humans have a confirmation bias, once a work be it fiction or real, fits neatly into our narrative we loose incentive to look further
for 40k if your political to either extreme its very easy to come up with vacuum stories that support your views, but 40k stories really can’t be looked at in a vacuum
(if we hadn’t defended ourselfs we would have all died; look at what humanity can do when we work together) completely ignoring that humanity is the aggressor at times or the craftsmen of their own undoing. and how many lives could be spared diplomatically etc.
that’s really because fascism is hard to satire. they’re already a two-dimensional political theory that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny that relies on hyperbole and blind enthusiasm to carry forward, so any satire that isn’t as subtle as a cinderblock to the face will usually get mistaked and positivity
No, it really isn’t hard to satire. In fact, most extremist political policy extremely easy to satire.
The caveat here is that Games Workshop wants to have it’s cake while eating it and that’s where it falls apart.
Extremist policy usually stands out by the way it deals with issues in an overexaggerated manner. I.E. murder or prolonged imprisonment for tiny infractions, that’d be classed misdemeanors elsewhere.
But because the Warhammer universe takes place in a fantasy setting where the wrong word really can summon Demon Lords from the netherworld and where the opposing factions to the Imperium really are as outrageous and destructive as depicted, it actually ends up justifying whatever “fascist satire” the Imperium is supposedly ment to represent.
Witch Trials for instance are an outrageous concept, because we see the world and know that witchcraft is unscientific and cannot work. If however witches were able to summon the grand evil they were accused of in the past, that would take the satire out and absolutely justify whatever action is taken against them - Because that would make them walking weapons of mass destruction turned flesh.
The same argument can be used for psykers, demons, cultists and anything else in this universe because they actually and for real have the powers they are ascribed to have.
TL;DR: Warhammer is a violent Fantasy setting and the “We are satiring fascism” thing was clearly tacked on later to score brownie points with certain groups. Because for all intents and purposes there seems to be very little fascism in this fictious universe to begin with. That which is in, is entirely justified and also leans in on other authoritan concepts not unique to Fascism, such as militarism, theocratic authoritarian rule, etc.
Name me one thing that is uniquely Fascist by the definition about anything Warhammer. I will wait.
does that also mean, that any actions against most governments are “morally acceptable” since they do have weapons of mass destruction? and in fact some did absolutely abhorrent and irresponsible things like the US for example “loosing” 6 nuclear weapons?
is trust in a body of people, better than trust in an Individual and why?
i mean you’re right, but i think the fascism doesn’t so much come from the political correlation but from other aspects such as:
you’re missing my point. it’s not hard to satirize fascism because it’s difficult to make a satical take on them concept. it’s hard to satirize fascism because fascists take the satire as earnest promotion and then happily crow about the satire like it’s welcome positivity. you’re falling for it right now with the “if witches were able to summon deamons, that would justify whatever actions we chose to take to stop them” it’s not the severity of the punishment that’s the issue, it’s the approach of “we need to stop them” and not the actual event of the summoning.
also, fantasy wasn’t satirical, it’s 40k that specifically was meant to be satire about the fascist/authoritarian issues the UK has/had at the time, the two universes have never been designed for the same purpose. warhammer fantasy was made to be a counterpoint to the politically vapid, “good and evil are easy to see and divide” that fantasy was being pushed towards.
Good question and difficult to answer without going into funny territory.
Generally speaking: If you are willing to go the route of playing the power games, then yes, you’d be justified in taking action against governments you deem hostile or too powerful.
At the same time we find at the base root of this disccusion the “fight monsters, become a monster” issue.
If one is willing to take down a well-armed government, they themselves have to get well-armed. If a government wields power that allows it to disappear people, sabotage others and so on, you by definition will have to enter the same territory to compete.
At the final end point of confrontation, this hypothetical challenger to governmental power will either be defeated only having escalated tensions or be victorious and become the new governmental power, thus restarting the cycle. It’s a damned if you do, damned if don’t. It has always been so. The world we live in is absolutely cursed to it’s core.
As for your second question: Is trust in a body of people better than trust in an individual?
I know what the common consensus nowadays on this question is, but I will do the controversial thing here and say it cannot be answered in absolute words.
It depends on the individual and body of people being compared.
Human history has known all four: Trustworthy individuals, trustworthy bodies of people and of course the unreliable version of each.
Some monarchs in the past had much better and benevolent decision-making than our democracies today do. But the reverse is also true.
So TL;DR it’s on a case-by-case basis. Not that it matters, because the powerful will establish themselves and use violence to defend their position regardless. It’s not exactly up to us to decide who rules and who doesn’t. And no, a funny little vote every 4 years won’t change much about that. Democracy is weak, arms and currency are powerful.
All elements we can also find outside of fascism really, which is why I posed the (somewhat unfair) question of what uniquely fascist elements we find in Warhammer.
Because I’d argue that Warhammer as a universe is so directionless with it’s core philosophy, you could easily project the core values being depicted also onto most other autocratic systems.
The four requirements you just listed for instance are also all fulfilled by Communism, by a number of Monarchies, Militarism, Theocratic Despotism, etc.
They’re not uniquel fascist, which says a lot more about the Human Condition than it does about Warhammer really.
You are not looking closely enough. It’s not the fascist elements per se they get into, but imagery other circles declare fascist. That being for instance the orderly lines of soldiers in uniform or the teamwork shown when many guardsmen take down a bigger creature.
And that type of imagery isn’t uniquel fascist either, but it’s often declared as such by the people accusing others of fascism because that imagery reminds them of it.
It might sound like I’m arguing semantics, but I’m really not. That’s a big difference.
I’m not falling for anything, I’m just telling you the score.
Let’s do a thought experiment. If you gained magical powers over night to summon giant demons from hell or the imagination of your mind or whatever - And you actively used these abilities or made people otherwise aware you had them - How long do you think you’d get to live in peace?
I say, you’d be disappeared from the eye of the public by the end of this calendar month. Namely when an influential NATO general, foreign affairs politician or corporate CEO in certain circles would get a whiff of your presence.
Friendly officers from your local CIA department would knock on your door and kindly invite you to their Ford Cruiser for a cup of tea (but no cookies). And then you’d be offered a choice:
“Use your supreme power to bolster our Hegemony, oh powerful @Ol_Jakal”
Punishment by dispossession, imprisonment, death or some such
They’d dress this up first a lá “The good guys and the bad guys” argument. If you showed a shred of intellect and resistance, they’d get more direct. There is no competing with weapons of mass destruction or powers equaling them. And that’s not a US thing, either. Look at any time period in history.
The powers with hegemony status would always probe and push to have others in a position of weakness or dependency.
A position of power is not just a boon, it comes with demands. One of the unspoken imperatives of power issued to anyone in a position of leadership is to immediately suppress the power and ambition of others, lest he lose the eternal “King of the Hill” match by being surpassed.
That’s not even getting into the danger you pose as someone with a permanently active, non-disarmable weapon (your powers) within the confines of civilization. The US is the most gun friendly nation on earth. Despite this, you need a ton of paperwork, sign up to a registry and follow strict routines to get a gun.
If they’re already this alerted by you wielding a pee shooter (while they have entire armies and technologies fielded), what do you think would realistically happen if you had super powers?
What do you mean there is something wrong with the “We need to stop them!” approach? That’s been the baseline for all of power broking since the very first word was uttered by man.
Going back to Warhammer: I’d not be surprised, if GW’s writing team would eventually come out and state, the Emperor never even needed Psykers sacrificed for his survival.
The militarum is simply sacking Psykers because they deem the a high value threat. It would be incredibly believable writing.
Now you’re misunderstanding me. When I said fantasy, I didn’t mean Warhammer Old World Fantasy. I meant fantasy as in it’s a fantastical, a fictious setting.
Both Warhammer Old World and 40k are fantasy. And both do a poor job of satirizing anything. They’re not really social commentary, some GW exec just said they are after the fact to get brownie points.
That’s what I’m saying.
This, here, is the type of discussion I was hoping to promote before, as per usual, Jakal has to find sonebody to argue with.
Ya’ll keep rolling with it, my thumbs hurt and i cant get to the PC because my cat is napping on top of me, i’ll hurl in my 2 cents once I can. Mayson, your thoughts are always smart and well thought out.
When i think of 40k, i think of heroes with big guns and cool armor defending humanity from aliens and demons. The sentiment about humans uniting against external threat is very attractive, look at helldivers 2 and how popular the theme is. It gives a sense of belonging and purpose. I think its our instincts that haven’t changed much from the days of tribes, surviving the elements and fighting off predators. Thats the main thing that draws newcomers to warhammer 40k, in my opinion.
Now, the imperium of man is riddled with satire by definition, the civilian life, bureaucracy, stagnation, its actually not really united, with various actors and organizations doing some serious damage to imperium without any reprecussion. When a fan learns this, its sort of “are we the baddies” moment. The fan then either takes the stance “there are no good guys in 40k, imperium is evil, fascist”, or views the ways of imperium of man as justified.
But the way i see it, it can be both. It is a really good universe because it has a lot of grey areas it is unafraid to explore. Is “ignorance is bliss” holds true in 40k setting? Does belief in god emperor makes humanity weaker, or stronger? Are the “risk aversion” strategies of inquisition worth it? If humanity tries to develop AI tech now, will it be corrupted by chaos again and start the war like it did before, etc. It is a good setting because the imperium of man is absurd, gargantuan, horrific, and had a lot of world building and backstory to make it look authentic. Its like a window into the far future, where faced with external and internal threats on unprecedented level, the humans tackle it in a brutish way. Its the galactic struggle of humanity as a species that draws me in, and the heroic sacrifices some people have to do.
So when i think of 40k, i think of heroes with big guns and cool armor defending humanity from aliens and demons.
why then is it justified to hunt down all witches, even without knowledge or even positive knowledge solely based on their potential danger
but it is not or at least accepted to live under when the power for equivalent destruction is shared?
is it just self preservation?
isn’t that just human emotion at work, of not wanting to be subjugated by a single person where as you easily can justify to yourself that its an unfair proposition if they are many and you are one?
bizarre tangent i know, don’t think it leads anywhere
i disagree here, i think you have a misunderstanding of satire, and you give too much emphasis on the “mocking” quality of satire and too little on the “holding a mirror in your face” quality
i think what warhammer40k does really well is showing you scenarios where you (as reader, not you specifically) come to the conclusion that something extreme is justified, by nature of necessity
wich in turn then tells you about yourself what the threshold for extreme belives is.
That’s what I think it is a forefront, too.
The stuff about bureaucracy, civilian life in the empire and such feel a lot like personal pot shots being taken by the writer. And I find the fascist argument super flimsy, but maybe that’s just me.
The argument for the Witch Hunts was, that assuming their powers were real, they would pose a real tangible danger. Similiar to Psykers in Warhammer.
The power from the Witches would be even greater than that of the governments, because they could magically conjure up something from the depths at any point. That’s an insane power level. The government meanwhile still has to send people after you, follow crumps of papertrails and do other legwork to exert their power.
The buraucratic burden and the effort is the limiting effecting that relativates their power into “okayish” status. Whereas a magical witch is just outright scarier. There is nothing slowing her down in our hypothetical example of them having said power. They just snip with their finger at random and scary stuff happens.
That’s the justification. It’s too powerful to exist.
Is that really how it works? People have a tendency to be totally in love with one singular ruler. I don’t think it can be quantified. Otherwise new personality cults wouldn’t keep forming left, right and center. Even in our democratic governments we absolutely get personality cults.
Bernie Bros. Trump MAGA hat fanatics. Hillary fempower women. If you scrape the color off, you find the same process behind the chassis.
People want to adore a hero figure. Always have. It’s rather the group of people we see in a dubios light. Some other thread some guy I was arguing with called Fatshark a faceless company. FACELESS. That’s what we call institutions that don’t field a “hero” of their own.
And when Catfish first entered, didn’t she become the “Face” of the company for a while? There were a lot of people treating her like a heroine in the Discord at first.
We want and need a face for an idea or a group.
That’s Philosophy in action. :3
For that fascist definition, it can’t be right. If that’s how people define fascism now, it would absolve the Imperium of the accusation immediately.
Show me the Racism or Nationalism. Last I checked, whether you’re a Black, Hispanic or White manufactorum worker, your life will be of questionable quality regardless.
I honestly don’t see the mirror being held up.
I mean sure, in face of extermination and a meriad fates worse than death (try being eternally trapped by a rotfly in Nurgles’ Garden), I’d choose the Imperium with it’s heckling and total authoritarianism.
But at the same time I feel there is no mirror being held up. Anyone would make that decision. This is a rather cheap argument by whoever came up with it.
What the Warhammer world proposes is a “Be a normal human or get literally shat on by Nurgle eternally” dilemma. With options that bad, there is no moral dilemma or argument left. I know what you’re getting at, but why should I feel bad for agreeing to the systematic disappearance of Psykers when their existence literally means Demons from the Warp will come and tear me and my family apart?
It’s so hard not to get into reallife examples at this point, but I will pull it together. lol
The picture of a fight for pure existentialism and a right to breath air has been drawn. And that is the line at which any and all forms of violence, murder, deceit and worse are justified. Always.
Sustainability of one-self is the highest need of the individual and it will place it above all else at all times, if it is fully intact and has a healthy mind. It’s that reason I find the fascism argument incredibly disingenious. Where is the fascism? You just asked me if I should allow myself to be killed or rather kill someone else. Of course I choose the other person. YOU DIE! Not me! YOU!
I reaffirm my belief that GW writers want to eat their cake while having it. And we shouldn’t let them. Not on that front.
Warhammer is not a satirical work. It’s a nice fantasy to build fictional armies after and to have some nicely grotesque video games set in. But that’s it.
sorry, its not the definition, i asked what uniquely stands out compared to other extreme Ideologie, of course it attributed stuff like social Darwinism/racism and nationalism to it but no point in asking a question you already know. what i wanted is what stands out.
i find it to be a cop out from you to reduce any scenario within 40k to “kill or be killed”.
i can give you some moral dillema’s to work with
killing alien children
is killing an eldar child justified knowing that once grown up it very well could kill members of your own species.
cant you also make the point that i would remember your mercy and do the opposite? how do you make sure to have no innocent blood on your hands? it might not understand and look at their lost and still seek revenge…
but isn’t everyone innocent until the crime has been comited? how can you say that if they are so different to us?
Krypman’s gamble
essentially
luring an enemy force of tyranids into an force of orks
seems to be a win win, except that due to their nature the side that wins will become a more powerful foe than both would separately, is it justified to gain respite for your people knowing that it easily would spell doom in the future?
krypman’s scorched earth
murdering billions of people on multiple planets to halt the expanse of the tyranids hive xenos, solely on the possibility that they would travel towards said planets?
