[Editorâs Note: Last week, Kotaku republished an essay by author John Scalzi titled âStraight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.â In it, Scalzi put the notion of privilege into a new context: Video game difficulty settings. The response to the post on his own blog was such that he wrote a follow-up to address some of the most common comments and questions. That post, which was written before Kotaku republished the initial article, follows below. One section discussing Scalziâs own blogâs commenting policy has been removed.]
https://lastchance.cc/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-ther-5910857%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E
Itâs been a couple of days since Iâve posted the âLowest Difficulty Settingâ piece, and itâs been fun and interesting watching the Intarweebs basically explode over it, especially the subclass of Straight White Males who cannot abide the idea that their lives play out on a fundamentally lower difficulty setting than everyone elseâs, and have spun themselves up in tight, angry circles because I dared to suggest that they do. Those dudes are cracking me up, and also making me a little sad.
There have been some general classes of statement/questions about the piece both on the site and elsewhere on the Internet, that I would like to address, so Iâll do that here. Understand I am paraphrasing the questions/statements. In no particular order:
1. I fundamentally disagree with every single thing you said!
Thatâs fine. It happens.
2. Your metaphor/analogy is good, except for [insert thing that commenter finds not good about the metaphor/analogy]
Well, yes. Metaphors are not perfect; itâs why theyâre metaphors and not the thing the metaphor describes. Likewise analogies break down. I thought the âlowest difficulty settingâ description worked well enough for what I wanted to say, but I donât think itâs perfect. âPerfectâ wasnât what I was aiming for. And of course, if you donât think itâs the right metaphor/analogy, thatâs fine. Please, make a different and better one â the more ways we can make a general point to people who need to understand that general point, the better chance they will listen.
3. Your description should have put wealth/class as part of the difficulty setting.
Nope. Money and class are both hugely important and can definitely compensate for quite a lot, which I have of course noted in the entry itself. But they belong in the stats category because wealth and class are not an inherent part of oneâs personal nature â and in the US particularly, part of our cultural sorting behavior â in the manner that race, gender and sexuality are (note âinherentâ here does not necessarily mean âimmutable,â but thatâs a conversation Iâm not going to go into great detail about right now). You can disagree, of course. But speaking as someone who has been at both the bottom and the top of the wealth and class spectrum here in the US, I think I have enough personal knowledge on the matter to say it belongs where I put it.
4. Iâm a straight white male and my life isnât easy! My life sucks! Your âlowest difficulty settingâ doesnât account for that!
Thatâs actually fully accounted for in the entry. Go back and read it again.
This oneâs a stand-in for all the complaints about the entry that come primarily either from not reading the entry, or not reading what was actually written in the entry in preference to a version of the entry that exists solely in that one personâs head, and which is not the entry I wrote. Please, gentlemen, read what is there, not what you think is there, or what you believe must be there because you know you already disagree with what I have to say, no matter what it is I am saying.
5. What about affirmative action (and/or other similar programs)? It just proves SWMs donât have it easy anymore!
Asserting that programs designed to counteract decades of systematic discrimination are proof that Straight White Males are not operating on the lowest difficulty setting in the game of life is not the winning argument you apparently believe it is. Iâll let you try to figure out why that is on your own. Likewise, anecdotal examples of a straight white guy getting the short end of the stick in some manner do not suggest that, therefore, itâs hard out there for all straight white men all the time.
6. Your piece is racist and sexist.
This particular comment was lobbed at me primarily from aggrieved straight white males. Leaving aside entirely that the piece was neither, let me just say that I think itâs delightful that these straight white males are now engaged on issues of racism and sexism. It would be additionally delightful if they were engaged on issues of racism and sexism even when they did not feel it was being applied to them â say, for example,when itâs regarding people who historically have most often had to deal with racism and sexism (i.e., not white males). Keep at it, straight white males! Youâre on the path now!
7. I feel this piece is an attack on straight white men.
You need to re-calibrate your definition of âattack,â then, because itâs depressingly (or hilariously) out of whack. Suggesting all straight white men should be defenstrated into a courtyard covered with spikes would be an attack. Noting that straight white men operate at the lowest difficulty setting in life is an observation.
Otherwise, in a general sense, when people point out the things straight white men get on credit (or donât have to deal with), the unspoken part of that is not âand thatâs why we plan to burn all you bastards in a big screaming pile when the revolution comes,â itâs âhey, just so you know.â Because you should know. Itâs not about blame, itâs about knowledge. Stop assuming itâs about blame. Paranoid and hypersensitive is no way to go through life.
8. You did not lay out in exhaustive factual detail, with graphs and charts, your assertion that straight white men operate at the lowest difficulty setting in our culture.
Also generally lobbed at me by aggrieved straight white men. And indeed I did not. Also, when I write about tripping over my shoelaces and falling on my ass, I do not preface the comment with a comprehensive discussion of the theory of gravity. For two reasons: One, itâs not needed because for anyone but committed gravity-deniers, the theory of gravity is obvious and taken as read, and two, thatâs not the focus of the entry. In the case of the âlowest difficulty settingâ entry, I took what I see as the obvious advantages to being straight, white and male in our culture as read. One may of course argue with that assertion, and some did in the previous comment thread, but I have to say Iâve generally found those arguments to be less than compelling (see point six, above).
9. I am never going to buy anything you write ever again.
I donât care.
10. Not every straight white man thinks what you wrote is wrong.
Of course. Noting that some straight white men are having difficulty accepting the idea they operate on the lowest difficulty setting in life doesnât mean that all straight white men do, or that any particular straight white men will experience said difficulties. Alternately, there are a lot of straight white men who think my premise is wrong to a greater or lesser extent, but who can express that disagreement cogently, and even forcefully, without additionally coming across as a five-year-old having a tantrum because heâs been told he has to share his toys. Straight white men, like any group, have all sorts of personalities.
11. You wrote the article and pointed out the straight white men live life on the lowest difficulty setting. Okay, fine. What do I/we do next?
Well, thatâs up to you, isnât it? What Iâm doing is pointing out a thing. What you do with that thing is your decision.
That said, hereâs what I do: recognize it, and work to make it so the more difficult settings in life become closer to the one I get to run through life on â by making those less difficult, mind you, not making mine more so.
John Scalzi writes science fiction and is currently working on a video game with developer Industrial Toys. His new novel Redshirts will be out from Tor Books on June 5. He blogs at Whatever
Republished with permission.
Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is
Iâve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men how life works for them, without invoking the dreaded word âprivilege,â to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon. More »
