God Says I Will Go To Heaven As Long As I Don't Bake a Wedding Cake For A Gay Couple

Last week, Indiana governor Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, to a collective "What the f---!?". Many sources were quick to remind the enraged public that 19 other states--and the federal government--have similar (emphasis on "similar") laws on the books, but Indiana's RFRA has one critical difference: Indiana's RFRA applies to private businesses

The Atlantic makes clear:

The new Indiana statute also contains this odd language: “A person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a violation of this chapter may assert the violation or impending violation as a claim or defense in a judicial or administrative proceeding, regardless of whether the state or any other governmental entity is a party to the proceeding.” (My italics.) Neither the federal RFRA, nor 18 of the 19 state statutes cited by the Post, says anything like this; only the Texas RFRA, passed in 1999, contains similar language.

The Atlantic article continues:

What these words mean is, first, that the Indiana statute explicitly recognizes that a for-profit corporation has “free exercise” rights matching those of individuals or churches. A lot of legal thinkers thought that idea was outlandish until last year’s decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, in which the Court’s five conservatives interpreted the federal RFRA to give some corporate employers a religious veto over their employees’ statutory right to contraceptive coverage.Second, the Indiana statute explicitly makes a business’s “free exercise” right a defense against a private lawsuit by another person, rather than simply against actions brought by government. Why does this matter? Well, there’s a lot of evidence that the new wave of “religious freedom” legislation was impelled, at least in part, by a panic over a New Mexico state-court decision, Elane Photography v. Willock. In that case, a same-sex couple sued a professional photography studio that refused to photograph the couple’s wedding. New Mexico law bars discrimination in “public accommodations” on the basis of sexual orientation. The studio said that New Mexico’s RFRA nonetheless barred the suit; but the state’s Supreme Court held that the RFRA did not apply “because the government is not a party.”

Essentially the law is both providing free license to discriminate and legitimizing the personhood of corporations vis-a-vis religious belief. Corporate entities such as Hobby Lobby now believe in God.

How does a corporation believe in God? I once worked, a million years ago, as a delivery driver for a restaurant owned by a devout Korean woman. She eventually had to fire me because I drive like a normal person: "I was too slow" She said to me, as close to verbatim as I can remember, "I believe in Jesus Christ, but I have to protect my business." Sorry, Jesus. You just got knocked down a peg by the Almighty Dollar. We are a monotheistic society, but you are not its deity.

It is impossible, because survival and profit against all are paramount, for any business to hold any sort of authentic ethical or religious concern as long as the conflict of interest between doing what is profitable and doing what is morally good exists. True belief of any kind relies upon placing one's self at risk in order to do what is right. Businesses will never choose to put themselves at risk for any ethical cause unless they are sure that doing so will pay off as good PR and recoup whatever costs through their image as an "ethical" company. Any claim by a business enterprise to hold a religious belief can only be met with laughter and derision.

There is another, more pressing concern with this RFRA, however. The law allows the current power structure to take priority in disputes. More profoundly, it removes the burden of moral actions from the Christians it protects. It protects the people who believe my title.

These people don't need to be protected. Being a Christian is the most pedestrian thing a person can be in a country--nay, a world--that is 70-80% Christian. Christians, as the majority of the United States, do not comprise a protected class because being Christian (especially if you're a white Christian: that certainly helps) is basically doing what everyone else is doing. Do you know who needs to be protected? Gay people. Transgendered people. Transsexual people. Muslims. African-Americans. Women. People who do not identify with or fit into the greater power structure (specifically, the power structure that sent this law to Mike Pence's desk).

Gays, transsexuals, transgendered people, Muslims, African-Americans, and women need legal protection because they not only have experienced historical discrimination by such private entities, but in many cases, that same discrimination by private parties continues to the moment you read this sentence. Mike Pence's RFRA protects not the rights of victims of discrimination, but rather the supposed right of the power structure to discriminate. Except that the power to discriminate is not a right!

The entire spirit of the law up to the 21st century was built on citizens' autonomy from negative pressure by the church of England, by the King, and even--potentially--the power of domestic tyrants. The idea that individual human beings could be free to pursue their own "[lives], liberty, and...happiness" precludes any codification of discrimination of any kind! There is absolutely no right to discriminate against any group of people whatever, especially if that target is a minority.

There is one consolation to this RFRA: It reveals which group really is in control, particularly in the South and Midwest, where the Bible Belt is still a thing. It shows us just how far we still have to go to bump Jerry Falwell's ghost from power.

I will say that I don't quite blame Mike Pence. Mike Pence is just an idiot, he is the Adolf Eichmann in the whole thing: Just doing his job, just following orders. Nobody told him what it was that landed on his desk, because the only people who had access to him were the Evangelical groups who wanted it passed. I would imagine that the discussion went like this:

Pence (P): "Should I sign this?"
Evangelicals (E): "Yes! Sign it. Gay people are gross."
*Pence does what he's told, word gets out that the RFRA is now law. A media firestorm against Indiana and Mike Pence now ensues*
P: "WHOA WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST SIGN!? THEY TOLD ME TO!"

Mike Pence is right now begging the legislature to "fix" the law because it wasn't until it was too late that he realized what he did. He cannot go on TV and defend the law to the public. He is getting absolutely annihilated because he signed a law that he didn't read to the benefit of the Evangelical base and to the detriment of everyone else. I predict, at this moment, that the Evangelicals throw Pence to the lions and do nothing.

The Quality of Christian Movies Reflects the Quality of Their Culture

Two weeks ago, I came across a Vox.com article discussing the quality (or lack thereof) of Christian films, most notably those of Kirk Cameron and an "answer" to 50 Shades of Grey called Old Fashioned.

Ambrosino, in his essay, basically argues that Christian films subsume the actual art of film to the message; what's important isn't that the film is good--that the actors give authentic performances, that the story is compelling, etc--but rather that the message itself is presented foremost and, worse, as literally as possible:

But even if Hollywood films do contain embodied messages, they're not always as explicitly drawn out as they are in Christian movies. That's because, says Godawa, many Evangelical Christians, who are people of the Good Book, have come to value words over images. "They don't know how to embody their messages in the story," he says. "They have to hear the literal words [of the Gospel]." 

It's an important point that most movies contain some meaning, and it's worth pointing out that many secular films can either be interpreted in religious ways (I like to think of No Country For Old Men as a religious allegory), or contain some reference to religious figures (the Coen brothers' A Good Man is described as a retelling of the Book of Job; Simon in Lord of the Flies, as well as even Alex Murphy in Robocop are often cited as "Christ figures", which itself is a motif in other countless "secular" stories). Equally important is that it used to be possible for Christian authors--one or two in particular--to write stories that were Christian in the strictest sense and were compelling for people who may not be Christian: Namely, Fyodor Dostoevsky and CS Lewis.

The possibility of telling a good, captivating story that engages audiences about philosophical/theological issues without beating them over the head seems to elude the people producing contemporary Christian movies. Even "mainstream" Christian movies, such as Heaven is For Real--which certain evangelical factions attacked for being exploitative and manipulative, and eventually turned out to be complete bull--tend to go out of their way to openly attack people with differing opinions. In a review of the film, Odie Henderson writes, "Preaching to the choir is just fine by me, as I was once a member of that choir. But doing victory laps, sticking your tongue out at non-members and hi-fiving the choir while chanting 'Amirite, amirite?' does not help the cause." Kinda hard to do victory laps when the subject publicly renounces the whole damned enterprise. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, the documentary starring Ben Stein that eventually sunk so low as to invoke Godwin's Law to attack Charles Darwin, is another fantastic example of the abject failure of contemporary Christian film making. It would be safe to postulate that Expelled compelled exactly zero "evolutionists" to reconsider their positions.

At issue, I think, is Christian culture as a whole. Let me be frank: They have outright lost the Culture War. I know that battles in the Deep South are still being waged, but Texas--Texas! Can you believe it!? Hallelujah!--is about to recognize same-sex marriage. The larger culture is now--with certain outstanding exceptions--wary of anything that even smells like Jesus' three-day-old body odor. They know that Christian parenting compelled Leelah Alcorn to take her own life. Now is certainly not the time to "run victory laps...and [chant] 'amirite, amirite?'" But the fact that this kind of celebration continues--that may appear to outsiders as delusional (jumping on this word would be far too easy)--betrays a much darker side of Christian culture: Is it possible for the kinds of Christians for whom this media is produced able to recognize and understand perspectives that are not their own? This is a really important question to ask because as Christianity loses ground to other ideologies, it will have to quickly learn to cooperate with others in order to achieve its goals. If it cannot recognize other ideologies, it will quickly be extinguished (I will withhold judgment about its demise being good or bad).

Returning for a moment to the literalism of the messages in Christian film, there is an important point to be made about this Christian culture that Ambrosino did not touch upon, perhaps because it was outside the scope of his essay. Films and novels--not to mention religious texts--are open to individual interpretation. This was a fundamental (pardon my use of the term) point of the Protestant Reformation, and one that is notably absent. I would argue that this glaring omission is intentional, and ties into my previous point about recognizing differing opinions. Fundamentalism excludes at the outset any possible historical context, any symbolism, metaphors, or hidden meanings. It also does wonders to establish a monolithic authority and suppress individualism in its base. This suppression of individualism within its ranks not only strangles its own culture--and it is from this position that these films are made. But if dialogue is impossible from within, then it absolutely follows that dialogue without is triply impossible. If it works to suppress interpretation within itself, how can there be any hope of engaging non-believers on a meaningful and productive level?

As pointed out in Ambrosino's essay, the stated goal of Christian film making is "...is engaging and converting secular culture." I'm not going to deny that those are laudable and possible goals in theory, and were actually attained by prominent figures in the past, but given the contemporary "monolithic" nature of what is considered "Christian" culture, in attempting to bridge the gaping wound that is the Culture War, Christians are going to need to be much more humble.

Best Movies & Books I Read in 2014, Plans for 2015

I'm.... 15 days late.

I don't think I remember the first half of 2014 that well, but here goes nothing.

Best Books

God, I have to scour my GoodReads account and Facebook statuses to remember what I read. Did I read Murakami this year or last? I don't think this is going to work... Goodreads has a gap spanning 18 months.

So, here's what I'm going to do:

Best Books I Read in the Second Half of 2014

1) Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

See, I don't know how many of you know this about me, but I have a pretty strong morbid streak. I had seen Gone Girl in the theater (one of the maybe two or three movies I left my house to see), and I decided to read--because I could not find a decent digital copy of Gone Girl, and only at Christmas did my aunt give me her paperback--her other books instead. I read Sharp Objects first. It was good, it kept me interested, but I kind of knew what was going to happen. It didn't captivate me as Dark Places did.

So I saw the Gone Girl movie, and I got to googling who Gillian Flynn was. Oh: Two other books! Great!

Here's the opener on the Dark Places Wikipedia page: "The novel deals with class issues in rural America, intense poverty and the Satanic cult hysteria that swept the United States in the 1980s." Yes, please! 

I had been looking for something like Dark Places for a very, very long time. At that moment, Dark Places had been everything I had ever wanted, and I want to sincerely thank Ms Flynn for writing it. 

2) Corruption in America - From Benjamin Franklin's Snuff Box to Citizen's United by Zephyr Teachout

This is, in my estimation, the companion book to Republic, Lost by Lawrence Lessig. In fact, the two of them appeared together on Bill Moyer's show on PBS not to long ago discussing Campaign Finance Reform.

Corruption in America deals with the historical attitudes toward corruption in government, and how the narrow definition of corruption (as specifically and exclusively "quid-pro-quo") is anomalous and not representative of prevailing attitudes of corruption held not only by most other previous Supreme Court opinions dealing with the subject, but also the body politic.

If Lessig provided the future, the plan; Teachout provides the history and the justification.

CFR is really the only issue that matters because if it is not fixed, Ted Cruz and others like him will continue to be placed in high positions by the decree of corporate interest (Ted Cruz was placed in charge of NASA). We can't have nice things until our government is dependent upon We the People instead of the Brothers Koch.

3) East of Eden by John Steinbeck

I know, I know, this perhaps should have been first. This book centers around a powerful theological debate about human potential and redemption. God, I sound like an Amazon blurb. Honestly, I still can't decide between East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath, which I adored. But I really don't remember it as well as I should. Details are missing and I feel I cannot explain it adequately.

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Beyond those three, which are the best, I read some Stephen King (Bag of Bones and Cujo, which I finished into the new year), Penpal, which started as a short story on Reddit.com/r/nosleep, a horror/creepypasta forum, which actually kinda creeped me out, Snow by Orhan Pamuk, which was OK, and Real World by Natsuo Kirino, about a group of disillusioned high school students who become infatuated and fascinated by a local boy who murders his parents in cold blood.

I also read Everything I Never Told You, which was listed as the Best Book of 2014 by Amazon.com, and that was decent. A bit too low-key, but still enjoyable. It's hard to find anything really different when everyone is writing prizebait and when you feel you've read all most of the best classics. At that point, you sink into a bit of Stephen King (whom an old friend described as someone who "walks the fine line between pulp and literature"), or read something completely bizarre, which I did during the last half of the year and am continuing to pursue into 2015.

I bought graphic novels. Two of them, in fact. I have Black Hole by Charles Burns and Fun Home by Alison Bechdel (the same Bechdel of the famous "Bechdel Test"), which I finished yesterday in one sitting. It will, I expect, if it is not upstaged later in the year, feature in my 2015 Best Books list. I also finally read Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh.

Right now, my plan for 2015, as far as books are concerned, is to finish the following, in no specific order:

The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (I'm on page 205 right now)
Black Hole by Charles Burns
Watchmen by Alan Moore (the only superhero comic I will ever read. Seriously, I hate superheroes)
Primeval and Other Times by Olga Tokarczuk
War & War by Laszlo Krasznahorkai (his name is so much fun to type and say. I've already finished The Melancholy of Resistance, which was wonderfully weird)

There are other books I need to get to, like The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin and Watership Down, which I have wanted to read for a very long time, and to crack open the lovely Penguin copy of The Iliad (I read The Odyssey already) my neighbors gave me when they moved.

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Best Movies I Saw in 2014

1) The Babadook

As soon as this movie was announced I was head over heels in love, and when I saw it, it wasn't quite what I had expected, but I was absolutely not disappointed. People who manage to see this movie basically fall into two camps: They either respect it for what it is, or they hate it because they were expecting a creature feature (The Babadook is never revealed). The Babadook itself is a psychological bogeyman, onto which all of the main character's anxieties are projected. The performances in this film are, dare I say, more intense and terrifying than Hitchcock. Watching Essie Davis spiral out of control as her anxieties are projected and reflected by the phantom Babadook is breathtaking and terrifying. She drives this film. It is brilliant, and, like Dark Places, everything I had wanted.

2) Gone Girl

This movie was awesome. It was directed by David Fincher, who also did the phenomenal adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Hey, while we're at it, where are the other two movies?), so when his name appeared in the opening credits, I felt assured that I was in for something good. I was not to be disappointed.

3) Under the Skin / Blue Ruin

I saw these two movies at pretty much the same time, and, for some reason, they are linked in my mind. I love low-key science fiction, and, while Johanssen isn't much more than a pretty face in this movie (it is very minimalistic), watching her seduce and suck the life out of unsuspecting men was rather intriguing for my morbid sensibilities.

Blue Ruin, however, was also minimalist, but was thoroughly grounded in a microcosm of damned inevitability. The setup is as quick and dirty as the violent acts Dwight commits, and the final confrontation was wonderfully intense.

4) Rigor Mortis

I read that people hated this film. I really liked it. It's a really unusual vampire film from Hong Kong that incorporates Chinese folklore in its mythology. I will grant that the final scene is a bit silly, but everything that comes before it was comparable to Let the Right One In.

5) The Book of Life

Of course I'd see this movie. It's by the same studio responsible for Paranorman, which I also loved, and this is no less brave in dealing with death, this time centering on a story about the Dia de los Muertos, which is even more hardcore than Halloween in the West. It was, in some ways, almost too similar to Paranorman, but it isn't the same sterilized, lifeless candy put out by other kid-centric studios.

The other notable movies I saw this year are Two Days, One Night, a French movie starring Marion Cotillard about a depressed working mom who must convince her coworkers to forego a bonus in order for her to keep her job, and The Grand Budapest Hotel, but Wes Anderson wins every award already. Unfortunately, I have not had an opportunity to see Birdman or Nightcrawler yet.

In 2015, I am waiting for It Follows, which currently has, I think, a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Debates Are Fun!

A couple years ago, I wrote an essay about how atheists view religion, and last night some family friends came over. We had a lengthy and fruitful debate about a variety of topics, but one of which was about how Christianity is starting to decline in the United States. Our friends were about as excited about the decline as I was, and although we used different language (I was speaking in Foucauldian terms, he historical/religious), we both agreed that the decline would help restore the authenticity of religious faith.

In my previous essay (link above), I had written that atheists find it difficult to view religion as an authentic mode of belief because it was the dominant power structure, adding that demagogues had hijacked it, making it incredibly difficult to distinguish between actual Christians and those who were either along for the ride or who used it to conveniently justify their own prejudices.

Christianity's popular decline will force two things to happen: Being a Christian (think of Heideggerian connotations) will be more difficult as the religion evolves to cope with shifting demographics, and widespread acceptance of previously maligned minorities, forcing religious believers to rethink what believing really means. Many Christians are already inspired toward social justice and positive social change through their religious belief, so these, I would go so far as to say, are already ahead, but those who favored discrimination will have to quickly make amends or be abandoned. Furthermore, those who have been defeated on this and other issues will face the most daunting theological challenges as their positions not only fail to satisfy the needs of their constituents, but also fail to sway outsiders to their cause. No longer can simply calling one a "Christian" be sufficient when expressing prejudiced opinions, but it also can no longer shield one from ridicule or rejection; no longer do those calling themselves Christians automatically gain moral high ground for otherwise unpopular and xenophobic opinions.

The second thing that will happen is that Christianity will be forced to cope with competing ideologies, and must quickly learn to play nicely with others. Immediately following 9/11, the leaders of the Christian Conservative movement moved to assert power and began attacking, both verbally and legislatively, a whole swath of minority groups that they had previously battled. Jerry Falwell, on the 700 Club the day after 9/11, listed virtually every non-Christian minority and placed direct blame on them for the WTC attacks simply by virtue of not being in line with his narrow ideology. This trend continued unabated to the present day, with the Christianists (in conversation, I regrettably reverted to "Christians" as a gross generalization. Old habits die hard) acting largely with impunity, passing same-sex marriage bans across the nation, injecting their own brand of bad theology into science classrooms, and wielding undue influence on public school reading material and sex education. The latter has yet to be corrected. Through it all, this large group of Knights Templar employed xenophobic rhetoric unbecoming of a movement connected--supposedly--to such an altruistic figure, and this rhetoric largely went unchallenged for a good span of time until the oppressed (specifically the LGBQ* community) organized and began to gain sympathy for their cause. Because of the success of the LGBQ community and the hateful rhetoric of the Christianists, people--especially Millennials--saw the Christianists for what they were and came out, regardless of their own sexual identities, in support for LGBQ rights.

What further complicates the issue--and also further incentivizes support for minority causes--is that many LGBTQϟ people once were and/or want to be religious. This is a very important phenomenon. While I myself don't quite understand it--I don't understand why African Americans are religious either, but that's neither here nor there--it takes some serious frakking guts to want to be open to religious belief after what they've been through. There is a very unique opportunity being given to religious belief here, and were religious leaders to take it, LGBTQ Christians would not only help proliferate the religion like no one else could, but also do wonders for helping certain Christian communities resemble, to a significant degree, what it was when it first started. But there is a caveat to be established, a certain warning to be sounded, because it is at the same likely that religious leaders may still view LGBTQ people with disdain: the unfair and equally condemning "Hate the sin, love the sinner" refrain, which is merely thinly-veiled contempt.

At this point, I feel I should address why I wrote this essay. If I'm an atheist, what interest do I have in the issues facing a demographic I am no longer a part of? In the 11 years I've spent studying and following this issue, the less sure I can be that it's the fault of Christianity itself. Furthermore, I don't think it's quite fair to leave those who are open to change in the religious community in the dust. There are people who are called to social justice and are really trying to make Christianity resemble its original intentions, instead of using it as a platform for their own prejudices and a weapon of disenfranchisement against people they don't understand.

We would be better off if we take the opportunity to get involved, to--forgive the metaphor--reforge their swords into plowshares. A mutual understanding benefits everyone in our society and allows everyone to get what they want. My real hope is that there is something beyond simply fending off the Christianists every election cycle, a way out of the mutual distrust we have felt for one another for so long.

Don't forget, also, that we may get something out of such an exchange: We receive the recognition and the respect we need, leading to the expansion of minority rights, among other issues that we care about. I personally want to restore NASA's budget, boost science education in public schools, and counteract global climate change. There are many on the other side of the religious divide that are more than willing to join us on these initiatives. Theological evolution? Sure, I'll take it, as long as the science remains intact. Christians are also called to be "good stewards" of the Earth, and thus have a divinely-mandated duty to stop climate change. Let's get them on board!

There is another reason why we should come to an understanding: The debate itself is so much fun!

*: The transgender/transsexual communities continue to get shafted by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer community, so their struggle continues. So little is still known about them by outsiders, and they are still unfairly delegitimized by greater society. I am leaving them out only because they have not yet gained full recognition and are still fighting. I am personally sympathetic to their cause.

ϟ: I will include them here because I am not discussing the civil rights movement

Noroi: The Curse is the Greatest Found Footage Horror Film Ever Made

The found footage subgenre has exploded in the past 14 years with the release of The Blair Witch Project, leading to franchises such as Quarantine (REC in the US), Paranormal Activity, and myriad other low-budget frightfests, but none of them ever come close to the sheer authenticity and terror of Noroi: The Curse ("Noroi" actually means "curse" in Japanese, so the title is redundant), a little-known film quietly released in 2005.

When most people try to name Japanese horror films they've seen, they name such films as Ringu, Ju-On, Kairo, or Audition. While all of these are excellent, none are as deeply unsettling as Noroi: The Curse.

Without giving too much away, Noroi is the story of a paranormal investigator and his cameraman who are investigating a series of mysterious disappearances centering around a woman named Junko Ishii, a middle-aged recluse, and her son, and encounter a young girl named Kana, who has psychokinetic powers. Eventually, they team up with a famous TV personality and a hikikomori who covers himself in aluminum foil and keeps freaking out about "worms."

Noroi takes itself very seriously, and splices footage from Japanese TV and public access interviews, as well as local historical records and urban legends to provide subtle hints as to what's going on, and does a fantastic job of establishing and maintaining its authenticity right to the ending credits.

The sheer, disturbing beauty of Noroi is that everything is constructed to be as real as possible. There is only about 15 seconds of CGI, and it is startlingly effective, and absolutely not anything the audience would expect. The actual paranormal phenomena in question stays true to traditional Japanese folklore; in fact, I believe that were anything to actually happen, it would work exactly as presented in the film.

Nothing in Noroi is ever expected or predictable; the movie works so well because it has no convention. When one actually discovers what's going on in the second hour of the movie, one's jaw will hit the floor, as it is much, much worse than any monster that could possibly appear on screen.

Noroi works so well because is not a movie that will shock you with jump scares or fast cuts to disturbing images. It doesn't intend to gross you out by showing you blood and guts, no girls coming out of your TV, or bloody mothers gurgling down the stairs; rather it is what's underneath the events in the film that will keep you up after you watch it. The very story is terrifying, and how the film handles what it has presented to you when the credits roll only serves to drive the whole thing home and make your insomnia that much worse. No other found footage films ever address how they actually got "found" and released to the public. Noroi takes special care to include this detail to the audience's satisfaction, and that is one of the primary reasons why it is so utterly horrifying.

The minute details, the little things, in Noroi's case, make all the difference, and serve to establish it as the finest found footage film ever made.

Noroi: The Curse is freely available on Youtube in its entirety You can view it here

Happy belated Halloween!

GamerGate is Really Pissing Me Off

By now, the entire Internet is aflame over #GamerGate, which is best described as a misogynistic anonymous swarm of users on 4chan and Reddit who, under the false guise of "journalism ethics", seek to silence feminist critics of video games, namely Anita Sarkeesian, whose video series Tropes Vs Women in Video Games seeks to shed light on misogynistic undercurrents of video game plots and gameplay mechanics.

To recap, Eron Gjoni, an ex-boyfriend of Zoe Quinn, the creator of the brilliant (in my opinion) Depression Quest, alleged that she had slept with a Kotaku writer in exchange for positive coverage of the game when it was released on Steam1. Kotaku investigated the incident, and found no conflict of interest2. Unfortunately, despite the immediate issue being resolved to satisfaction, GamerGate only stepped up its resolve, and began targeting not just Zoe Quinn, but a whole swath of female personalities not only in gaming, but also in geek culture at large. Their primary target right now is Anita Sarkeesian, whose video series mentioned above has already angered many a hikikomori, but they have also attacked Brianna Wu, and even actress Felicia Day, who was "doxxed" (had her personal address discovered and shared on the Internet for the intent to intimidate and harass) for a rather innocuous and mournful Tumblr post3.

Many, such as the famous Chris Kluwe, have already succinctly expressed how I feel about GamerGate, but I feel the need to further explain why GamerGate is so toxic to gaming generally, especially when bastions of "old media" are becoming more accepting of the medium as an art form4.

It isn't quite enough to simply say that GamerGaters (GamerGators?) are the lowest dregs of modern society who should slither back into the filthy holes from which they first appeared; like it or not, the appearance of this phenomenon will irrevocably harm, if not entirely destroy, the hopes of the gaming culture to become an accepted art form, something that at leased used to seem important, back when Roger Ebert said he'd rather read Huckleberry Finn than play a video game.

The truth is, we need women in gaming. Unbeknownst to many, women have contributed a great deal to many of our favorite games. Amy Hennig was responsible not only for Uncharted, but also for the famous Legacy of Kain series. Jane Jensen created Gabriel Knight. and Roberta Williams wrote King's Quest.

I've been playing Counter-Strike in all of its forms starting when it was released (I started playing at version 1.5, I believe), and I have never played in a clan in which women were not present. Over the 14 or so years I have been shooting virtual avatars, I have met a fair number of women on the battlefield, and all of these women were fully capable of playing the game at least as confidently, if not more than the male players. One of these women exclusively uses the shotgun and calls herself ShotgunSally. As an ally, ShotgunSally is invaluable: If the rest of the team were to be eliminated, she can always be depended upon to complete the objective. As an adversary, Sally is terrifying.

A few days ago, RockPaperShotgun published an article about a freeware title called CHYRZA by Kitty Horrorshow5. I got the opportunity to play it late last night, and it was absolutely brilliant. The Unity game revolved around a small desert community in which a giant black pyramid appears on the outskirts of the village and summons inhabitants inside, causing them to disappear. It was a short and haunting game that I would recommend to everyone.

That women not only want to play games but also take part in their creation is beneficial to all of us not only as intelligent human beings, but also as gamers. One argument I've read was that because [gamers] have historically been bullied by women and have thus retreated to video games and other technological hobbies as an escape from daily ridicule, the phenomenon of women who want to partake in "our" culture is seen as an invasion. This is ridiculous. The reason is that because women--and greater society generally--are looking to take a more positive look at video gaming, people who play games no longer have to feel alienated, which is, ironically, something that these isolated boys have secretly wished for forever. There isn't a gamer on this planet who has not secretly wished for a "gamer girlfriend", and now that it is becoming a reality, they are terrified of it.

Because of the growing interest of women, the variety of stories and perspectives gamers are going to be exposed to will expand indefinitely. This is a very good thing. Earlier, I mentioned CHYRZA by Kitty Horrorshow, but there are more examples. Many of the games created by women are critical successes, such as Gone Home, Portal, and Journey, in addition to those I mentioned previously.

Gamers claim that it is important to them that video games are recognized as art, but in silencing critics like Anita Sarkeesian for pointing out what she feels is misogynistic in popular games (one of the games she mentioned in her latest video happens to be one of my personal favorites), GamerGaters can't have their cake, and eat it, too. Part of something being "art" is finding deeper meaning in what's going on under the surface of any story: text, film, or game, and being able to analyze it in a way that is relevant to the greater culture as a whole. And you know what? Anita Sarkeesian is actually right about what she's saying. It would be absurd for me to be offended at what she's saying, and absolutely Kafkaesque in the cruelest sense to silence her for stating what is a reasonable, well-researched opinion.

What Sarkeesian is actually doing is offering developers the opportunity to write better games; games that deliver to us a much wider variety of experiences, and this is, ultimately, what gaming is all about. The very best games tell memorable stories, make us think about our own lives, and ponder the big questions, such as, "What can change the nature of a man?" 

Trying to alienate women from gaming vis-a-vis GamerGate has done enormous and irreparable damage to the gaming community in all aspects. As women leave gaming, terrified of severe persecution by Knights Templars*, the quality of games will stagnate, and we will never experience the games that we could have had. Once, gamers had a chance to be accepted into mainstream culture without others looking askance at their virtual hobbies, but GamerGate has all but dashed their hopes, projecting once again the image of basement-dwelling, neckbearded, odorous hikikomoris. As long as GamerGate continues, everything that gamers have wanted will be far beyond their grasp.

1) http://gawker.com/the-angry-ex-who-ignited-gamergate-has-no-regrets-1647186033

2) http://kotaku.com/in-recent-days-ive-been-asked-several-times-about-a-pos-1624707346

3) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/23/felicia-days-public-details-online-gamergate

4) https://medium.com/the-cauldron/why-gamergaters-piss-me-the-f-off-a7e4c7f6d8a6 -- Chris Kluwe originally tweeted a colorful condemnation of GamerGate, but I can't find it. I have just discovered that he wrote this wonderful essay as a devastating salvo against the "movement".

5) http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2014/10/21/chyrza-horror/

*: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/KnightTemplar

The Rise of the Surveillance State

In June 2013, The Guardian and Edward Snowden broke the story of how the National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting massive quantities of consumer and citizen data for the purposes of gathering intelligence on potential terrorist threats. In recent months and weeks, it has been disclosed that the NSA has its hooks in nearly every major Internet Services Provider and data firm, including Google1,2.

In recent weeks, Senate hearings have taken place, and the director of the NSA, Keith Alexander, has repeatedly lied to the Senate about the scope of the NSA's data mining3. Furthermore, internal NSA documents instruct NSA employees to use 9/11 to justify the actions of the agency4.

9/11 was 12 years and 2 months ago. As an essay in Der Spiegel, the famous German newspaper, notes,

"It is often assumed that intelligence agencies are worlds of their own, and that they sometimes act on their own authority. However, they are also an expression of the societies in which they exist, especially of their fears. In other words, it is quite possible that there are not just paranoid agents, but also paranoid democracies that act in hysterical ways out of fear. They are characterized by a strong freedom myth, which leads to paranoia. It, in turn, poses a threat to freedom. The United States is currently in a late phase of this cycle."5

The German nation itself has been deeply offended by the actions of the NSA, following revelations that Chancellor Merkel's own personal cell phone had been tapped6.

Other, similar abuse of the NSA's surveillance apparatus is reportedly rampant: The Guardian again published a story on how one employee stalked nine women with the power granted to him by the NSA apparatus:

A National Security Agency employee was able to secretly intercept the phone calls of nine foreign women for six years without ever being detected by his managers, the agency's internal watchdog has revealed.
The unauthorised abuse of the NSA's surveillance tools only came to light after one of the women, who happened to be a US government employee, told a colleague that she suspected the man – with whom she was having a sexual relationship – was listening to her calls.
The case is among 12 documented in a letter from the NSA's inspector general to a leading member of Congress, who asked for a breakdown of cases in which the agency's powerful surveillance apparatus was deliberately abused by staff. One relates to a member of the US military who, on the first day he gained access to the surveillance system, used it to spy on six email addresses belonging to former girlfriends.7

If the stated intent of the NSA's surveillance programs are to gather actionable intelligence on terrorist threats, then why spy on Angela Merkel? I can only conclude that the NSA has grown far beyond its stated raison d'etre,  and has become a machine whose sole purpose is to feed itself. It should thus be immediately dissolved.

Some in our government are pushing for the reformation of the NSA, believing--albeit falsely--that it would be possible to transform the culture inside the NSA into something other than what it inherently is. By its very nature, the NSA must, in order to fulfill not only its stated purpose but also its own diseased hunger, harbor a culture that exhibits both an extreme paranoia, as well as a cavalier attitude toward the autonomy of others (citizens) and the law itself. No matter what sanctions are placed on the NSA, the power, thanks to its inherent attitude, will absolutely be abused to such an extent that it places the very ideals of the free world--personal autonomy and freedom of the press, among others--in extreme jeopardy.

I had a brief discussion with someone who attended the anti-surveillance protests in Washington DC, and I asked him what he thought of the NSA. What he said struck me as a little misguided: His objection to the actions of the NSA were based on the stated legality of its activities; if we are to be spied on, that would be acceptable so long as the gross intrusion is codified into law. His position reminded me of Socrates' acceptance of his fate in The Crito, where he turns himself in to the Greek government because, in his mind, he chose to live there and implicitly accepted their rule, even if it means that he should die.

This does not work for two reasons: Codified or not, the NSA's activities are a blatant contradiction to our democratic ideals, and severely impinge on our fundamental rights as citizens and human beings. Writing them into law does not make them any less egregious. The second, and arguably more important reason, is that the NSA's actions affect nearly every single human being on the planet, and thus it is absolutely impossible to "choose" whether or not to accept the NSA's existence. If the NSA can decide to tap Angela Merkel's phone (Germany is [was, now] a strong ally of the United States), who could possibly be above suspicion? Beyond that, the NSA gathers data from ISPs and Internet services companies, so innocent people are caught up in the storm at the source and would thus really have to make significant changes to how they send and receive traffic over the Internet.

The Guardian had published an article on October 8th, 2013 detailing the actual effectiveness of the NSA's mass surveillance apparatus, concluding that the apparatus is not at all effective in gathering actionable intelligence. It writes,

The admissions Leahy forced out of the NSA heads and DNI Clapper that they have been systematically overstating the effectiveness of bulk collection are consistent with the only other official assessments of bulk collection. The sole publicly available FISC opinion (pdf) that assesses the impact of bulk collection from 2006 to 2009 was unimpressed that:
"[T]he government's submission cites three examples in which the FBI opened three new preliminary investigations of persons in the US based on tips from the BR metadata program. [Emphasis mine --MiSaNtHrOpE] Judge Walton wrote that this achievement "does not seem particularly significant"8.

 Here, we can conclude that the NSA is not living up to its stated purpose, and calls into question the justifications for its existence and continued activity. The terrifying part about this particular revelation is that it proves that my earlier summation regarding its behavior is indeed correct. The almost non-existent "success rate" (insofar as stopping terrorist threats is still a criterion of success, as opposed to how many people it can possibly ensnare in its system) clearly proves that either the NSA is woefully incompetent and unable to accurately distinguish from good and bad intelligence (and therefore warrants dissolution for ineffectiveness), OR that its publicly stated goal, to produce actionable intelligence on terrorist threats, is not its real mission (therefore also warrants dissolution for the danger posed to democracy).

It is worth noting that other nations--including Germany, France, and Great Britain--all have their own respective variants of the NSA. Great Britain's GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters) most notably attempted to destroy computers belonging to The Guardian as the NSA leaks were being published9. The Guardian notes that the GCHQ's eavesdropping activities were funded by the United States. It is not known yet just how far the NSA has gone to align itself with other similar organizations within allied nations.

The solution is clear: The NSA, as I have explained, must be dissolved. Its culture, its very existence, is anathema to the ideals of the free world, and places every single human being on the planet at risk for being falsely identified as a threat to the United States government, even where no evidence to that effect exists. I will not venture a guess as to what the NSA truly wants, as I know such dystopian fantasies are often the tools of hyperbole, but I will say that whatever it is, it cannot help us. Attempting to alter its culture is fundamentally misguided, as the nature of such an apparatus is inherently paranoid and dismissive of the rule of law.

1) http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/11/googlers-say-f-you-to-nsa-company-encrypts-internal-network/

2) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/30/google-reports-nsa-secretly-intercepts-data-links?CMP=twt_fd&CMP=SOCxx2I2

3) http://www.forbes.com/sites/seanlawson/2013/06/06/did-intelligence-officials-lie-to-congress-about-nsa-domestic-spying/

4) http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/10/30/revealed-nsa-pushed911askeysoundbitetojustifysurveillance.html

5) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/paranoia-has-undermined-united-states-claim-to-liberal-democracy-a-932326.html

6) http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/nsa-scandal-berlin-restricted-by-close-relationship-with-us-intelligence-a-931503.html

7) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/27/nsa-employee-spied-detection-internal-memo

8) http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/08/nsa-bulk-metadata-surveillance-intelligence

9) http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/nsa-snowden-files-drives-destroyed-london