How do the dominant cultural narratives in art and mass media affect our politics? (2024)

Since the US politics thread nowadays is getting derailed into a conversation about the place of art and mass media in politics once every two days, and I usually find those derails to get interesting, I decided to create a thread for that subject in particular.

To start conversation, what do you think about the idea that The Chosen One trope feeds an autocratic view of politics?

1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV

My take on that trope in regards to politics is that it's overrated. Remember Coolridge? Okay, the stock market crash isn't his fault; but the hype was still there.

Answer no master, never the slaveCarry your dreams down into the graveEvery heart, like every soul, equal to break

I'd like to point out that there's a lot of difference between media that's made contemporaneously and media made after, in response. Late night comedy shows, for instance, are pretty much responding immediately to any particular situation. Other things, like movies and tv shows, take a lot longer and are often at least a little after the fact of any particular situation. Also, sometimes we use historical figures or events to comment on things now.

There's also the fact that a lot of the comparisons were, on the part of the participants in the politics thread, retroactive comparisons of the current situation to media being produced before the current situation was taking place. That fact that we can look at a book's plot or other thing and say "hey that applies to now" must be taken into account; such things cannot be specifically commenting on things that haven't happened yet and that the creator probably wasn't thinking of. Applicability is what is being used in these cases, and in doing so people frequently end up drawing very far fetched comparisons.

This post was more how media works and how people sometimes interact with their media than anything, but it seems important to point out for this topic.

I feel like Kyle Kallgren's recent Between The Lines video is extremely relevant here:

its a discussion on German art, film specifically, from the early twenties, to the rise of Hitler, and has some clear parallels to modern day.

edited 13th Dec '16 10:58:13 AM by Jetyl

I'm afraid I can't explain myself, sir. Because I am not myself, you see?

So over in the US politics thread we got into a discussion about the impact that video games have on the perspective people have of historical nation. Specifically their portrayal of things like Nazi Germany, the Confederate US, Imperial Japan compared to their portrayal of say native Americans.

Specifically we got focused on Paradox grand strategy games, I can only really speak for EU 4, Vic 2 and slightly HOI 4 but in my experience they tend to have a number of weird historical inaccuracies caused by gameplay. In EU 4 it's far to easy to conquer the Americas but there is also weirdness like France being able to annex half of Iberia unopposed, Poland never being partitioned, the Ottomans eating everyone and China either constantly exploding or becoming an unstoppable monster.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Posted this in the US thread before realizing you guys were already moving: This is a small nitpic for Ambar

Paradox made that decision for me when they made it possible to port my game across all four. Don't tell me they're separate games and cannot/should not be compared together—not when I can start in the 700s in Crusader Kings II and conclude in the 1940s in HOI. The games are designed to be taken together and as such, examining their overarching narrative is legitimate.

They only have a port mechanism for Crusader Kings (2) to Europa Universalis (4). Other ports are fanmade and fan-mantained taking advantage of the fact that all games use versions of the same engine and have similar savefile types allowing this to happen. 1 2 We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. -KV

As someone who has played more or less all of the Paradox games I think an important fact to remember is that even though they have a historical framework (with the exception of Stellaris) that doesn't not make them accurate. Paradox is concerned less with accuracy than they are with gameplay and verisimilitude. So if people take Paradox games at face value and attempt to learn something then the result is unlikely to be pleasant.

edited 13th Aug '17 4:22:58 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems"-Hylarn

To start conversation, what do you think about the idea that The Chosen One trope feeds an autocratic view of politics?

Generally speaking there's a tendency for people to view individuals more favorably than a larger group. It makes things more personable and gives them a face.

It also feeds into the individualist idea that "one man" is all it takes to make a difference. The alternative - that we're all cogs in an extremely complex interlocking system where our individual abilities to contribute are limited - isn't very psychologically appealing.

That's part of why the fantasy of the chosen one is appealing, that you're all it takes to make a difference and you never really had to work for it anyway - you were already meant to do it.

Paradox made that decision for me when they made it possible to port my game across all four. Don't tell me they're separate games and cannot/should not be compared together—not when I can start in the 700s in Crusader Kings II and conclude in the 1940s in HOI. The games are designed to be taken together and as such, examining their overarching narrative is legitimate.

Okay, firstly, don't tell me they're meant to be taken together because the games can be ported (with a lot of work). The release dates on all of them stretch over a really long period of time—and whether they might make the same choices now as they did in past games is a question to ask Paradox. Sword of Islam came out June 2012; Victoria II 2010. If we want to start divining Paradox's attitude, it's better to look at the new DLC/EUIV and HOI IV.

And sadly, the overarching narrative is, intentionally or otherwise, pro-white supremacy. When nonwhite nations are being consistently given handicaps, some based in a version of history, some not, and are portrayed as horrible stereotypes, while at the same time, Nazi Germany is given a lot of breaks and gets a whitewash, the narrative is racist. If the Zulu or Iroquois or pick-your-nonwhite-group got the same ahistorical breaks Nazi Germany got, we wouldn't be having this conversation.

Half of that comes down to historical issues. EUIV rectified a good deal of it technologically (and mostly focuses on Europe doing its best to murder itself over several hundred years) to the point you can no longer get a historical outcome, Victoria II and Hearts of Iron inherit the state of the world at that point in time.

But—what you seem to be constantly espousing that I cannot wrap my head around—is that a World War II strategy game should kneecap itself from the get-go and make Germany doomed, then justify it by pointing at the other games and saying "but these nations are weak!"

You're arguing against the game existing at all, which isn't a void that would really hold. And you can't show the full atrocities of Nazi Germany in games if you want them to actually be published. It's the same reason all the historical events tend to gloss over exactly how violent and murderous history is.

Actually, in general, that's the reason Nazi Germany ends up being made more powerful in games/not shown in detail—one, it restricts how much the game can be distributed. Two, a game where they're too weak ceases to be interesting to any meaningful degree in gameplay (regardless of the side you're on).

edited 13th Aug '17 4:26:30 PM by RainehDaze

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But—what you seem to be constantly espousing that I cannot wrap my head around—is that a World War II strategy game should kneecap itself from the get-go and make Germany doomed, then justify it by pointing at the other games and saying "but these nations are weak!"

That's exactly what I'm saying. Paradox has made the choice to handicap the nonwhite, non-Western countries in its other games, and defends this by claiming some form of historical accuracy. Yet it does not handicap Nazi Germany to near the same extent, despite it's defeat being a historical inevitability. Why does Nazi Germany get this kind of favouritism, while the nonwhite, non-Western countries do not?

Not really sure what's hard to understand about that.

And you can't show the full atrocities of Nazi Germany in games if you want them to actually be published.

Then maybe, just maybe, making the Nazis playable is a bad idea.

edited 13th Aug '17 4:33:54 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

There are a number of historical things glossed over in EU 4, slavery is probably the biggest one, like it happens and you can abolish slavery, but it's not given any depth, be it how it impacts things in areas where slaves were imported or the role that West African nations played in the selling of slaves to Europeans.

With HOI 4 I've got to ask, people who've played it, how doomed is Nazi Germany if the USSR and Allies (Allies in the same being the UK lead faction fo democracies) stick together? Because that seems to be the big split point, because the same is aimed to have a three way conflict the Axis benefits, because historically the world's demoacries and communists basically allied together to fight the Fascists.

Oh and in the interest in full transpancy I will admit that I've now booted up EU 4 for a game now.

It's far from just Nazi Germany that is more powerful than it was historically, Poland and the Ottomans in EU 4 are incredibly overpowered, awkwardly enough the Irish and Scottish are incredibly underpowered when compared to the English.

Also can you explain how you feel Nazi Germany should be shown. What boosts does it have that you feel are inaccurate, what outcomes are regularly seen (that aren't player caused) that you feel the game makes to easy?

edited 13th Aug '17 4:35:50 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

That's exactly what I'm saying. Paradox has made the choice to handicap the nonwhite, non-Western countries in its other games, and defends this by claiming some form of historical accuracy. Yet it does not handicap Nazi Germany to near the same extent, despite it's defeat being a historical inevitability. Why does Nazi Germany get this kind of favouritism, while the nonwhite, non-Western countries do not?

The "why" is simple. It's a WWII game and you don't have a game otherwise. Now, there's a clear reason that you wouldn't just stick WWII on the end of Victoria—the rate of technological change just goes through the roof and it'd be hard to go from a heavily multipolar game to one with a few superpowers—and that leads to WWII as a separate game.

You can't have a WWII strategy game of any depth if, out of the game's major players, two start joined up, a third is doomed whatever happens, and the fourth is probably going to join the first two. It'd be a really sh*tty game if you don't even have to try and win unless you ignore the World War and just gun for the USSR instead to actually have a game.

It's not like giving Native Americans buffs is needed to have any gameplay at all.

Then maybe, just maybe, making the Nazis playable is a bad idea.

I disagree, because you can't show them from the other side, either. This all gets too close to actually censoring WWII entirely.

edited 13th Aug '17 4:36:06 PM by RainehDaze

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In my experience, AI-controlled Germany in the "historical focuses on" mode is pretty much doomed to fail - heck, if you play with random focuses, it's even more doomed because they might get dragged into an early World War 2 before they even managed to annex Austria or Czechoslovakia.

"Historical" in this game rather means that the AI will try to act closer to history when picking its focuses etc - which usually means that Germany WILL attack the Soviet Union at a certain point regardless of how well they're doing.

A successful Germany in this game is always a result of some kind of player intervention in my experience - either a player's playing one of the Axis members and doing the heavy lifting (or even playing Germany) or the Allies somehow got into a war with the Comintern instead (which happened in a game a friend and I played as the Soviet Union and the PRC)

Long story short: AI Germany always fails in the end - the question is only how long it takes the Allies and Soviets to roll over them at some point.

edited 13th Aug '17 4:36:39 PM by DrunkenNordmann

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

The difference is that for Hearts of Iron it's a WW 2 strategy game thus the various major nations (including Germany) need to be balanced and playable. While both EU 4 and Victoria 2 are explicitly meant to be euroscentric (it's in the name). Yes the civilized and uncivilized dichotomy is deeply problematic but that's the entire point, that's how the European powers saw things. It's worth noting that the uncivilized nations can civilize and possibly become viable (it depends on the nation, Japan is absolutely viable but one of the Indian minors probably isn't).

edited 13th Aug '17 4:37:21 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems"-Hylarn

Europa Universalis did actually receive some balancing over the last months. They scrapped the technology group system in favour of institutions that spawn in one region and slowly spread around; countries that haven't embraced a new institution yet get a slowly tech penalty until they embrace it. And most of these insitutions can technically spawn everywhere - I got the Colonialism institution as Mali or even Japan once.

They're also constantly working on making Asia etc better - to the point that Ming is kinda overpowered right now.

One of the weirdest thing about Europa Universalis 4 to me is how a lot of players seem to completely misinterpret what "cultural conversion" actually means. It's supposed to represent how the upper class in integrated areas often adapted the court culture over time - but instead some people treat it like it's actual genocide.

edited 13th Aug '17 4:42:53 PM by DrunkenNordmann

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

China is also ridiculously powerful if it stops being agrarian and industrialises.

I like that they realised that technology could have spawned elsewhere—some can't, like the Printing Press, but given different writing systems it's obvious why that isn't—and it's impressive how much work you can do to get things to spawn in your provinces...

But it does have the downside that the world all has the same technology by the endgame and near identical troops.

edited 13th Aug '17 4:41:52 PM by RainehDaze

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Still an improvement over Europe rolling over everything else by mid-game, I guess.

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

And at least in the hands of the AI, the Axis tends to lose badly almost every time. Even with the current game setup, the only reason that even player-controlled Axis nations have a chance is because the AI is dumb.

Germany gets that kind of favoritism, however, because they're supposed to kick off the conflict and be able to be a challenging opponent - a more historical Germany would have trouble even defeating France unless France was made to selectively f*ck up as hard as it did in reality. And even with Germany overbuffed (even with the maximum additional slider buffs), if you take Austria before the Anschluss or challenge them over the Sudetenland, they tend to crumble easily. Basically, the AI is dumb and needs a large advantage to achieve even remotely historical results, which is further not helped by the fact that setting up a defensive line is easier than organizing an effective offensive action.

That said, I maintain a policy of never playing Germany precisely because f*ck playing as the Nazis. Or even as Imperial Germany in Kaiserreich because the German Empire wasn't exactly a bunch of angels, either.

Honestly, I'd consider Stellaris to be more problematic - give players the option to play hungry hungry space nazis and just watch them gleefully devour all other sapient life and happily share their proof that they have turned all other life in the universe into sandwiches. And then there's the issues with treating chattel slavery as a remotely effective institution for a spacefaring society dependent on highly skilled labor, much less one that can compete with or even surpass mechanization of the same process. Stellaris treats these horrible (and highly inefficient) actions as not just unharmful, but actively beneficial.

edited 13th Aug '17 4:46:41 PM by Balmung

There needs to be some sort of mid-point it seems, where one region of the world can develop a technological edge and have colonialism actually exist, rather than the "Europe conquers everything with ease" of before and "everyone is the same" that's going on now.

Aside from using Prussian or Swedish Space Marines for everything.

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Stellaris treats these horrible (and highly inefficient) actions as not just unharmful, but actively beneficial.

Except for the fact being a genocidal slaver makes you a galactic pariah.

Welcome to Estalia, gentlemen.

I still miss that one patch where Nepalese Gurkhas had buffs rivaling Prussian SPESS MEHRINES. But, nope, can't have some Indian minor competing with goose-stepping Prussians.

And being a galactic pariah doesn't matter all that much when you're much more powerful than any potential competition because of the kind of crazy boosts slavery gets and the fact that you just ate three empires, meaning you have more land than everyone else. And then there's the huge combat buffs for deciding that your species sole purpose in existing is to become the only species that exists.

edited 13th Aug '17 4:51:36 PM by Balmung

Prussia is however incredibly underpowered in some ways, not in the hands of a player but the AI has incredible difficulty forming Prussia ever, because of the number of historical conincides that needed to happen to bring Prussia into being, also because Poland is a bloody best of a nation in EU 4. I see Brandenburg get its ass kicked reguarly in my games.

Oh and I didn't know they removed the Nepal buffs, I thought DDR Jake used them a bunch in the previous (not current) dev clash.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran

Brandenburg's issue seems to be in living long enough to put those buffs to use without Poland getting hungry, yes.

But this seems to have strayed from the point in a different direction...

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IIRC, when they got their national ideas in patch 1.2, Gorkhas were worth as much infantry combat ability as the Prussian Goose Step (20%). In general, Nepal got most of the same military ideas as Prussia. This was promptly nerfed to half or a quarter in 1.3. Since then, Prussia's been made slightly less insane and I think Nepal got back to 5% discipline from a low point of 2.5%, as well as possibly some morale or something, but they're still only "kinda strong... for India" and you're better off picking someone who's already big like Orissa, Vijayanagar, Delhi, Juanpur, or Bahmanis and you get to know that you'll always be overshadowed by central Europe, the Far East (especially Japan and any of the three main China tags (Ming, Qing, and Yuan)), and arguably every steppe horde. And, of course, France.

It still illustrates a serious case of Eurocentrism promoted by the game. It tells you that Germans, Swedes, Poles, and the French were pretty much destined to conquer and win, while others would have no such luck. For instance, are you Russia? Time for A S I A T I C H O R D E S because you're never, ever going to get to compete on quality with SUPERIOR TEUTONIC TACTICS and you've been set up to use human waves as your only answer (no quality boosts in NIs (now very small ones) and HUGE boosts to manpower and reduction to infantry maintenance based on much later stereotypes written by people who didn't care much for Russians).

edited 13th Aug '17 5:08:31 PM by Balmung

France is far from being to strong, I'm supposed to be able to take on all of Europe basically solo, and belive me that's not possible as France, I've tried.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran