Postmodern Culture article

[Rimpy]

I sent a letter to Christopher Douglas, the author of the Postmodern Culture essay on the Civilization series that is noted in the Apolyton Civ3 news. Here's the link to the article, "You Have Unleashed a Horde of Barbarians!":

http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/current.issue/13.1douglas.html

And here's what I sent him...

Hi Christopher,

I enjoyed your recent article "You Have Unleashed a Horde of Barbarians!". I just wanted to comment that I think that you may be taking some of Civ's design decisions too seriously. Many design decisions were likely made based on creating an enjoyable gaming experience rather than trying to accurately recreate world history.

For example, the game does not model colonies seeking independence from their colonizer, whether it be through war or polical pressures. Events such as the American revolution or the independence of African nations in the 1960's don't take place in the Civ universe. Needless to say, the outcomes of these events have a very important effect on world history. In the Civ universe, the US would still be part of Britain. Moreover, no new civilization would arrive on the world scene that didn't already exist in 4000 BC.

However, from a gamer's perspective, this would likely create a very frustrating gaming experience. How would you like to play as Britain and spend centuries conquering and developing territory, only to result in the majority of your territory becoming an independent civilization, and you're suddenly stuck with a dinky island in the North Atlantic? Not much fun.

Along those lines, Civ also fails to model religious wars, such as nations going to war over whose god is the one true God. Although religion does play a small role in Civ, nations never go to war over religious beliefs, which is hardly representative of world history.

Gamers like a consistent set of rules and a predictable outcome if you play by the rules. Note that in the Civ3 expansion pack "Play the World", players are giving the option of turning off cities "flipping" to another civilization because too many people complained that it was too unpredictable and thus unfair.

Perhaps by modelling barbarians and minor nations in the manner that Civ's designers did, they were just seeking to create an enjoyable gaming experience. They were seeking a balance between exploring a virgin world and conquering territory only by first overcoming native resistance. I don't think it's meant to be a statement about Western attitudes about "uncivilized" peoples.

In any case, you wrote a very interesting article that I enjoyed very much. I can't begin to imagine what you must think a game like Grand Theft Auto says about Western civilization.

Kind Regards,
Rimpy

[Sandman]

Be sure to post his reply here.

[Mad Bomber]

Can anyone tell me what the hell the point of that article was? I started to read that and after the second paragraph I was reading Blah, blah, blah..... To me the article was more about showing off his acedemia vocabulary than actually writing an article that would give his reader a sense of what he is trying to communicate.

[Jaybe]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Can anyone tell me what the hell the point of that article was? I started to read that and after the second paragraph I was reading Blah, blah, blah..... To me the article was more about showing off his acedemia vocabulary than actually writing an article that would give his reader a sense of what he is trying to communicate.

The article got a little more interesting later on when he put more focus on Civ3, though I didn't get through the whole article either.

[notyoueither]

Re: Postmodern Culture article

Originally posted by Rimpy
How would you like to play as Britain and spend centuries conquering and developing territory, only to result in the majority of your territory becoming an independent civilization, and you're suddenly stuck with a dinky island in the North Atlantic? Not much fun.

This ought to be interesting...

[Rimpy]

Originally posted by Mad Bomber
Can anyone tell me what the hell the point of that article was? I started to read that and after the second paragraph I was reading Blah, blah, blah..... To me the article was more about showing off his acedemia vocabulary than actually writing an article that would give his reader a sense of what he is trying to communicate.

I think you summed it up pretty well. I think that the author was just trying to find an excuse for writing an essay about Western attitudes towards "natives" or "uncilvilized" people. He used the treatment of barbarians in Civ as an example that reflected that attitude. That was the main point of the article, although he had a lot of other stuff about video games in there that was only semi-relevant at best, and distracting at worst.

He could've made his point in about 1/10th of the space, but I guess writing such a long essay gave him more of a chance to show off his vocabulary. Conversely, I could've made my point in about four words: "It's only a game."

Rimpy

[punkbass2000]

I don't understand why it is that any time someone actually takes the time explain their arguments in great length and detail with a bit of intelligence that people think they're showing off.

[ruby_maser]

Originally posted by punkbass2000 with a bit of intelligence

thats a very subjective statement...

I've always found that people who can't state their arguements clearly and concisely, haven't thought through the problem well enough.

[Rimpy]

Originally posted by punkbass2000
I don't understand why it is that any time someone actually takes the time explain their arguments in great length and detail with a bit of intelligence that people think they're showing off.

I don't always think that, far from it. But that guy could definitely use a few lessons from Strunk & White, "The Elements of Style". Often, your message will be better understood if you make it as concisely as possible. He could've easily made the same point in much less space, and more people would've actually read the article to the end. And I also got the impression that he used a lot of big words for the sake of using big words. The end result was an article that overwhelms the reader with its length and its complexity.

The point of writing is, after all, to convey a message to your reader. Did his writing style make his message more or less difficult to understand? I think that it made it more difficult to understand, which is why I thought that it was poor writing.

Rimpy

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by ruby_maser


thats a very subjective statement...

True.

I've always found that people who can't state their arguements clearly and concisely, haven't thought through the problem well enough.

I thought it was very clear, and quite concise, given the broad nature of the subject.

[punkbass2000]

Originally posted by Rimpy
Often, your message will be better understood if you make it as concisely as possible.

True, but I don't believe that appealing to the lowest common denominator is inherently the best way to go. I don't know if you've ever read anything by Hegel, but it is nearly incomprehensible, and yet incredibly brilliant, IMO. I'm glad he didn't dumb it down.

He could've easily made the same point in much less space, and more people would've actually read the article to the end.

Yes, he could have, but I'd rather a longer article with several examples and in depth discussion than a brief stating of the thesis.

And I also got the impression that he used a lot of big words for the sake of using big words.

Really? Any examples?

The point of writing is, after all, to convey a message to your reader. Did his writing style make his message more or less difficult to understand?

I would say easier, if people took the time to read, digest and reread for comprehension. Is it the fault of the writer for writing too much or the fault of the reader for being too lazy to really get to know the piece?

[Theseus]

The guy is trying to make an untenable argument, and cloaking it in unnecessary complexity.

If he read Diamond, then why not point to the cultural displacements that took place in SE Asia and Africa?

[MosesPresley]

I can't believe people are discussing an article they didn't read. The excuse of too many big words is distressing. BUY A DICTIONARY! After all it is a college paper and it is written at the 12th grade level.

The man is verbose, and his sentences are a little on the long side, but he is not beyond the realm of understanding and he makes some good points as to the underlying of the attitudes of the game towards indigenous peoples in the game.

What follows is a quote from the article:

"The game also represents the national borders of rival civilizations; in fact, a small city with little culture of its own on the border of a rival civilization with a powerful culture can be swayed to depose its governor and convert to the rival civilization. What's interesting here too, however, is the role that culture plays vis-à-vis the Indians: first, Indian villages don't generate culture, and second, they won't emerge from "empty" land that is within your cultural borders but beyond the reach of your cities. As the manual puts it,

though you might conquer the active tribes in your immediate area, new ones arise in areas that are outside your cultural borders, in areas that are not currently seen. . . . Thus, expanding your network of cities over a continent eventually removes the threat of active tribes, because the entire area has become more or less civilized by your urban presence.

In other words, again repeating traditional American mythology, the Natives don't have culture (because their "villages" don't generate it like your "cities" do), but they can be tamed by it. Or, to put it yet another way, the absence of Native title to the land they squatted on is betrayed by their lack of real cultural formations that might confer tenancy.

In these games, the fact that the Indians are understood not to occupy the land is linked fundamentally to the Native inability to develop technology. That is, they propose that indigenous populations improperly take up space in the empty land precisely because they don't develop technology and therefore aren't nascent civilizations. Conversely, these populations don't develop technology because they don't have a meaningful presence on the land--when they are in their "goody huts" they don't, that is, work the land (as agriculture, mining, trade) as a resource in order to advance along a teleological model of technical progress."

The point I got from the article is this. It reinforces American's attitudes of indifference to its historical policy of Manifest Destiny.

"Civilization II and III construct the indigenous population as another obstacle of the landscape--and one which, like the others, needs to be settled and disciplined. Eradicating the minor tribes and the land's erupting barbarians is not an unfortunate side effect to the march of progress--it is actually constitutive of one's civilization."

Whether or not you agree with this is another matter.

Below is a jpg of the readability statistics of the article.

[Theseus]

MP, did you not read my post?

The dynamics of civ expansion / failure are not specific to the Western European expansion against Amerinds, MEsoamericans, or Aborigines.

They have been played out *countless* times in the Middle East, Africa, India, SE and Central Asia.

To say that this is an American phenomenon, and thus so is the design of the game, is an extremely limited view, and an argument not worth making.

It is the writer's OWN bias and either intellectual laziness or a lack of knowledge that are demonstrated here. The sophistry, acting as a cloak of invisibility, is irrelevant.

To say that a history game has been designed with history in mind is reflexive and rather pointless.

[ruby_maser]

MP, there is another thread in hear commenting on the article in question. you should perform your readability status on that thread because that is the one most people are referring to.

Though all I've read of this college boy's thesis is the excerpt you have provided (and I will take the time to do so fully when I get home), I can already tell it a significantly better quality of writing.