote matters in the grand scheme of things, but every traditionally Democratic vote that goes Republican is a two vote swing. So the Republicans own the Senate, but not with a “super majority” to completely dictate terms legislatively.
From my new perspective after Tuesday, it’s one down and three to go: Super majority in the Senate, the Presidency, and one Supreme Court justice. I’m disgusted for writing that last sentence.
What choice did I have? It would appear that the DiGRA was right—The Playful is Political. It would also appear that my politics are now a matter of survival for pieces of my identity that I hold dear. It can never be emphasized enough that 10 news outlets on the same day said I was dead or needed to die because of those parts of my identity. Will I forgive? Eventually. Time heals all wounds, after all. Will I forget? Never. The imgur’s will exist forever, as will the archives and screen caps of everything the hypocrites, charlatans, and their willing media puppets said and did to make me question two parts of my identity: gamer and liberal. It is only by force of will and self-determination that I don’t let those people immure me in self-doubt and regret. Right now, there is virtually no price too high for them to pay for what they tried to do to my identity.
There are roughly 730 days until Election Day 2016. The media that drove me away from my political leanings is going to need every one of those days to convince me that bashing gamers from August 28th until Tuesday was just a misunderstanding. They will need every one of those days to convince me that my input into the liberal ideology is valued regardless of my hobbies, support for GamerGate, or my gender. The alternative is to hand both the Legislative and Executive branch of the US Government over to Republicans, and as I found out on Tuesday, it is well within my capability to do so.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
