Re: Re(2): Re(2): Re(2): the whiteness of middle class play

From: Paul Dillon (dillonph@northcoast.com)
Date: Mon Dec 06 1999 - 12:44:57 PST


Diane,

you really don't understand my position at all. I'm not putting any value
judgments on the Pokemon phenomena to begin with. I'm noting something
about it's magnitude and its relative historical uniqueness. Then I'm
asking questions. Generally, I let kids choose.

I don't see you doing this. I see you jumping to conclusions, reasoning
from first principles, waffling a whole lot, and basically just expressing
a lot of canned rhetorical phrases on an issue that doesn't seem to interest
you very much. I think one should ask, why are you so hostile to Pokemon.

If it is your position that the Pokemon phenomenon is "representative of a
particular white/straight/middle class infatuation with normal/domination
with normal/domination " then give some good argument to show that to be
the case. You haven't done that so far. You started out saying "only white
middle class kids play this" then when Eugene said, "no that's not true" you
said "oh then all these other kids are being tricked into accepting "white,
male, middle class ideas." This is pretty slippery isn't it.

BTW I will always prefer a fairly well defined concept such as "tertiary
artefact" to a totally ill-defined one such as "white, male, middle class
idea."

I'm not angry at you, Diane, I'm just interested in showing that your
"ideas" (at least on this issue) don't hold up to scrutiny but I can see
it's hard for you to not take things personally. Personally, I welcome it
when someone shows me the limitations of my ideas because that allows me
to move past ignorance. Isn't this what intellectual discourse is about or
are we just supposed to say to each other, "oh you are soooo right."?

No you don't have to think the artefact is gorgeous but I don't see how that
aesthetic/emotional reaction helps anyone to understand the phenomena any
better and when that reaction is defended with a lot of rhetorical
condemnation and prejudice it just clouds things up.

Paul H. Dillon



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