Why did game devs choose Arabic names for Eastern factions?

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Originally Posted by alreadyded

Your one liner responses are not as impressive as you seem to think. I am discussing this, you want to argue I guess because you are not furthering the discussion, simply making it harder to discuss by adding in more factors instead of narrowing them down to gain a better understanding. You have no scientific method here so this is a waste of time as far as that goes. There is no "official" anything, or truth, or fact in science (ignore the rest of this post and just re-read that a bunch if you must, that is the most important thing you will read here).

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There is an official definition of "racism" and you can look it up here or on wikipedia or wherever you please.
You are the one using made up terms, you are the one who replied to my general statement (which wasn't even really directed at you) in a condescending fashion, you are the one who, it turns out, doesn't even know some of the most basic facts of ancient history - like Greek, Latin, and Punic being distinct languages. You're in no position to lecture anybody about history OR science, let alone people who've studied it.

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These demographics you speak of are BS in terms of science, all statistics are. Plus they don't take race into account as its own factor (just like you are doing), it is lumped with all these other factors we don't even know of nor can we define, nor can we know how much they correlate making it impossible to study.

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That's what I'm saying, most official statistics from Europe are largely bogus. However when you have experience living there, meeting people, reading everyday news etc., it's a different thing.

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Simply for discussions sake though;

The difference between what happened in the US and what happened in Africa with the Arabs is that the Arabs (who were not all Arab and had different skin colors themselves even if they were, and included a decent amount of white and black people) exploited pre-existing prejudices and did not focus on various degrees of skin darkness but on visual appearances of many kinds, any kind they could think of that might work as you said yourself, even made up stuff to split them.

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And they also did invent some racist theories of their own, as the Greeks did before them, etc.

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I never read of that being effective either,

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Keeping Africa down for a thousand years wasn't effective?

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it was a factor as it is in all visual prejudices, I never said it wasn't (somehow you missed that in my post along with a bunch of other stuff and said that I said that). The concept of dividing and conquering is the same and I am not saying skin color has never been a factor in that or prejudice, it has been, but not the sole factor. Just being foreign was a larger factor and many other things, different skin color just made that more obvious, and the reason for that is the last part of my post you sort of agree with. The Arabs didn't care about skin color (and had various degrees and various peoples themselves) anymore than the Romans did,

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The evidence I've read about suggests otherwise. Romans are a different thing altogether.

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When I said Racism was invented by the US, I meant that Racism Proper, prejudice due to just skin color and literally nothing else, not ethnicity/cultural/beliefs and everything along with it or even just one of those things along with it you are so determined to add back in.

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What's your source for racism being about skin colour and nothing else? Any scientific or scholarly definition? I've given you one above.

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Do you think the Arabs in north Africa used the term racism or any term like it?

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They didn't use the word evolution either, and yet it still existed.

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The US gave a proper example of pure racial prejudice and institutionalized it for all the world to see and learn from in a time when slavery had already been outlawed pretty much everywhere else.

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"Everywhere else" except Africa, the Americas, and parts of Asia.

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The US was the first to enslave people based solely on skin color too,

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That doesn't mean they invented racism, or that "real" racism only has to do with skin colour. You're employing logical fallacies.

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You are using the word diversity FAR too liberally.

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Am I? I'm using words as they are defined by linguists. You know, the scholars whose expertise is language - people like Tolkien. I suggest you do likewise. Stop brutalizing the English language, please.

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I will pass on your "international news" (seriously? recommending watching the news?:P) you should too and go pick up a science book and learn to narrow things down (remove factors and better define certain aspects) to study them. Humans cannot understand prejudice in the vague way you are using it is all I am saying, I am not even disagreeing with you, I never said skin color was never a factor before. It is a made up term, no one is right. Your made up term is far more complex and harder to study than mine is all and you claim to understand it though no human can. Humans can't comprehend complex systems, you have to simplify it.

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If you want to study a racism solely based on skin colour - and not genes or facial features - then use an epithet that says so. Like "colour-based racism". You know, being precise and all that.
Don't just use the general umbrella term and then chew out others for not following your misleading example.

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Originally Posted by Patronus86

This thread is taking a tangent that it doesn't need to take.

Tolkien lived in a time when most people, including westerners, had a different view of the world around them and things were viewed through different lens. Ethnocentric on his part? Certainly. Racist on his part? By the norms and standards of his time, he certainly wouldn't have been considered a racist. But by today's standards, maybe, but then again everyone and their mother who lived in those times would probably be considered a racist by today's standards...FDR would have been considered a racist....it was a different time back then. Lincoln would likely be considered a racist by today's standards...though that's a nuanced discussion beyond the comprehension of most people nowadays.

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If by "today's standards" you mean total and utter hypocrisy, then yes. Although even by those standards, Tolkien would be even less "prejudiced" (what a condescending word, especially in this context) than the other two gentlemen you've mentioned.

You just used a definition that uses the word to define it.

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Definition of racism1
: a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
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a : a doctrine or political program based on the assumption of racism and designed to execute its principles
b : a political or social system founded on racism
3
: racial prejudice or discrimination

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Please actually define it, what does race even mean in this definition is the question, remember? How would you describe it to everyone so that they know exactly what you mean by the word "Race" has been the question the whole time, and you keep missing it somehow. Nor does it being in a dictionary make it official, especially when it uses the word to define itself:P. I didn't even bother reading the rest of your post. I doubt you read mine anyway since I had to repeat myself so much. Just re-read my posts if you want a reply.

Edit; OK, I browsed your post a bit. Still one liners, still not as impressive as you think, still missing the point, still not reading my posts, still just as I suspected. I didn't want to pre-judge you though so I took the effort to check and make sure:P. Even so I did still prejudge you, I am only human. It had nothing to do with your skin color though. You took something that someone else told you based off of someone else they heard it from that died long ago and didn't even observe what he wrote about, and you believed they were facts so you stopped trying to find out what was fact. There is no truth or fact, and even if there was you shouldn't take anything as truth or fact because you just stop yourself from learning, and there is always more to learn. Humans don't understand a thing, we simplify them and warp into something unreal to understand it, meaning we don't understand the actual real thing. It is too complex and there are too many factors.

Nor was I intentionally condescending to you, nor were any of my posts directed at you personally. I was discussing race and prejudice, and whether it is present in the lore. You were muddling the issue is all I saw. I still don't even know how you define race so your posts have failed to answer the one question I have been asking the entire time, which also was not directed at you personally but to everyone and with a thread related purpose. So if you have been talking to me personally this whole time you are just wasting text and spamming/derailing the thread with simple, vague, one liners that don't help define race at all, let alone determine if it is even in the lore (the topic) other than the example I provided, which is not racist or prejudiced in any way.

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Originally Posted by alreadyded

let alone determine if it is even in the lore (the topic)

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Indeed, please keep this on topic, which according to the thread title is the question: "Why did game devs choose Arabic names for Eastern factions?" However, in the OP, there is a very strong suggestion that this is because of racism, which tends to focus any further discussion on that subject. Of course I'm not proposing to ignore it, but it would be nice to see at least something relating directly to the actual topic in every post.

On a personal note: It would also be nice to see some further contributions from the thread starter. When starting any, but especially this kind of discussion one should participate, not just look at what happens IMO.

Elves; have superior abilities because they are Elves (many factors, but not skin color are mentioned). Same with all the other people from what I remember, I can't even recall any word ever, including the word race (we still haven't agreed upon what that word even means to us here to be able to discuss the same thing with each other, we can't all be using the word differently (or simply, or vaguely) and expect to talk about the same specific thing) being used other than as a synonymous term for peoples (with no superiority/inferiority inferred by skin color).

Men were superior to other Men because they were influenced by the Elves and blessed by a God with long life, etc. Says nothing about skin color being the cause and/or effect of this blessing, or mentions skin color at all. It is their actions that cause this, nothing to do with how they look. There actually are different beings in Middle-Earth that can be defined (depending on how you use the term race) to be their own race apart from the Human Race (not written anywhere this is dependent on skin color so using the term race is confusing since many relate race to skin color, while many relate it to species and who knows what else). Ents are effin' trees, you got huge intelligent lizards better than even Elves in most ways (a paradox in so many ways in reality), are the dark-skinned trees and lizards inferior to the light skinned trees and lizards? Is that how this racism works in these books, there are various layers and kinds? Do you guys even know what you mean by the word racist yet? Do you expect others to know exactly what it means to you and exactly what you are talking about unless you tell them (in more than just one line, it will take a few paragraphs at least to even attempt such a thing as you can see from my attempts)?

Scientists have spent their entire careers trying to define these sorts of terms so that everyone can know exactly what is being studied and discussed, and still no one has succeeded in coming up with a universal definition (not that there is such a thing). Such a thing will never happen in this thread anymore than in real life, I don't see this discussion going any further. And never really got anywhere since we very well could have all been talking about completely different factors/stuff while using the same word. I have pretty much run out of worthwhile examples to give though (without repeating myself more) so I don't think I have anything else to contribute to this discussion unless someone wants me to explain my opinions a bit more (in relation to the lore).


Edit; Wait... I did forget one; http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Dr%C3%BAedain

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They were clearly a good-hearted people who suffered by the persecution by either by malice of evil people; or by ignorance as their ("unlovely" according to the Elves) appearance led many to believe they were savage beasts. Although some of their numbers joined the Edain and some briefly remained on Númenor, they largely held themselves apart from the troubles and calamities of Middle-earth, and possessed their own mysterious ways and magic.

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I will not even say what this tells me of Tolkien's views on physical prejudices of any form, you should be able to see that for yourself. There is no mention of them actually being inferior by Tolkien in his writings (quite the opposite in some aspects), and no mention of skin color at all so not racism as a specific form of prejudice based on skin color, only of many people (not all, apparently some were not prejudiced, what a nice fictional world) thinking they are inferior and savage based on their appearance (not skin color though, but other forms of prejudices mixed together with too many factors to study/discuss).

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Originally Posted by alreadyded

Historically in the Middle-Ages Western Europeans were the oppressive "bad" guys (their peasants did all the work and got practically nothing for it and had few freedoms and no rights) still under the shackles of Catholicism aka Sauron (they didn't call it the Dark Ages for nothin!) while the Middle-East was a center of cultural learning where people had many more rights and freedoms and thrived because of it (they did have to pay a tax in some circumstances but this was just the government trying to tax everything). This is ultimately what led the extremely corrupt Catholic church to call the crusades and made so many oppressive European "nobles" rush off to rape and pillage the Middle-East (the church wouldn't let them rape and pillage each other, excommunication). Tolkien knew this, no doubt about it. The guy read way too much history to not learn from the mistakes of others, if you had read the same history you would notice the parallels.

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You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The Muslims were some of the most brutal conquerors around. The first Caliphate invaded the Roman (Byzantine) Empire and the Sassanid (Persian) Empire and got right to work oppressing and taxing anyone who didn't convert to Islam. These conquests continued and were only halted by Charles Martel in southern France and temporarily by the Romans in Anatolia. The Reconquista was fought to push the oppressive Moors in Spain out, and the original purpose of the First Crusade was to reconquer lands for the Roman Empire (but only one lord held to his oath to Emperor Alexios I and returned all land to the Empire. The rest all took it for themselves and created various crusader states). As it is the Pope would have never agreed to launch that Crusade had Christians not been being oppressing in the Levant. They were being harassed on their pilgrimage. Was the First Crusade horrible? Yes. The crusaders literally ate Muslim buttocks at one siege to avoid starvation because they viewed Muslims as animals and not human. They slaughtered everyone when they took Jerusalem (Muslim, Jew, and Christian). But to act like Catholic barbarity somehow makes the Muslims of the time not barbaric is completely ridiculous. Muslim powers of the time were every bit as bad as their Western European counterparts. About the only semi-free places in those parts of the world were Ireland (at least in the parts that weren't under English control) and the Roman Empire (and only somewhat, but due to centuries of codified laws, they were a lot further ahead than the Catholics and the Muslims. Better rights for women, an imperial governing system rather than feudalism, citizenship rather than serfdom, etc. They had slaves, but every nation in the world had slaves at the time.).

Also, lets not forget after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Turks continued to wage wars of conquest, brutally conquering and torturing people in Eastern Europe. Pretty much the entirety of Islamic history can be summed up by one war after another. There is as much blood on their hands as Western European nations (not including Ireland or Wales and other European nations that were just completely oppressed by their more powerful neighbors).

But you can look at most religions (not all, just look at Jainism) and find such atrocities. Fixating on the Catholics or Muslims as the stereotypical bad guys is as prejudiced as it gets. And one should not limit this to religion. Look at what happened when communism got radicalized. You had a bunch of atheists at the top thinking all religion was bad and doing everything they could to purge the Orthodox Christian populations of Russia and Ukraine resulting in the worst genocide in history. If you think the Jewish Holocaust was bad, look up the Orthodox Holocaust. Make sure to read past the fairly well known Armenian genocide but not the well known Greek and Assyrian genocides that the Turks committed at the same time. The Soviets were the worst butchers in history, and it was all to cull a specific religion.

Point being, anything and everything can be radicalized. Anyone can be the bad guy. In the case of Tolkien, the Southrons and the Easterlings weren't even the main focus. The focus was one Dark Lord manipulating all of these peoples to do his bidding (and Sauron himself was corrupted by Morgoth/Melkor). Tolkien himself was a Catholic, and he intentionally put Christian themes all over in our beloved Lord of the Rings works. But he did so subtly. Contrast this with the overt Christian themes in the Narnia works of Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis (who had been an atheist until Tolkien changed his mind), the first book of which Tolkien didn't like. Tolkien's books were not about race versus race. They were about good versus evil, evil corrupting the hearts of all men, and only the purest form of goodness just barely being able to overcome that evil.

I already explained what I meant by that statement, it is a simple example of the west being the aggressors. Having to pay a tax to do what you want is not brutal, that is actually very modern (you do it today), and relative to the times (and even today in many places) it was far less brutal than how Catholics and virtually everyone else treated peoples of different beliefs. And you are mostly referring to events in Islam that happened later in history than my example, after Muslims learned quite a few things from Catholics and both became essentially two sides of the same coin. I did not say any people were good in general, or bad in general. Seriously guys, quit calling me out with all your "historical facts." I gave examples, I did not say they are 100% correct, I actually said many times that no one knows this crap. Whether they even are or not is not the point, the examples they provide on specific observable types of prejudices are the point. No one is getting that point though.

Honestly that whole response doesn't take this topic anywhere, this isn't the political mudpit. If someone has an actual quote from the published book that they think is prejudiced in any way please do post it. This is not a debate people's "facts" of history, that would be pointless since there are countless versions and no one knows what really happened. Unless you were alive to observe it, and it was simple enough to observe (like the examples I provided), you are just taking someone else's simplified, unrealistic version of the truth for the truth. Just look up any battle in history, either side will say they had less troops than they really did and that the enemy had more troops than they really did, and many such exaggerations and writings by people who were not even alive for the events they wrote about.

I study science, history is just sifting through BS to find what could be possible, if you think you already know something then you just close your mind to ever learning more about it. I don't take any of it for the truth, and I find such debates about "historical facts" to be pointless since we will never know. We don't even know facts about things we can observe today, things are way too complicated and humans simplify them to gain even just some understanding where there was none. Meaning we don't study the real thing, we quantify it into simple agreed upon words (what I was attempting to do in this thread the entire time) and numbers that cannot be applied to complex systems.

Anyway, I give up on this thread. Too many useless history majors and not enough science majors in here I reckon, it can only result in arguments of "facts" (with far too many unknown factors) not beneficial discussions by limiting factors and studying them in more detail. My brother is a history major, waste of a degree.

Looks like the main focus of discussion keeps being "racism in general", with very little or non remarks about "Why did game devs choose Arabic names for Eastern factions?" There are other, much more suited places on TWC for this kind of discussion. Therefore I will close this thread.

If anybody thinks they have a good reason to reopen this, feel free to shoot me a PM about it.

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