Alternate History General Discussion

[frustrated progressive]

No, not really. The genre has a huge racism problem.

In general yes, but I meant in terms of the specific people starting those threads.

 

[Charles EP M.]

The genre has a huge racism problem.

In the general "there's a lot of racists" sense, or in the "there's more racists & racism than these other genres and communities" sense?

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I think there's a few things coming together.

For one thing, in common with various other online fandoms, English-language alternate history communities are overwhelming full of young, straight, white, cis, Anglo-Americans. Many people get interested in high school; the most popular timelines are overwhelmingly military or monarchist or both, the sort of history that a socially awkward teenage boy often develops an interest in.

There's also an inherent tendency to wish fulfilment that comes out in the community; as Orwell wrote in Notes on Nationalism, "Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. He spends part of his time in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should – in which, for example, the Spanish Armada was a success or the Russian Revolution was crushed in 1918 – and he will transfer fragments of this world to the history books whenever possible."

Many of the posters in the online community exhibit this tendency- you see it in the Paradox gaming community, the Other Place, any number of subreddits or deviantart sites. Rhodesia could have, should have survived with US backing! The Kaiserreich deserved to win the Great War, and it would have been a happier world if they had. State's rights. The Desert Fox could have taken Cairo, and he wasn't a real Nazi, and if he was he was a good one who would have stopped the bad people once he'd become Fuhrer.

It's not entirely a disease of the right. There are certain PODs which bring out a utopian Leftist thinking which often ends up waving away authoritarian tendencies in the belief that the People's end justifies the means of ending large groups of the People; the Kaissereich setting used to be quite bad for that and the Spartakist mod for HOI4 embraces the old idea that the evil SPD stopped the world from a happy and peaceful and socialist and democratic Germany that was there for the taking.

But the vast majority of the time, wish fulfillment timelines tend to be the product of people who feel themselves to be cheated out of a rightful place in the ruling class. In many ways, it's the same pressures that produce the alt-right. The leftists say that white men have it easy, right? But you're sitting at a computer in your parent's house, your job is crappy, you're unhappy, you're sexually unfulfilled, and if white men really did have it easy how come it's so hard for you? You're smart, smarter than other people. Just unappreciated.

There's another world though which is more fair. And it's not about hating anyone else, really. Look at the mess Mugabe made of Zimbabwe- you don't think those people should never have had equal rights- they could have had them eventually, once they were ready for them. What was needed was leadership, a place where people like you could do the things that needed to be done. Hard men making hard choices, right? And being rewarded. Because once you'd come in from your tour with the Rhodesian Rangers or whatever- and in this fair world you were tough enough for that, I mean you've always been tough enough but you just need training- people would know that you're a real man, a real leader. And actually, by the way, blacks had always had equal rights- some of your best friends were black. They supported Ian Smith, really. And they supported Marse Lee, too.

It's not fair that it's not true, because it is true, it's more true. So keep picturing it, keep imagining it, keep wondering what it would have taken for that perfect world to exist. It should exist, and you should live there.

In a way, you already do.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

Why I did just wade through the latest thread on the other place about how the US betrayed Britain at Suez and, really, Africa would have been so much happier if Ike had been honourable.

Why do you ask?

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I just know there's someone who'll read that post and thinks I support the murder of Rosa Luxemburg.

 

[Christian]

I don’t know much about a possible communist Germany but I remember most leftists justifying their dislike for the SPD of the inter-war era because they allied with the Freikorps, not too sure how true that is though.

 

[ChrisNuttall]

I think there's a few things coming together.

For one thing, in common with various other online fandoms, English-language alternate history communities are overwhelming full of young, straight, white, cis, Anglo-Americans. Many people get interested in high school; the most popular timelines are overwhelmingly military or monarchist or both, the sort of history that a socially awkward teenage boy often develops an interest in.

There's also an inherent tendency to wish fulfilment that comes out in the community; as Orwell wrote in Notes on Nationalism, "Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. He spends part of his time in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should – in which, for example, the Spanish Armada was a success or the Russian Revolution was crushed in 1918 – and he will transfer fragments of this world to the history books whenever possible."

Many of the posters in the online community exhibit this tendency- you see it in the Paradox gaming community, the Other Place, any number of subreddits or deviantart sites. Rhodesia could have, should have survived with US backing! The Kaiserreich deserved to win the Great War, and it would have been a happier world if they had. State's rights. The Desert Fox could have taken Cairo, and he wasn't a real Nazi, and if he was he was a good one who would have stopped the bad people once he'd become Fuhrer.

It's not entirely a disease of the right. There are certain PODs which bring out a utopian Leftist thinking which often ends up waving away authoritarian tendencies in the belief that the People's end justifies the means of ending large groups of the People; the Kaissereich setting used to be quite bad for that and the Spartakist mod for HOI4 embraces the old idea that the evil SPD stopped the world from a happy and peaceful and socialist and democratic Germany that was there for the taking.

But the vast majority of the time, wish fulfillment timelines tend to be the product of people who feel themselves to be cheated out of a rightful place in the ruling class. In many ways, it's the same pressures that produce the alt-right. The leftists say that white men have it easy, right? But you're sitting at a computer in your parent's house, your job is crappy, you're unhappy, you're sexually unfulfilled, and if white men really did have it easy how come it's so hard for you? You're smart, smarter than other people. Just unappreciated.

There's another world though which is more fair. And it's not about hating anyone else, really. Look at the mess Mugabe made of Zimbabwe- you don't think those people should never have had equal rights- they could have had them eventually, once they were ready for them. What was needed was leadership, a place where people like you could do the things that needed to be done. Hard men making hard choices, right? And being rewarded. Because once you'd come in from your tour with the Rhodesian Rangers or whatever- and in this fair world you were tough enough for that, I mean you've always been tough enough but you just need training- people would know that you're a real man, a real leader. And actually, by the way, blacks had always had equal rights- some of your best friends were black. They supported Ian Smith, really. And they supported Marse Lee, too.

It's not fair that it's not true, because it is true, it's more true. So keep picturing it, keep imagining it, keep wondering what it would have taken for that perfect world to exist. It should exist, and you should live there.

In a way, you already do.

I agree with most of this, although I think there are some issues you miss:

I think there’s a tendency to look for excitement in history, be it voyages of exploration or war, rather than consider the moral implications. A world with very different geopolitics to ours - an independent CSA, for example, or a victorious Third Reich - would be fascinating from a historical point of view, if thoroughly awful from a moral one. It’s a little like reading kids books, like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Sure, you can make a case the factory is based on slavery, but the readers won’t care and their parents will think you’re an a-hole for suggesting that enjoying the book is condoning slavery.

People just don’t look at the moral implications, at least at first. They like exploring what could have happened IF and resent, bitterly, any suggestion that doing so makes them a bad person.

Plus - at least when I was a kid (born in 1982) - history in UK schools was pretty terrible. Wars were exciting - the Lancashire Weaving Industry (or the Norwegian Leather Industry <wink>) was not. There was very little exploration of non-UK history - we looked vaguely at Nazi Germany, as it was part of WW2, but not in any great detail. We looked at the Fall of Apartheid, but not at the rest of South Africa’s history. I studied many non-UK histories on my own; those who didn’t have the time or inclination remained stuck within a very UK-centred version of history (in which we won the war, the Russians were largely immaterial, the US spent most of its time fighting Japan and the French were just a speedbump to the Germans) that was, at best, pretty incomplete.

I got into a lot of historical times because of AH, broadening my mind. I think that’s true for quite a few others.

 

[Coiler]

I also think (without disagreeing with your overall point) that AH has a skew towards events that didn't happen by its very nature. And big changes are just more appealing than small changes. So you'll get "more monarchies" over "different leaders in republics", more of the classic Axis/Confederate/Central Powers victories rather than differences to how the North/Allies won, more colonies remaining rather than different decolonization, etc....

 

[Time Enough]

I also think (without disagreeing with your overall point) that AH has a skew towards events that didn't happen by its very nature. And big changes are just more appealing than small changes. So you'll get "more monarchies" over "different leaders in republics", more of the classic Axis/Confederate/Central Powers victories rather than differences to how the North/Allies won, more colonies remaining rather than different decolonization, etc....

I’m reminded of my common Central Powers Victory criticisms usually being that the Entente will collapse into Red/Communist/Syndicalist Revolutions immediately when the more like answer is that France becomes like a bastion of Neo-Socialism and Britain has a Labour Majority earlier or Harold Macmillan creates his Social Democratic Party etc.

 

[Thande]

I also think (without disagreeing with your overall point) that AH has a skew towards events that didn't happen by its very nature. And big changes are just more appealing than small changes. So you'll get "more monarchies" over "different leaders in republics", more of the classic Axis/Confederate/Central Powers victories rather than differences to how the North/Allies won, more colonies remaining rather than different decolonization, etc....

And 'what if thing that used to exist continued' is the most obvious what-if scenario in any context.

 

[Japhy]

In the general "there's a lot of racists" sense, or in the "there's more racists & racism than these other genres and communities" sense?

Its more inherently baked into things then other genres and communities AND there's a lot of racists.

 

[Japhy]

I don’t know much about a possible communist Germany but I remember most leftists justifying their dislike for the SPD of the inter-war era because they allied with the Freikorps, not too sure how true that is though.

They did

 

[Matt]

Every month or more often on the Other Place there's a thread on how a white settler majority country could arise in Africa, how apartheid could survive and be nicer etc. It's very odd.

I tend to reply with some history and stats as why this would be inherently unstable, unsustainable, but back of my mind is a voice saying "why do people keep postulating this"

They’re all trying to win the other place’s most prestigious awards: the one named for an unabashed neo-Confederate, and the Turtledove Award that at one point used a Confederate flag. Which, if I recall correctly, was designed by said neo-Confederate. Can’t win them without writing about the Rhodesian-Confederate-South African Reich Friendship is Forever timelines(preferably in a wiki box with inane named parties winning everything but the kitchen sink).

 

[SenatorChickpea]

I hope it's clear that my post was not trying to explain away every one who's ever written a timeline about Nazis, the CSA, monarchs or the military.

It was about the specific question of 'are there a lot of racists in the community, and are there more than in other genre fandoms?'

 

[Ricardolindo]

I don't think there are many racists at the other place. The forum is very left-leaning albeit not as much as this one.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

You've never read a single thread that mentions Rommel, the Suez Crisis or Imperial Federation I take it.

 

[Ricardolindo]

You've never read a single thread that mentions Rommel, the Suez Crisis or Imperial Federation I take it.

I have read a lot of the Suez Crisis threads and I agree that there is a lot of imperialist wish fulfilling in those. However, I am not sure if we can call those posters racists. At least overt racism is not allowed at the other place and the forum is very left-leaning albeit not as much as this one.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

'Africans have lower IQ' will get you banned.

'Decolonisation was a mistake and Africans would have been happier and more prosperous if the empire kept running the place' is a perfectly acceptable attitude over there, and one I have seen go unsanctioned repeatedly.

I tend to think that the racism in the latter statement is pretty damn overt.

 

[Ciclavex]

MODERATOR POST

This is just a general post asking people that, as a favor to the admin and moderation staff here, they avoid drama with other forum communities, which has gotten a bit much in this thread of late.

Thank you.

 

[SenatorChickpea]

My apologies.