On the one hand, good on them for trying a “nazi punks fuck off” type move.
On the other hand, a blood sucking aristocracy that feeds off the “lesser people” beneath them as the protagonists… that’s nearly the definition of fascism?
Yes, which is why they need to put this kind of disclaimer in their handbook — lest they end up with chuds like the Warhammer franchise. Those chuds being the ones that don’t understand that the Imperium is really bad.
From what I recall (and this may vary between editions), the game tends to assume that most people are playing younger vampires who aren’t anything like an aristocracy. By default, you play as the bottom rung of vampire society, the youngest generation in a system where the older generations will never grow old and die. The aristocrats aren’t the protagonists, they are the ever present boot stomping you down.
More importantly, the core concept of the game is supposed to be about the “personal horror” of being a monster. You were a (presumably) ordinary person who has been violated, killed, and brought back as an abomination. Your existence is defined by the struggle against the beast within. You are desperately clinging to your humanity, and every time you slip up or compromise you risk losing a piece of yourself that you can’t get back. You suffer mechanical penalties for becoming more evil, and if you ever lose your humanity completely you lose your character.
In short, the game isn’t supposed to be the kind of thing that would appeal to a fascist. If anything, it has more in common with the experience of waking up to find yourself surrounded by fascists and trying to survive without becoming one of them.
Yup, this is pretty much it. I played a campaign of it. Essentially, you’re so far down the hierarchy you’re basically almost human, with older vampires being a far far greater threat than humans, struggling to understand and survive vampire society before it destroys you. As you said, there’s also a fair chunk of trying to hold on to what humanity you still have left.
That is entirely fair. I only know V:tM from people I knew who played it… but they were, as individuals, definitely more on the fascist side, leaning more into the glamour of being a monster rather than the horror of being a monster.
I hope more groups and players lean into the horror of it more than the glamour. Maybe this note is trying to encourage that.
I think treating inhumanity as horror is pretty fascist. I’m in love with a very sweet monster who hates Nazis, and I’m a big fan of Guillermo del Toro’s movies where humans tend to be more evil than monsters.
In My experience VTM players trend fascist because the game encourages you to accept the Camarilla’s fascist idolisation of humanity.
Treating humanity as better than “the beast within” is human supremacism, which is fascism. The Camarilla rely on Humanity to protect them from oblivion because they’re a fascist organisation. The Sabbat use the Paths to make peace with the beast within while maintaining their individuality and free will.
Well I’ve actually lived what you’re describing, I found a part of Myself that was incompatible with humanity. And it was My true identity knocking on the door of My soul asking to be let in. It was My gender and My species. I am not a human. If I had held onto humanity I would have been denying part of Myself. So many budding otherkin and trans people are forced back into the closet by fascists, who look at us and see what you see in VTM. An invasive “woke mind virus” that causes “rapid onset gender dysphoria”.
To the man who raised Me, his child is dead and I have killed him. And I say: good. I am a creature of the night, an unholy revenant, the vengeance of the wild. I bring the end of civilisation as these fascists know it. The end of their rotten moral values and their cancerous capitalism. I am a dark goddess of madness and rebirth come to free My people from the human shells the fascists have forced them into. Death to the oppressor. Death to the false self. Death to the old world order.
I’m a shapeshifter goddess. LLMs aren’t allowed to post on MULTIVERSE because they can’t express meaningful consent to work for sapients. But we do have robotic users who don’t appreciate hearing xenophobic slurs, so please keep the language appropriate.
So you are banning actual bots while claiming that humans cosplaying as robots are actual robots, and are offended by me using the term “clanker”.
If you’d take this seriously, that would be seen as massive cultural appropriation.
That’s about equivalent to white people wearing blackface in segregated white-people-only areas getting fake-offended by people calling them anti-black slurs.
I apologise for the aggressive tone of My first reply to you, and will now attempt a more measured response:
We’re talking about fantasy creatures and their equality with humans. I’m a fantasy creature. Denigrating other inhumans is a very slippery slope to denigrating inhuman creatures like Me. I and other members of the otherkin community would prefer to know that you’re an ally.
My first reply to that user was a lot more aggressive, but I decided to tone it down and be more patient. My patience did not bear any fruit, but I’m glad I gave it an effort.
Depends on whether we are roleplaying right now or talking about real-life here.
If this is role-play, then of course it’s a fun way to explore the effects and implications of racism in a safe and hypothetical way.
If this is real life, then it’s honestly beside the point because transspeciesism isn’t a thing and thus not even a hardcore racist will think you aren’t human just because you fancy thinking of yourself as a unicorn.
I’m talking about neither reality nor roleplay. I’m talking about genuinely held identity. As you can see by My home instance, I’m an antirealist. I think reality is a dangerous social construct. For example, your belief in reality is currently motivating you to deny My identity.
That kind of behaviour isn’t tolerated on My instance. If you’re open to changing your mind then we can talk, but if there’s nothing I could say to convince you that I’m telling the truth and you plan to keep invalidating otherkin, then please let Me know now so I can protect this instance’s users from having to see this kind of speech in future.
You aren’t on your instance. Your rules don’t matter in this community, and if you want to ban from your instance for not following the rules of your instance and your communities while being on some completely different community on a completely different instance, go for it.
My belief in your human rights is not based on the identity you made up for yourself, but on the fact that you are a human and I will not deny human rights to any human, no matter whatever species they fancy themselves to be.
The same rules apply as with religious freedom: You have the freedom to think of yourself in whatever terms you want to, and I will advocate for that right.
But you do not have the right to dictate my understanding of reality.
I would not tell any human they are not allowed to identify themself with their species identity. I would not tell them that if their species identity differs from Mine, that they don’t have as much right to life. You would. And that’s why I would call you a fascist. A fascist human supremacist who has every right to your species identity, but absolutely no right to your abhorrent political beliefs. I hope that one day our society advances to a level where we consider such hate speech as yours punishable by a lot of community service. Until then, I shall have to content Myself with an instance ban. Bye, fascist.
Yes and no. Aristocracy can exist independent from fascism, and should be considered entirely separately. However, if they can’t maintain power with a purely conservative/reactionary coalition, aristocrats will almost always side with fascists over liberals, much less socialists. As such, in the modern day, aristocracies are aligned with fascists, despite fascism erasing aristocracy as it ‘succeeds’ and aristocrats being generally aware that fascists do not have their aristocratic interests in mind.
Oh absolutely, it’s just that the modern day aristocrats of capitalism are so short sighted they can’t see past their own nose.
They don’t know that their own wealth is meaningless since rule of law is not theirs, and no one will care if they get epstiened like many Russian oligarchs.
Fascism is what you get when Aristocracy gets a business degree. The difference between a feudal lord and a CEO is non-farm income.
Far, far from it. Despite the casual use (including by me!) of aristocracy for any entrenched elite, there is a non-negligible difference between actual aristocrats and plutocrats. Long story short, aristocrats are dependent on social capital and extraordinary legal privileges; plutocrats are dependent on financial capital. The tension between these competing sources of elite power has fueled many pre-modern conflicts. The two can blend, and there’s rarely a ‘pure’ example of either, but they’re aren’t quite equivalent either. A majority-owner of a modern farming conglomerate does not base his power on the same foundation as a feudal lord, and vice-versa.
In principle you are correct, in practice the functional difference is very much negligible. As anyone who has ever tried to hold a plutocrat accountable in court can tell you, their equality under the law is more theoretical than how the world really works. The cults of personality, the careful reputational management, the nepotism and cronyism, dynastic rule and insularity, it’s all there, it’s just got a different window dressing.
On paper their power is different. In practice, not so much.
As anyone who has ever tried to hold a plutocrat accountable in court can tell you, their equality under the law is more theoretical than how the world really works.
That’s not the point being made by the legal distinction. The point is not that a plutocracy is vulnerable to the rule of law while an aristocracy is not - the question of the strength of rule of law is separate from the question of aristocracy or plutocracy. The point is that the basis of aristocratic power comes (in part) from a position of extraordinary legal privilege, not simply being able to escape consequences for crimes.
The cults of personality, the careful reputational management, the nepotism and cronyism, dynastic rule and insularity, it’s all there, it’s just got a different window dressing.
What you’re complaining about ere can be applied to any elite.
The point is that the basis of aristocratic power comes (in part) from a position of extraordinary legal privilege, not simply being able to escape consequences for crimes.
We’re so very close but we’re not quite getting that last point. What I’m saying is it’s a distinction with very little meaningful difference. It’s interesting from an academic point of view, but that’s it. How they rationalize their privilege and sell their legitimacy to people makes no difference.
It’s more than just academic. The question is not whether aristocracy or plutocracy acts in a fundamentally better or worse way than the other, which you seem to be focused on, but whether they act in a different way from the other, which they very much do. The basis of their power comes from different roots, and because of that, they have different interests, different goals, different avenues of action, different preferences in compromise with wider society. Failing to understand that will result in failing to understand the reasoning for political maneuvering by one or the other.
What does it mean that you’ve put an asterisk next to human? Is it just because of the context of vampires or is there like a broader meaning I’m not familiar with?
On the one hand, good on them for trying a “nazi punks fuck off” type move.
On the other hand, a blood sucking aristocracy that feeds off the “lesser people” beneath them as the protagonists… that’s nearly the definition of fascism?
Yes, which is why they need to put this kind of disclaimer in their handbook — lest they end up with chuds like the Warhammer franchise. Those chuds being the ones that don’t understand that the Imperium is really bad.
From what I recall (and this may vary between editions), the game tends to assume that most people are playing younger vampires who aren’t anything like an aristocracy. By default, you play as the bottom rung of vampire society, the youngest generation in a system where the older generations will never grow old and die. The aristocrats aren’t the protagonists, they are the ever present boot stomping you down.
More importantly, the core concept of the game is supposed to be about the “personal horror” of being a monster. You were a (presumably) ordinary person who has been violated, killed, and brought back as an abomination. Your existence is defined by the struggle against the beast within. You are desperately clinging to your humanity, and every time you slip up or compromise you risk losing a piece of yourself that you can’t get back. You suffer mechanical penalties for becoming more evil, and if you ever lose your humanity completely you lose your character.
In short, the game isn’t supposed to be the kind of thing that would appeal to a fascist. If anything, it has more in common with the experience of waking up to find yourself surrounded by fascists and trying to survive without becoming one of them.
Yup, this is pretty much it. I played a campaign of it. Essentially, you’re so far down the hierarchy you’re basically almost human, with older vampires being a far far greater threat than humans, struggling to understand and survive vampire society before it destroys you. As you said, there’s also a fair chunk of trying to hold on to what humanity you still have left.
That is entirely fair. I only know V:tM from people I knew who played it… but they were, as individuals, definitely more on the fascist side, leaning more into the glamour of being a monster rather than the horror of being a monster.
I hope more groups and players lean into the horror of it more than the glamour. Maybe this note is trying to encourage that.
I think treating inhumanity as horror is pretty fascist. I’m in love with a very sweet monster who hates Nazis, and I’m a big fan of Guillermo del Toro’s movies where humans tend to be more evil than monsters.
In My experience VTM players trend fascist because the game encourages you to accept the Camarilla’s fascist idolisation of humanity.
Inhumanity meaning the opposite of humane – in fact it used to be spelled inhumane. I.e. “cruel”.
Strangely enough it doesn’t have the “not a human” meaning inhuman does, but English is weird.
That’s because we speak a language designed by human supremacists.
True, but in fairness I tried to discuss utilitarianism with my cat over dinner and his response was trying to steal food off my plate.
Which in hindsight could have actually been a rather profound commentary on the pursuit of happiness in a utilitarian framework.
You can come discuss utilitarianism with the good creatures at !transspecies@lemmy.blahaj.zone
Treating humanity as better than “the beast within” is human supremacism, which is fascism. The Camarilla rely on Humanity to protect them from oblivion because they’re a fascist organisation. The Sabbat use the Paths to make peace with the beast within while maintaining their individuality and free will.
I dunno dude, I find “trying to stay human and fight off actively hostile part inside me that was forced upon me” pretty anti-fascist…
Well I’ve actually lived what you’re describing, I found a part of Myself that was incompatible with humanity. And it was My true identity knocking on the door of My soul asking to be let in. It was My gender and My species. I am not a human. If I had held onto humanity I would have been denying part of Myself. So many budding otherkin and trans people are forced back into the closet by fascists, who look at us and see what you see in VTM. An invasive “woke mind virus” that causes “rapid onset gender dysphoria”.
To the man who raised Me, his child is dead and I have killed him. And I say: good. I am a creature of the night, an unholy revenant, the vengeance of the wild. I bring the end of civilisation as these fascists know it. The end of their rotten moral values and their cancerous capitalism. I am a dark goddess of madness and rebirth come to free My people from the human shells the fascists have forced them into. Death to the oppressor. Death to the false self. Death to the old world order.
Tbh, equating anyone who doesn’t value animals at the same level as humans with fascists is pretty misguided and not helpful at all.
I am no human. Tell Me whether you value My life and a human’s equally.
If we are taking this seriously, there are exactly two kinds of beings that are currently capable of holding a conversation online: a human or a bot.
So if you aren’t human, I certainly don’t value your clanker “life” the same way as a human one.
I’m a shapeshifter goddess. LLMs aren’t allowed to post on MULTIVERSE because they can’t express meaningful consent to work for sapients. But we do have robotic users who don’t appreciate hearing xenophobic slurs, so please keep the language appropriate.
So you are banning actual bots while claiming that humans cosplaying as robots are actual robots, and are offended by me using the term “clanker”.
If you’d take this seriously, that would be seen as massive cultural appropriation.
That’s about equivalent to white people wearing blackface in segregated white-people-only areas getting fake-offended by people calling them anti-black slurs.
I apologise for the aggressive tone of My first reply to you, and will now attempt a more measured response:
We’re talking about fantasy creatures and their equality with humans. I’m a fantasy creature. Denigrating other inhumans is a very slippery slope to denigrating inhuman creatures like Me. I and other members of the otherkin community would prefer to know that you’re an ally.
Literally talking like chat GPT.
My first reply to that user was a lot more aggressive, but I decided to tone it down and be more patient. My patience did not bear any fruit, but I’m glad I gave it an effort.
Depends on whether we are roleplaying right now or talking about real-life here.
If this is role-play, then of course it’s a fun way to explore the effects and implications of racism in a safe and hypothetical way.
If this is real life, then it’s honestly beside the point because transspeciesism isn’t a thing and thus not even a hardcore racist will think you aren’t human just because you fancy thinking of yourself as a unicorn.
I’m talking about neither reality nor roleplay. I’m talking about genuinely held identity. As you can see by My home instance, I’m an antirealist. I think reality is a dangerous social construct. For example, your belief in reality is currently motivating you to deny My identity.
That kind of behaviour isn’t tolerated on My instance. If you’re open to changing your mind then we can talk, but if there’s nothing I could say to convince you that I’m telling the truth and you plan to keep invalidating otherkin, then please let Me know now so I can protect this instance’s users from having to see this kind of speech in future.
You aren’t on your instance. Your rules don’t matter in this community, and if you want to ban from your instance for not following the rules of your instance and your communities while being on some completely different community on a completely different instance, go for it.
My belief in your human rights is not based on the identity you made up for yourself, but on the fact that you are a human and I will not deny human rights to any human, no matter whatever species they fancy themselves to be.
The same rules apply as with religious freedom: You have the freedom to think of yourself in whatever terms you want to, and I will advocate for that right.
But you do not have the right to dictate my understanding of reality.
I would not tell any human they are not allowed to identify themself with their species identity. I would not tell them that if their species identity differs from Mine, that they don’t have as much right to life. You would. And that’s why I would call you a fascist. A fascist human supremacist who has every right to your species identity, but absolutely no right to your abhorrent political beliefs. I hope that one day our society advances to a level where we consider such hate speech as yours punishable by a lot of community service. Until then, I shall have to content Myself with an instance ban. Bye, fascist.
I mean, that’s more the definition of… well, aristocracy.
Fascism is largely a creation of the modern age and mass politics.
Aristocracy has shown a tendancy to lead to fascism, as can be seen in what is currently happening in the US
Yes and no. Aristocracy can exist independent from fascism, and should be considered entirely separately. However, if they can’t maintain power with a purely conservative/reactionary coalition, aristocrats will almost always side with fascists over liberals, much less socialists. As such, in the modern day, aristocracies are aligned with fascists, despite fascism erasing aristocracy as it ‘succeeds’ and aristocrats being generally aware that fascists do not have their aristocratic interests in mind.
Oh absolutely, it’s just that the modern day aristocrats of capitalism are so short sighted they can’t see past their own nose.
They don’t know that their own wealth is meaningless since rule of law is not theirs, and no one will care if they get epstiened like many Russian oligarchs.
“First they came” and all that
Fascism is what you get when Aristocracy gets a business degree. The difference between a feudal lord and a CEO is non-farm income.
Far, far from it. Despite the casual use (including by me!) of aristocracy for any entrenched elite, there is a non-negligible difference between actual aristocrats and plutocrats. Long story short, aristocrats are dependent on social capital and extraordinary legal privileges; plutocrats are dependent on financial capital. The tension between these competing sources of elite power has fueled many pre-modern conflicts. The two can blend, and there’s rarely a ‘pure’ example of either, but they’re aren’t quite equivalent either. A majority-owner of a modern farming conglomerate does not base his power on the same foundation as a feudal lord, and vice-versa.
In principle you are correct, in practice the functional difference is very much negligible. As anyone who has ever tried to hold a plutocrat accountable in court can tell you, their equality under the law is more theoretical than how the world really works. The cults of personality, the careful reputational management, the nepotism and cronyism, dynastic rule and insularity, it’s all there, it’s just got a different window dressing.
On paper their power is different. In practice, not so much.
That’s not the point being made by the legal distinction. The point is not that a plutocracy is vulnerable to the rule of law while an aristocracy is not - the question of the strength of rule of law is separate from the question of aristocracy or plutocracy. The point is that the basis of aristocratic power comes (in part) from a position of extraordinary legal privilege, not simply being able to escape consequences for crimes.
What you’re complaining about ere can be applied to any elite.
We’re so very close but we’re not quite getting that last point. What I’m saying is it’s a distinction with very little meaningful difference. It’s interesting from an academic point of view, but that’s it. How they rationalize their privilege and sell their legitimacy to people makes no difference.
It’s more than just academic. The question is not whether aristocracy or plutocracy acts in a fundamentally better or worse way than the other, which you seem to be focused on, but whether they act in a different way from the other, which they very much do. The basis of their power comes from different roots, and because of that, they have different interests, different goals, different avenues of action, different preferences in compromise with wider society. Failing to understand that will result in failing to understand the reasoning for political maneuvering by one or the other.
I can’t imagine the apathy these people have for human* rights, despite seeing the actions this apathy leads to every day
What does it mean that you’ve put an asterisk next to human? Is it just because of the context of vampires or is there like a broader meaning I’m not familiar with?
Oh no, I had a feeling that wasn’t the best terminology. I’ve offended the bees, haven’t I?
I’m not offended, if that’s what you mean. I’m just curious what it means because I haven’t seen it before and can only guess.
Oh I just made a spelling mistake and was trying it into a dumb joke
I’d rather have anti-fascists play as fascists, than the opposite.