Is the name "Kempeitai" insensitive?

You want me to like not laugh at you but because of how seriously you take it it's hard not to laugh. You also take it personally. Like you can discuss it but you know don't take it so seriously.

Like maybe don't go "REEE stop telling me to fuck myself! REEEEEEEEE!"

 

You're a thousand years too early to try trolling me, small fry. You're on a public forum with a quoting feature, so making up quotes just makes you look even more stupid (an achievement, given your starting point).

 

Oh my sweet summer child.

 

So wait did you think me saying that you were REEing was me trying to make up a fake quote? I mean I just thought I was translating for my age kin friend, no offense meant plz forgive.

 

Words carry weight and power, particularly when they are used as a description.

Unit names are a description. Sometimes it's a word that by itself doesn't mean much. Enterprise? Ain't that a word synonymous with business or work? A car rental company? But if I say USS Enterprise, now we're either talking about a ship in the US Navy (one of 8 ships and a couple buildings) or one of 10 ships in the Star Trek setting, or maybe one of the bajillion other ships name Enterprise. But technically, the ships in Trek are heirs to the earlier US Navy ships.

I served on USS Georgia and USS Kentucky. They were submarines. The first USS Georgia was a battleship, she saw second-line service during WW1 and then served as a transport. The submarine USS Georgia carries on the name of the battleship. USS Kentucky, the submarine, was the 4th ship to carry the name. The first was actually CSS Kentucky from the Civil War, but was captured and pressed into service on the Mississippi river. The second Kentucky sailed with the Great White Fleet around the world. The third Kentucky wasn't actually finished, she was the 6th Iowa-class battleship. The fourth Kentucky was the missile submarine I served on, and carries on the name of older ships.

Lemme hit you with a little bit of pop culture: remember that scene in X-Men Last Stand, where some inked-up young lady asks an old man, "If you're so proud of being a mutant, where's your mark?" And the old man responds, "I have been marked once, my dear, and let me assure you, no needle shall ever touch my skin again," while pulling back his sleeve to show the (concentration camp serial) number tattooed on his arm?

Pretty sure the XMen Universe is meant to be entertainment. But they linked certain things to real-world events and names intentionally.


If I say FBI or CIA or KGB, even though what I'm talking about may have nothing to do with the current agencies, the name may cause people to infer things about the organization. Same applies to SS and Kempeitai. Or NKVD, Securitate, etc.

So when the name has some bad baggage, you do need to ask the artist/creator if they mean to attach that baggage to the art. Especially when it's "just a game".

 

For me, this could go either way:
a. It is just a name, that was picked because it sounded "cool": Then it is poorly done. Pick one without the baggage and you will get "better fiction".
b. It is a name, that was picked, because the fiction of the unit demands it. Then it is fine.

Art sometimes follows humanity to dark places. That is not a bug, it is a feature. However, that gives no one the excuse to do it poorly/lazily.

 

Yeah, saying "it's just a game" is ridiculous. It's a game, sure, but it's part of our culture, and culture is important. Culture matters. When someone or something is shown in a certain light in our culture, then the people who take part in that culture see it in that light. I don't mind culture exploring real, serious, dark shit, and even through the medium of a game. But that culture needs to be aware of what it's doing, and how people see it.

We've had a good discussion here though, outside of comments where people don't think it's even worth discussing because "oooh it's just a game stop taking it so seriously." It is worth discussing, it matters! If you think that just because it's fiction, words, it's not important, then you're just ignorant.

 

This has been a glorious thread to drop in on every now and then. From offended to Sartre to meta-discussion, that’s pretty impressive from a bunch of nerds.(that might be offensive to some)

Perhaps a possible way to find common ground between the different parties would be to agree that CB should be treated as artists?

This is simply a way to ease the conversation a bit, since using arguments such as “everything is politics” goes pretty darn deep to drive the conversation forward, just as well as anyone stating that nothing is politics.

Calling CB artists would mean that this falls under artistic freedom, you might not like it, but you are free to look away.
This doesn’t mean that just like other artists CB might have a dark patron hiding in the shadows(Trump, Putin, Cthulu?)
Sure, I would probably disagree that using a miniature game to impose a hidden cultural agenda might not be the best platform, but some might think so.

So what do you say, CB = artists = artistic freedom = you can burn their stuff once the dictator of your choice rules over the world?

I’m not afraid of arts per se, And it’s no coincidence that conquering countries/religions burn it first. I’m not a afraid by books, I’m afraid of the ones that burn them.

 

Then their art should not be free from criticism. Just saying "it's art therefore it's untouchable" is not a very good argument. And how often does critical analysis of art discard the context the art was created in? (literally never)

I have seen no one in this thread arguing for this. The original question was "Is the name Kempeitai insensitive?" not "Should the Kempeitai's name be changed?"

 

Yes and no as artists. I don't mind artistic freedom at all so yeah they can and also should be able to name the unit Gower they seem it fit.
But! They also should be conscious about there social impact, which does come with releasing their art as part of a game/pop culture and as a company, which in some ways they certainly are and proof to be, but as every human organisation they aren't perfect and make mistakes or at least fall into a grey area where both arguments can be made!

 

Artists get to make statements like the rest of us, we just call it art when they do it, and we get to criticise that art just like everyone does, though typically nobody would call criticism art :D

Art has a social impact, that's why it's important, and so art cannot ever be untouchable. Even if we were to say it was, it would simply not be that. CB calling this troop the Kempetei is, IMO, a purely stylistic and artistic choice which we are now free to discuss as to whether we approve or not. And that we are managing to do so pretty reasonably and with a degree of complexity is a good thing! For my own conclusion; the depiction is uncomforting but the background insinuates that the Kempetei are not misnamed, and I think that it is acceptable. As someone above said, the Union Jack has been raised above plenty of atrocities, but it's still there. Same with loads of imperialist flags. Where do you draw the line? I think if you don't whitewash these things, and show sensitivity to historical context, you're alright, and here we are.

There are things in Infinity, like the Antipodes, which make me considerably more uncomfortable, let's say.

 

I can't believe this is still going, it's been a laugh, but really? @psychoticstorm can you please nuke this? It's gone from the "noble educators" trying to show how insensitive and offensive something can be to those same "noble educators" offensively insulting everyone with a different view.

 

If you don't like a discussion you don't have to participate in it. There are a lot of threads on these forums that I intentionally choose not to participate in.

What do you find so threatening about people asking if a particular name is insensitive or not, followed by discussing the history of that name, that you feel the need to sarcastically mock them as "noble educators" and ask for the thread to be locked?

 

Fortunately my bedtime is still hours and hours away.

 

Oh no! I must be threatened by the opposing view point!

It's not a discussion at this point. We've discussed the history and what it means. Now it's just "you're wrong, no you're wrong" and calling each other names.

Grow up.

 

Again, if you don't find a thread interesting anymore, then stop reading it and certainly stop posting in it. That's how threads normally go - someone posts something, responses happen, and then once the interesting discussion has dried up, posts taper off and it eventually falls off the front page. If people are actively posting in a thread telling people to stop talking, (or worse, trying to threaten to have it locked) it usually means that they have some outside reason that they specifically want to stop or suppress the natural flow of the discussion.

If you have an actual substantive response to anything anyone has said in this thread, then please feel free to post - but be aware that this will extend the life of the thread. I'm sure someone will be happy to respond in kind.

If instead you just drop in to tell people to stop talking about the topic entirely, I'm going to assume you have some sort of personal belief or tendency that makes you predisposed to not want to see anyone having discussions of this nature. In my previous post I described this as feeling "threatened". I don't think that's a good reason to demand that others don't talk about something, especially when it's so easy for you to not have to read what they are saying.

 

Just trying to help the thin skins not be offended with all the bad words being thrown around. I'll see myself out before the rest of the "Imma offended" bandwagon takes up too much time.

Thank you for you kind words.

 

Literally dobbing, then calling other thin skins.