Chris Crawford Responds... ...Sort Of
I'm not sure how many of you are still reading the comments section of our article regarding Chris Crawford's piece in The Escapist on "Women In Gaming." Anyway, here is the "witty banter" Chris and I have been volleying to each other for the past day or so:- At 2:12 AM, Anonymous said…
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At 12:59 PM, Chris Crawford said…
I went through the many comments here and compiled some of the comments:
In reference to me:
"know it all"
"major blow hard"
"full of shit"
"a hack and a moron"
"go get fucked with a rusty spike"
"rudimentary grasp of evolutionary psychology"
"sad and childishly elementary"
"stupid"
"stupid"
"racist"
"idiot"
"ignorant"
"bullshit"
It would seem to me that people are devoting a great deal of attention to my personal worthiness as a human being. Might I suggest that my personal merits are of little import? Who cares whether I'm a good guy or a bad guy? Why do you want to talk about such a meaningless topic when there's so much to discuss about the ideas I present?
Next, I notice a great many straw men or caricatures of my assertions, such as:
"Those who question evolutionary psychology are fucking morons."
"Timothy St. Hilaire is a twit."
"The games industry doesn't know anything about women. Chris Crawford does. Chris Crawford is The Ladies Man"
"he portrayed the females something like rutting pregnant pigs."
"women are helpless, trite social butterflies"
These are distortions of my statements. If what I wrote is really so wrong, I'm sure you can devastate the actual statement without resorting to distortion.
Then there is a class of complaints that I did not present the entire corpus of evolutionary psychology. This is true. As I pointed out in the article, I presented a simple overview of the basic points, and suggested that readers who are interested follow up on any of the books that I offered. ANY representation of ANY phenomenon can be castigated for failing to include the entirety of the truth, because the entirety of the truth of any phenomenon is infinite.
There were a few substantive comments presented here. However, I do not see any substantive criticisms of the article here -- just a pile of vitriolic opinion. I will be happy to discuss issues raised by the article, but I do not have the time for dealing with childish name-calling. Please, if you have an issue to discuss, by all means present it. -
At 1:42 PM, CtrlAltDelete said…
Chris, maybe you didn't understand. I said "I toned the post in this way to illustrate a point." Strawman? Yes! name calling? Fuck yeah! Why do I need to resort to using argumentative fallacy to get my point across?
Because I do not believe you notice that you do it also.
"some twit"
"dogmatic fools"
"picky-picky natterers"
Are these not set up devices for ridiculing those who would question your statements? If people disagree with you, even if they have valid arguments, have you not already dismissed them as stupid?
Yes they are distortions, Chris. We put your words up on the page in blockquote form, and then followed them with our perceptions of your statements. It was "this is what he said, this is what I think he meant..." We also made you look silly. I think you should empathize more with readers who may possibly question your propositions, rather than declaring yourself master of theory.
We're a bit vulgar here, I'll admit. (It's a way of reproducing a vernacular form of language including off-color or taboo words to establish a repor with the potential readers who similarly speak in such manner and build a sense of sincerity. We engineer every word with the psychology of the reader in mind, you see. Complete and utter manipulation on our part.)
For an issue as important as gender representation in gaming you provided very little actual information, and set up the article with caveats to a final statement and called it "insight." If people are going to learn something about women in gaming, they should, oh I don't know, ask a woman, maybe?
The Escapist has done that. They're recent update contradicts some of your assertions about women and FPS gaming.
Do you honestly not see how someone could construe your article as pretentious or hostile and respond accordingly? The article was a lecture, my friend. It was a day on the syllabus of Chris Crawford that ended with understanding of the topic replaced by a bibliography.
If you would like someone to respond to your arguments in a polite concise report, then you must understand how difficult it is for professors and TA's to do so when given a paper supposedly about The Battle of Waterloo that rambles on about the primitive notions of violence and the psychology of agression and ends with "and that's why Napoleon lost."
It's frustrating.
If you want us to take the time to respond to you, you must also take the time to better prepare your articles. At the moment your article seems less like a statement to form new discussions on women in gaming, and more like an attempt to establish some published stock in your conclusions of social reasoning so that one day, if the ball rolls right, you can stand up to be the man who had told everyone; the Galileo of female gaming. Is this incorrect?
Otherwise, prepare for a mirrored attack on your words, using the same systems of argument you yourself utilize.
Other than declaring the article bile, what about it's premise?
See what I mean?
-Timothy St. Hilaire -
At 2:48 PM, Chris Crawford said…
Ah, but you have not quoted the article properly. The correct quotes are:
"...dogmatic fools who think evolutionary psychology amounts to some kind of genetic determinism"
"...some twit who points out that there are some women who can run faster than some men"
"... picky-picky natterers who will point out that there are some men who are better at social reasoning than some women"
Notice that relative clause introduced by the pronoun "who". It appears in each of the three comments. Every one of my comments is directed at a defined group of people, not any particular person. If you think that evolutionary psychology amounts to some kind of genetic determinism, then, yes, I think it's fair to call you a dogmatic fool. Do you?
If you respond to my argument about the female pelvis by pointing out there are some women who can run faster than some men, then, yes, I think it's fair to call you a twit. Do you?
If you respond to my claims about social reasoning with the argument that some men are better at social reasoning than some women, then, yes, I think it fair to call you a picky-picky natterer. Do you?
There's a huge difference between insulting a class of people defined by their undesirable actions and insulting an individual, don't you think?
So, where is that straw man that you claim hides among my words?
"If people disagree with you, even if they have valid arguments, have you not already dismissed them as stupid?"
Again, re-read the sentences in question. Are you claiming that the arguments I deride are good arguments? I did not attack good arguments, I attacked arguments that are absurd.
"I think you should empathize more with readers who may possibly question your propositions, rather than declaring yourself master of theory. "
You seem to be laboring under the assumption that I should write to make people feel good. That is not my objective. I write to communicate ideas. If an idea I wish to communicate is painful to some people, that is not my concern; my concern is to be truthful. Perhaps the truth will be of benefit to them. When did you ever learn from something that merely confirms your existing set of ideas?
"We engineer every word with the psychology of the reader in mind, you see."
Indeed. Perhaps my failure to lather my writing with obscenities renders my participation here inappropriate. I just don't use the lingo.
"For an issue as important as gender representation in gaming you provided very little actual information"
I disagree. There's a lot of information in that article. Do you mean to say that the article lacks footnotes? That is would not work as a scholarly paper? Perhaps it had little information for those already familiar with evolutionary psychology. That's OK. I could write something terribly complex about Erasmus or physics, should you wish to read something that goes over readers' heads. But why write over people's heads? What is accomplished?
"Do you honestly not see how someone could construe your article as pretentious or hostile and respond accordingly?"
No, I honestly can't. Please provide a quote that demonstrates pretention.
You seem to suggest that my article is beneath your intellect, and therefore you see no point in responding to it. Surely you could find one tiny little point that could be demolished in a few sentences -- couldn't you?
Lastly, you seem to suggest that I slapped the article together with such haste that it does not deserve a response. How much time did I take preparing this article? -
At 4:20 PM, said…
Uhm,
damn i read this stuff, now my head hurts!
Flame wars are lots of fun ... if you can understand what people are actually talking about.
... why don't you just skip the arguing part, you won't make it anyway and just jump to the name calling? You both seem to be very creative and I do need to improve my english cursing vocabulary.
Would be very much appreciated.
Thanks a million,
m.R -
At 5:29 PM, CtrlAltDelete said…
Oh dear. How should I put this delicately...
Alrighty, lets start from the top:
"Ah, but you have not quoted the article properly..."
Did you quote the comments against you properly? You compiled a big list of nasty words and concluded that everyone is against you, and not your words. (I can't really speak for everyone so I couldn't tell you their intentions.) So I did the same sort of list and threw it back at you. It was sneaky, but the message lies in the medium if you know what I mean.
"There's a huge difference between insulting a class of people defined by their undesirable actions and insulting an individual, don't you think?"
Nope. It's a conditional insult, Chris. "if one believes X, then one is ______" Replace "one" with "you" and it's the same remark. What are you saying, exactly? That if one person disagrees with a statement you make, then because they fall under the defined classification of all those who also oppose your arguments because of their disagreement, the person is not stupid, "they" are "collectively" stupid? I don't understand the relevance of your point.
If it makes you feel better, I disagree with everyone in the world that takes the position that Chris Crawford's article was informative and relevant to the issues of women and gaming and find them to be poopy heads.
Now it isn't a personal affront to you, just your "people."
"If you think that evolutionary psychology amounts to some kind of genetic determinism, then, yes, I think it's fair to call you a dogmatic fool."
Why?
"Do you?"
Not if they provide evidence to their arguments. To me a "dogmatic fool" is one who makes statements without providing evidence and preemptively insults those who may question the logic.
Evo Psychology, in it's current form, has been used for both good and bad, I hope you know. Genetic determinism? How do you interpret that term? Would you see marking genders and races as inferior or superior based on the humble life struggle of their genetic ancestors thousands of years ago, so that accommodations can be made to suit the needs of their modern counterparts as genetic determinism?
You mention in your article something about ..if we didn't teach people to fear snakes then they wouldn't fear them, this is bullshit, any rational person could examine the studies and conclude its bullshit...etc.,....
See, this is pretentious. You don't provide any evidence that such a study is incorrect, only that it is.
If you prefer an exact citation, here you go:
"They claim fear of snakes is some sort of cultural artifact, and that if only our culture stopped teaching people that snakes are fearsome, nobody would be afraid of snakes. A careful, scholarly analysis of this claim, based on experimental evidence and thorough review of the literature - as well as common experience - forces us to only one conclusion: This claim is complete crap."
See, I could try to define what it is to "teach" and "learn" to describe how the claim actually have some merit. I could point out observational learning is an integral part of psychology. I could point out that your next paragraph on "Human Choices" was outright laughed at by some of psychology department faculty members who read OGHC regularly who e-mailed us about your piece, but it wouldn't matter, because obviously the snake claim is complete "crap." (Watch your language, mister!) Such is the essence of pretension and self importance. You are an authority. You have read the books. you know what you're talking about. We, the readers, do not. Provide some evidence. It doesn't have to be a footnote, you don't have to right it out in APA format, but give us a HINT of what the hell you mean.
"If you respond to my argument about the female pelvis by pointing out there are some women who can run faster than some men, then, yes, I think it's fair to call you a twit."
Ah, so you are calling ME a twit, then yes? We come back to that conditional insult phase you like to use so much in the article.
The reason this is such a ridiculous statement is its lack of relevancy to anything at all. It's like saying "If you respond to my argument that McDonalds food is unhealthy by saying the Queen of England enjoys skydiving, you are an IDIOT." I sure am! It was a jibe at myself, Chris. Learn to lighten up a bit! The fact that statistically men can run faster than women is sort of an half minded attempt to set up women as being the birth-giving home force of the tribe. Other than that, it was sort of a silly thing to add in your article. So I make fun of myself instead of debating it.
"Do you?"
Yup. I am a twit. You got me on that one, man. Men statistically run faster than women. That's why Grandma didn't like Resident Evil 4 when she played as Ashley; bitch didn't run fast enough.
"If you respond to my claims about social reasoning with the argument that some men are better at social reasoning than some women, then, yes, I think it fair to call you a picky-picky natterer."
I'm sorry, man. You are going to have to define "pick-picky natterer" before I can conclusively say it is what I am. I'll replace it with another term, say "daft cunt."
You opened up a big ol' can of "what the shit?" when you mentioned social reasoning as a skill that women have come to possess through years of manipulation for security. Is it true? Who knows! It's difficult to judge such a thing. So difficult, in fact, that would you not agree it to be absurd to send in a woman rather than a man to judge someone's character abilities in a job interview? Do you think women do a better job than men identifying social inadequacies?
If so, how do you explain all the black eyes in the women's line to the bathroom at NASCAR races? They made some dandy fine relationship choices now, didn't they? Or for that matter all the shiners and bruises on the men at a Nine Inch Nails concert?
That was a joke, Chris.
"I did not attack good arguments, I attacked arguments that are absurd."
Why? Why not face good arguments with factual evidence debating their accuracy?
"You seem to be laboring under the assumption that I should write to make people feel good. That is not my objective."
I don't think you write to make people feel good. I don't think you write to make people feel shitty. I can't really say why I think you write what you do, because that wouldn't be very classy of me, and I'm a classy person. Although, so you know- it did make a lot of folks feel some positive emotions. My Grandma was laughing so hard she cried a little by page 5.
"I write to communicate ideas. If an idea I wish to communicate is painful to some people, that is not my concern; my concern is to be truthful"
It was painful for Grandma to learn she wasn't statistically a female.
No, I know, that's understood, Chris. That's another reason we responded as we did; so that you get negative reaction from writing a certain way, alter your style to avoid such a response, and through a system of natural selection provide more solid arguments that receive a much more informative response from people far smarter than I. From what I've read on our e-mails, however, that time is a bit of a ways off on this particular article. Sorry.
And look at you with your Pulp Fiction finesse! "If my answers upset you..." Man, you ARE Sam Jackson! Tell me again how you're not pretentious.
"Indeed. Perhaps my failure to lather my writing with obscenities renders my participation here inappropriate. I just don't use the lingo."
You should try it! It's very liberating to call zombies "cocksuckers." Go on, give it a whirl!
"I disagree. There's a lot of information in that article. Do you mean to say that the article lacks footnotes? That is would not work as a scholarly paper? Perhaps it had little information for those already familiar with evolutionary psychology. That's OK. I could write something terribly complex about Erasmus or physics, should you wish to read something that goes over readers' heads. But why write over people's heads? What is accomplished?"
Oh my... What are you saying about The Escapist? You underestimate the readers. You patronize them with a very elementary primer on evo psych and end it with a non-idea. I believe The Escapist is a bit more on the educated side of gaming journalism, I don't think you give folks enough credit.
And I learned what I did of Evo Psych mostly in High School, Chris. Not college. You spoke of fundamentally debated principles of the theory like it was an issue of "BLAST!" and we were the fearful public. Thus, your ideas are not fresh, I'm afraid.
You attempted a somewhat scholarly article, did you not? You expect a good debate about your contentions, yes? Then why not go the full monty and just publish a little evidence to back your claims?
"Please provide a quote that demonstrates pretention."
From the article or your comments or your website? Which would you prefer?
"You seem to suggest that my article is beneath your intellect, and therefore you see no point in responding to it. Surely you could find one tiny little point that could be demolished in a few sentences -- couldn't you?"
No, man! I'm an idiot, let me make that perfectly clear. Your article was not prepared in such a way to deserve a proper response from the right sort of people.
That's why you're posting comments on an article on "Old Grandma Hardcore."
"Lastly, you seem to suggest that I slapped the article together with such haste that it does not deserve a response. How much time did I take preparing this article?"
Are you asking me? I don't know. What I do know is that if it took you longer than say, six hours- you should reexamine your editing methods, I think.
I think it deserves a response, Chris. I tried to provide one for our readers, who, mostly female, were somewhat offended to learn they suck at Halo because of that extra X chomosome.
Mr. R., I don't know many good insults, I was raised by Grandma :) We just call each other fuckers. -
At 5:42 PM, Anonymous said…
At this point I think it's important for Chris to know something about the blog, the author is transgendered.
Tim might have been offended by your remarks at the beginning of the article that basically say that Ms. Pacman is a transsexual and not a "real" female.
That might explain some of the hostility.
Tim, I'll say this, it was a low blow. I don't agree with Chris Crawford's article at all, and your reponse was adequate enough to convince me of that, but if it really is because you're TG, he should at least know who he's talking to. -
At 6:11 PM, said…
Anonymous, thanks for pointing out Tim's background, as it certainly explains the intense hostility. However, I concentrate on the facts and logic of the argument, not the people making the argument, so I really don't care about Tim's background.
Tim, I must say, you have written such a pile of poor reasoning that I am at a loss to address all of it. I'll just take a few comments at random:
You defend deliberate misquoting by blaming me of the same thing. Yet my compilation of insults was nothing more than that: a list. You impute conclusions that I did not draw.
You seem to have a problem understanding subjunctive mood. Subjunctivity is quite different from indicativity. I won't bother belaboring the point.
You insinuate that psychology faculty members hold my statements in low regard. If those statements are so far off-base, why do you have to provide non-quotes from unnamed sources? Shouldn't you be able to dismiss them with a few terse sentences?
You suggest that I try using more obscenity in my writing. I don't think so -- I pride myself in the quality of my writing. Obscenity is useful only as a way of communicating intense emotion. You are obviously very emotional about this. That's fine -- you're young. I try very hard to concentrate on the facts and the logic, not the emotion, so I have no need for obscenity.
Your examples of pretentious writing on my part aren't very convincing. If you were to apply those same standards to the many pejorative comments you have offered here, you would have to conclude that you are vastly more pretentious than I am -- and since I doubt that you would agree with that subjunctive, I must conclude that your claim disintegrates.
Lastly, I will ask you, why are you so emotional about this? Why does an intellectual disagreement trigger such rivers of anger, such vituperation from you? If we were to disagree about the value of the 22nd decimal place in the value of Heisenberg's Constant, would you explode into a rage? -
At 6:55 PM, CtrlAltDelete said…
Anonymous, that's fair enough. I don't think I have been as hostile as Chris perceives me to be, though; and I NEVER claimed to know more about women and gaming because I have a perspective that transcends it- my friend I will not walk down that road.
Chris, well...
It seems it's all winding down now, yes? When we both resort to bashing each other's comments rather than the article at hand, there is little to add to a flame war.
So I'm TG. Big deal. You responded that it explains the hostility, but you never confront the issue of Ms. Pacman. Shit, I didn't even bring it up; but an apology would have been nice. I won't hold my breath.
So I'll say this: I don't see my writing as intense emotion, with vulgarity or otherwise. I tried to write a breakdown of why I think your article isn't very good. Perhaps you don't understand the purpose of our site. Perhaps you don't understand the humor.
Perhaps you simply searched for your own name in the GameBlogs archives and only wish to keep the article alive just a bit longer after the mention in Slashdot, so you find this blog; this silly website about some college student who's grandmother plays video games, and you begin to read.
I imagine it made you a bit angry to see your name and work slandered through the filtered perspective of some smart-ass kid who thinks they know a bit more about the subject than you do. Who is this kid to criticize? You see some flaws in the argument against you, you are insulted and frankly hurt by some of the comments left over from the downfall.
You are motivated to post a response.
Why? Is it because you believe you can win over some folks who read OGHC as they decide for themselves which side to accept? Is it because you think you could win any intellectual argument with this nobody, this industry non-entity, and someone needs to put them in their place?
Or is it something else?
Speculation is the tool of the damned, and I am certainly going to hell.
You claim to concentrate on the facts and logic of arguments rather than the people making the argument. Chris, you realize these comments are archived; I won't begin a match of "yes you do -- no you don't," I'll let folks decide for themselves, if they even read this old post. I contemplated posting an update, "Chris Crawford Responds," but I'll leave that to you. Do you want the arguments you've presented here to get some more traffic? If you do- I'll post an update tonight. Otherwise, I'll let this die. Our readers are not so completely loyal to Grandma and I that they will dissmiss your claims out of spite, they're a pretty smart bunch- so it wouldn't be an entirely biased place for presentation.
Chris, I fail to read anything that suggests I've "exploded into a rage."
So I'll finish this comment with your words, to let people understand my frustration with your article, and why we shake our heads, as it were, in disbelief.
"I pride myself in the quality of my writing." -
At 7:22 PM, said…
Tim, I agree with you that it's time to wind this down. A few brief items:
I re-read the section about Ms. Pac-Man and for the life of me, I can't see anything to apologize for.
As to my reasons for doing this, your speculations are way off the mark. It is likely that I was coping with professional criticism before you were born, and after a while, one learns to take the adulation and the criticism as so much ephemera. I really don't care what other people think of me -- what matters is what *I* think of me. And I am by far my own harshest critic. The criticisms offered here are wild shots in the dark, complete misses that have no effect on me because they're so completely wrong. But I seek out good criticism. That's why I came here. I was hoping to see if anybody could offer anything substantial. Nobody did -- just a lot of hot air, verbal violence, chest beating, all signifying nothing. But I keep looking -- I might get lucky.
My other reason for coming here was the desire to teach. I'm still a teacher at heart, and rationalism is the star I set my course by. So when I saw these grand irrational hyperboles, I realized that I had a great opportunity to teach an important lesson about rationalism. All that wild chest-beating came to a screeching halt after I posted. It's so easy to trash another person when they're not present, but when the reality of their presence thrusts itself forward, it can be quite a shock, can it not?
I also wanted to show you a better way to handle disagreement. Despite several complaints that this is a flamewar, I know that none of the flames came from me. The best way to handle falsehood is to simply state the truth. That's what I did here.
I realize that you're so angry with me that you won't immediately learn these lessons. But what I have done today is created some emotional jars that might shake some people into a more careful rationalism. And that's what I set out to do.
Vaya con dios, my friend.
Chris
More importantly is an e-mail I recieved from the Julianne Greer, Editor of The Escapist:
Hello Mr. St. Hilaire,
Thank you for writing in and posting about the piece on your blog.
I am glad to hear that you are still reading our magazine and are enjoying it.
And I did read what you wrote on your blog.
As far as a counter-point to Chris' arguments, we certainly have had several
in the form of letters to the editor, some of which we will certainly
publish in next week's issue. Additionally, people like yourself blogging
about their thoughts, outrage or ideas spawned by the article are providing
a wonderful rebutal to his arguments.
And this is part of my goal as an editor - spurring discussion of games
and the issues surrounding them. I like to make sure that we provide food
for thought, discussion and action. Yes, the article has found opposition
in many locations. But what I find heartening and very positive about all
of this is people are talking about, in very well-thought out discussions,
why more women are not involved in gaming. And THAT is a wonderful thing.
I hope that you and Granny continue to enjoy the magazine. Again,
thanks for
writing.
Best regards,
Julianne Greer
Executive Editor
The Escapist
I find this to be a wonderful response from the online magazine. It's true, her job as editor is to stimulate discussion, and so she has. It's also worth mentioning that the article was Slashdotted, so I'm sure she was flooded by responses about the piece. She didn't have to respond to us, but she did anyway. That was pretty good form.
I don't know what you folks think about all this, so let's hear it!
posted by CtrlAltDelete @ 9:00 PM
If they are that intested in the games I play as a Girl. Why don't they just fucking ask me, because that would be too simple....