Tuesday, February 16, 2021

Living With A Paradox: Thoughts On Wargaming and Ethics in Light of Jay Arnold's Recent Veteran Wargamer Podcast

Ethics in wargaming isn’t a new topic.  I’m old enough to remember the arguments in the 1970s and 1980s in the hex and counter community about games such as Squad Leader fetishizing the SS with black counters and special “super-soldier” abilities.   So while it covered well-trodden ground, there were three things that made Jay Arnold’s Wargaming Ethics Roundtable podcast and panel discussion interesting and refreshing.

First, the podcast was a conversation rather than a debate.  Rather than framing it as an argument with those who might say “this is all a game, why are you ruining our fun by taking it so seriously and being so judgey?”, a conversation that Annie Norman of Bad Squiddo Games said she has had her fill of, the tone was thoughtful and respectful.   All the participants agreed that this tone should be the quality we take around our gaming tables.   Admittedly there might be some people who reveal their true colours (eg, wearing a “Adolf Hitler European Tour, 1939-45” concert style shirt) and who thus might be best avoided, there are issues that we could raise in friendly, conversational, and non-accusatory fashion, so thanks to the participants for modelling that tone in their discourse.

Second, the participants addressed the question of the representation of suffering which can be the elephant in the room for wargamers, so I was grateful for their honesty.   William Tecumseh Sherman wrote to a friend that  “ I am tired & sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. Even success, the most brilliant is over dead and mangled bodies”.  Like Jay Arnold I served in the military, and as a chaplain I’ve tried to help others with moral, physical, and psychological wounds.   I’m an avid student of military history.  I have, or should have, no illusions.  Yet here I am, with painted and cardboard armies of many periods in my house.  My collections include casualty figures, which Jay’s guests confessed some discomfort with.  So what’s my excuse for persisting in this hobby?

Dr. Samuel Johnson once said that "Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."  He was, I think, pointing at the mystique of the profession of arms, its celebration of heroism, gallantry, and self-sacrifice, the glamour of the dress uniform, that encourages many today into the phenomenon of “stolen valour”.   That mystique has waxed and waned over the centuries, but it persists.  I grew up in an Army family, with a decorated veteran father who was sparing with his love but still inspired me and some of my brothers to become soldiers.    The paintings of a Lady Butler or Don Troiani, like our favourite war movies, capture the aesthetic of war, even while antiwar movies (Paths of Glory), novels (The Good Soldier Schweik) and art (Dali, Dix) are difficult to ignore.    I think it’s fair to say that wargamers are under the spell of the aesthetic of war, even while knowing at some conscious level that it is a species of enchantment. 

For example, I can look at a photo of a dreadnought of the Great War, at speed and guns blazing, and find it inspiring, even beautiful, while knowing something of what a fourteen inch shell could do when bursting in a confined space, or how the money spent on these behemoths could have benefitted millions of slum-dwellers.  Every glamorous image has its shadow side.  All this to say that I would happily play a dreadnought game, knowing (in order of active cognition at the time) first that it is a game, second that it might teach me something about history, and thirdly knowing something of the reality underlying the game.  That’s the best I can do with the issue of the representation of suffering.

Third, I’m grateful to the participants for their focus on who we represent.  Their conversation touched on issues of race, gender, and how history is far more complex than it is in our representations.  For example, a Crusader army would have included soldiers from what we would today call the Middle Eastern countries, so why paint all Crusaders as Caucasians?   We might do so because if you’re like me, your default flesh tone is Citadel’s Cadian flesh, but that doesn’t have to be the case.   Why is representation important, and not just a kneejerk response to trendy diversity requirements?  Because many of our games lend themselves to narratives of race war with an overlay of civilization versus barbarism.  My blonde elves and Rohirrim resisting tides of dark skinned monsters may just be an innocent fantasy trope, but it too has its shadow side.

I will never forgot trying to get my wife to watch the “Men of Harlech” scene from Zulu, a film beloved of wargamers.  To my horror, all she saw was white soldiers mowing down black men.  “I could have lived the rest of my life without ever watching that”, was all she said.   That was a shock, but it reminded me that what to us are gallant episodes from Queen Victoria’s Little Wars just look like colonial massacres to others.   Jay’s guests didn’t have a solution to this, and certainly didn’t advocate the cancellation of colonial gaming.   However, they did suggest that we at least think about the common practice of recycling native figures to sustain the game, and what it represents, or to educate ourselves and others about the complexity of indigenous cultures in order to tamp down the “civilization vs barbarism” narrative.  These battles are more imbalances of technology than they are of civilization.  As Hillaire Belloc mordantly noted, “Whatever happens, we have got / the Maxim gun, and they have not”.  A little more self-awareness along these lines is all that the panelists were asking of us.

A final thought about who we represent.  When I was an American Civil War reenactor, I belonged to a group that usually portrayed Federal infantry, and I was okay with that, because they were the good guys.   When I went down south to American events, the Confederate reenactors grew more and more numerous and were often very political.  You would see bumper stickers in the event parking lots with slogans such as “North 1, South 0: Half Time”.  I didn’t want any part of that, but once, I was persuaded to don gray and go to an event as a Rebel.   I’ll never forget passing by a group of African American reenactors portraying US Coloured Troops, and how I felt a moment of visceral shame to be marching under the Confederate battle flag.  I couldn’t divorce the politics and history of the present from the history we were supposedly bringing to life.   That being said, the Civil War is a passion of mine, and I have a large and growing collection of figures, including numerous CSA regiments, because I game solo usually, and for that you need both sides.  If I was at an event, where I met a fellow with a tooled up Confederate army, wearing a grey kepi and a Robert E Lee t-shirt, I would at the very least want to have a respectful conversation with him about who he was representing and why.  Hopefully it would be educational, and not confrontational.  

As I bring this to a close, I am aware that I have just laid out a game about RAF night bombers flying over the Third Reich, and I’m also aware that the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden occurred quite recently.   There is a terrible paradox there, and as I write these lines, I realize that I don’t want to solve the paradox one way or another.  I acknowledge the incredible bravery of those young men who flew for Bomber Command, as well as the reality of what their actions did to those living in or near their targets.   I love the lines of a Lancaster bomber while I’m haunted by the photos of gutted German cities.  Perhaps all I can do as a wargamer is to live with that tension.

Thanks for reading.  I'd love to read your own thoughts.

MP+


27 comments:

  1. Although many wargamers might or want to ignore it, wargaming is a middle-class hobby that originated in countries that have a strong military tradition. These countries are proud of their military history, perhaps more so compared to other countries that have seen the other side of military conflict. There's inherently nothing wrong with that, but it does colour the themes and sometimes attitiudes that we see in wargaming.

    It's no coincidence that e.g. France or Germany don't have a wargaming traditio of their own (or it died after before WW1), and have imported the Anglosaxon wargaming tradition. Again, this is not wrong in itself, but we should be aware it colours and shapes the hobby as we know it.

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    1. Thanks Phil, I appreciate that view from a European tradition. I follow quite a few European warmers via their blogs and social media, but never thought about how their gaming is an imported sub-culture. Certainly if you look at the commercial print war-games that started coming out in the late 1960s from companies like Avalon Hill, they were all WW2-centric. The same might be said of plastic miniatures and models from companies like Airfix and Matchbox, though toy soldier gaming goes back to at least the 1800s as you note. I've noted your gaming blogs and look forward to following them.

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  2. I think some people ought to learn a bit more history or consider a change of hobby? History now seems to be a much more simplistic, right of wrong (perhaps, increasingly, black or white?) business whereas it's always been far more complex. Are the pictures of "gutted German cities" any better or worse than the pictures of earlier gutted British or European cities? The Zulus were rather adept at "mowing down black men" that were members of the "wrong" tribe? The Confederacy now appears to be regarded as the personification of evil but even the briefest study shows things weren't that simple - would a Robert E Lee t-shirt be quite so problematic if he had accepted the offered Command of the Union Forces?
    The clue is in the name - wargaming is a game. It's little more than a rather more elaborate version of chess - should there be more representation of suffering in chess? It isn't real; neither are "re-enactors" - although I accept there are a few people who are convinced that their chosen rule set is the absolute mirror of life and that rolling a few dice successfully raises them to the greatness of Bonaparte (Have a read of some of the Message Boards on The Miniatures Page!). I too had a Military career and was the third generation to serve (My Grandfather knew more than a little about 14" shells having been on the wrong end of them at Dogger Bank and Jutland) but it wasn't through inspiration or from being dazzled by some mythical aesthetic of war. Anyone who gives the subject more than a few seconds thought and who takes the time to learn a little more than the average UK school's history curriculum or the content of The Guardian knows there is very little romance in warfare - but it has brought about many of the pivotal moments in world history and is therefore worthy of study. Having an interest in military history, even to the extent of occasionally "playing" military-themed "games" doesn't make you a genocidal tyrant, a Colonial Oppressor or a White Supremacist (being "English" and "male" apparently does?). We are in danger of handing our lives over to the growing ranks of the Professionally Offended.

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    1. Hi Jeremy: Thank you for your heartfelt response. I am not sure my point came from an ill-informed view of history (I have five university degrees) nor did it come from a desire to change the hobby or leave it. I do agree with you that war-games can teach us much about history without necessarily re-writing it, but I would still argue that there is something aesthetic about the hobby - why else would we play it if there wasn't something about it that we enjoyed?

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    2. I doubt very much you have come from any 'ill Judged' point of view. As most of your readers will no doubt subscribe. My children have had a fascination for the computer, and other type of games, such as Pokemon, Halo and Ark- Survival - all of which are probably equal to a 'certain generational' interest in Colonial, ACW and WW2 wargaming - but in different aspect (is all). If you try and deconstruct their own interest, you could argue that 'Pokemon' is endorsing slavery and gladiatorial combat. That 'Halo' endorses Colonialism, and 'Ark-Survival' endorses animal suffering (do your research if unfamiliar). I personally see wargaming as no different to the current 'fashionable' thinking of play. Best wishes and stay safe.

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  3. Hi Michael -
    There's a lot of meat and potatoes in your posting - and something I have off-and-on been uneasy about in my war gaming. In a way, I'd like to respond point-by-point to what you have said, but methinks that would be tiresome to anyone who essayed to read it!

    My own 'justification' or 'rationalisation' is that for mine, war is rich source of stories. Perhaps that is why I write my AAR and campaign narratives the way I do. There are all sorts of ways of telling stories, to oneself, or to others. But on balance my wars and battles really are sanitised versions of what they purport to ... tell (I was about to say 'represent', but perhaps that is to overstate the matter).

    I have also a habit of rooting for the underdog - which, from a purely 'war' point of view, the Confederacy was. But the Confederate political leadership, bloody-minded and foolish, made themselves, and their compatriots, into underdogs. I still believe the likes of R.E. Lee and T.J. Jackson were honourable men, whatever one thinks of Jeff Davis.

    That sympathy for the underdog extends to colonial warfare - a field of wargaming to which I have only recently taken on. Even then, I go the Imagi-Nations route, thinly disguising the contending nations, and tending towards 'great power' conflicts. That hasn't stopped my joining a friend's project set in a vaguely east African region, peopled by the mButu, led by a canny chief who is prepared to live and let live, but apt to go all militant when crossed, as the Azeitonian colonists have already discovered, to their cost, on two occasions.

    I don't 'do' Waffen-SS as such, but if a battle calls for such-like ilk, then the troops on the table, Wehrmacht most of the time, will be SS for this scenario. Nor do I 'do' casualty figures. But against that, in rule sets that used figure removal for casualties, I liked to leave them where they fell. The battlefields did take on a stricken look towards the close of the action, and one could also trace afterwards where the heaviest fighting took place.

    I don't come from a military family at all. A few soldiers appear here and there through family history, including my eldest nephew, but there was no real military thread. I tend to think of myself as a pacifist, as I believe H.G. Wells was, holding the view that, as an instrument of policy, war passed its use-by date somewhere between 1789 and 1815.

    Let the objectors object - but let them leave us to our story-making. Conflict is the stuff of stories; absent conflict, you have mere narrative - at best.
    Cheers,
    Ion

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    1. Hello Ion: as always I am grateful for your thoughtfulness.
      I really like your point about narrative and storytelling. It's surely no coincidence that some of western culture's most ancient and famous stories are about war. When I was a young teen and first read Homer's Iliad (I was a weird kid), I was riveted but also a little sickened about the graphic description of war - spears passing through mouths and that sort of thing. Perhaps every generation needs to tell its own stories, though if you read enough memoirs or watch enough films, you quickly recognize the tropes and cliches repeating across the centuries. As for the American Civil War, I think it's part of an ongoing story and even an ongoing conflict that never ended - the stories of the Tuskegee airmen are so vital because they also fought against entrenched racism in US society that survived after Lee surrendered. That War still goes on socially and politically, and as gamers, I think we have to at least recognize that, though I suppose there are innumerable battle and regimental histories that can be read (and played) totally in isolation.

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  4. The dichotomy of the game is not something to fear. War itself is that way. The best times of my life, some of my fondest memories, are of war. And also the worst. But the worst is not very much of it and the best was a great deal.

    Seeing an image of tanks racing across the desert, the dust flying behind, the blast wave as they fire, is exhilarating. Even more so seeing it in real life. War is a spectacular endeavor, if you can survive it, both physically and mentally. In gaming it should not be strange that, without the pain and loss, you are left with the spectacle and the challenge and the "glory".

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    1. I totally get that. Watching a combined arms brigade group going through its paces on exercise, with tanks racing forward, is absolutely exhilarating, like listening to a magnificent symphony. Listening to the Observer Controllers' casualty assessments afterwards, was sobering but somewhat unreal. My dad was a veteran of NW Europe and Korea. I am sure he had some demons, you could tell that, but he also liked to say that he had good wars. He and his friends were fit and young, and they were undefeated. Why wouldn't they have felt pride and pleasure in some (or as you say, even much) of what they saw and did?

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  5. Thanks for such a thoughtful and well-written post. I think your willingness to think about these issues and consider different points of view is incredibly important. The question is too big, to varied, and too personal to ever reach a right or wrong answer, instead we just need to continue having a polite discussion.

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    1. Thanks so much. Indeed, a polite discussion is probably all we can or should ask of one another.

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  6. Intresting points. While I'm at the core a fantasy gamer - somehow it seems less "wrong" in this article tendens, to kill masses of Orcs to bowfire just feels different.

    Now, we had the same "history of crime" affair as recent as last year here in Belgium, as suddenly a left wing action group decided that all statues of former king Leopold 2 had to be removed for his crimes in the Congo. Bit of a quick change in mentality btw, 10 odd years ago he was still a national hero and we even had the Perry's sculpt a figure of him for a Crisis show entry model.

    Personally, I always thought we should never forget even the war crimes, in order for next generation to learn from it, even though some tend to take those sorts of figures like a role-model instead... but how would the world develop and schools work if for example every reference to that small austrian ruler of Germany was abolished out of history?

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  7. Hello Michael, thanks for this post. It uncannily echoes my thoughts, although there is no long standing military tradition in my family, my father was very proud of his service, and I was brought up with the History of the British Empire magazine, and war movies depicting plucky Brits.

    At various levels I have often felt a degree of discomfort playing some games rather than others. I steadfastly refuse to play colonial period games, having walked the battlefields in KwaZulu Natal with a Zulu guide, and find ACW 'uncomfortable'. My WW2 Germans are not SS.

    What bothers me though, are not so much the figures deployed on the table, but the justifications and tortuous thought processes some folk adopt to avoid confronting any moral dimension in the hobby. There are even examples in the responses to this post. So thanks for airing the wargames room.

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    1. "My WW2 Germans are not SS." I think you've ably illustrated your post.

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  8. Comment from a retired mental health professional, putting her professional hat on.

    For me, the significant clue in these types of discussions is the lack of a framework to understand the emotional response generated by experiencing unwanted emotional dissonance triggered by an event.

    The driver of this is called Thought-Action-Fusion, which can be summed up as, if I think bad thoughts, then bad things will happen that I'm responsible for. It's part of the magical thinking mechanism that's driven by heuristic pattern analysis that evolved to keep us alive on the plains of the Serengeti a 100,000 years ago and more.

    In one of those rare occurrences, The Guardian even has a good introductory article that deals with communication:

    https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/16/how-to-have-better-arguments-social-media-politics-conflict

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    1. Thanks Ashley. While I confess that I don't entirely understand the theory you're citing, I think I grasp the general idea. I think at the very least we have to process our emotional responses within some sort of cognitive framewwork. What am I representing an d why am I doing it? The other day I saw a vendor who sells blood spatter markers for skirmish games and I thought - Nope. I have seen some things that I'd rather not revisit, though I accept that they get recreated in the abstract in my games. I know that you do a lot of SF gaming and love big stompy things - is that sort of gaming too fantastic or futuristic to require any kind of ethical or emotional analysis, I wonder?

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  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  10. Interesting post and raises lots of thoughts, I guess I was taken by the glamour of uniforms as a small child and learnt to read with my dads Purnells history of ww2,he'd had a good war in the RNVR, my mum's older brother lost a leg in a Sherman in northern Europe, her younger brother was in Korea and my granddad was on the Somme,my brother went into the army when I was a kid,so there was a fair bit of military knocking about I guess, I've tried to avoid recent history(post Napoleonic) even though my nephews bullied me into bolt action, colonial wars have little interest. The civil wars in Britain also don't seem as current as the ACW which was pretty recent, my granddad was in his mid 40s when he was in the trenches so he was born not long after the ACW finished, it unfortunately seems like unfinished business. I am happiest moving gayley coloured 16th century troops around in an operatic manner, in Machiavelli's Italy and at the time Britain was a marginal country hanging on the edge of Europe, any resemblance to now is purely accidental!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain, great comment. You and I had similar upbringings, with lots of military service in our family trees. It's interesting how military traditions in a family can work our - most of my colleagues when I was in the army were also positively influenced by a military ancestor of some sort. Even my ACW reenacting friends could often identify a g-g-grandfather who had served in some ACW regiment - for them I suspect the hobby was also a kind of ancestor worship. Even if our family members were touched by war, as your uncle was in in his Sherman, many gamers seem to respect their experience and sacrifice rather than shy away from it.
      I really liked your description of SYW gaming as "operatic". In confess I am happier with heroic, colourful uniforms and banners and a more formal style - the idea of going back to Helmand or Kandahar feels to close and unpleasant to me at least.

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  11. This is a topic that started making me uneasy some 30 or more years ago, alas, I forget what the trigger was but it grew and grew in my mind until a few years ago I started making some conscious decisions about what sort of games I would stage or sign up for at a con.

    But to go back, my maternal grandfather was a late 19thC pro (RHA) called back from reserves in 1914, served through the war and after emigrating to Canada tried to enlist in '39 but was judged too old so settled for being a Commionaire at a munitions depot. He never gave up his collection of toy soldiers and my mom bought me toy soldiers, prererably painted since her father's were and books on history, esp military history.
    My paternal granfather signed up in WW1 because he needed a job. He hated it and based on interpreting a few stories suspect that he might have suffered from ptsd. He tried to sign up in 39 so they wouldn't take his sons. He was rejected so my dad volunteered so they wouldn't take his elder brother who had a son. His brother also volunteered though and lies in Normandy. Dad enjoyed the pubs in the UK but nit the fighting in Italy and Holland but still enjoyed watching Combat! and took me to movies like Devil's Brigade and read history but he had no interest in toy soldiers or games.
    When I was in uniform playing wargames seemed almost natural. It was a small thing that jolted ne into thinking more derply about what I was representing. In preparation for a F&I raid on a settlement game and found myself preparing a schedule of victory points for things like burning cabins, killing and scalping settlers men, women and children, or taking them prisoners whether for torture, trade or slaves and started to question things. Did I really think this should a game? At a con where there might be young folks? Not a demonstration but a game.

    After years of thinking about the pros and cons my personal choice was to study and be aware but to avoid turning things that I would be ashamed to do in real life, into a game.

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  12. Thanks Ross. There is a certain innocence that I admire about your blog - I see it also in Alan's Duchy of Tragardland or in Conrad Kinch's Joy and Forgetfulness blog. I have thought a lot about the F&I wars myself as a possible gaming subject - I live an hour's drive from the site of Brebeuf's martyrdom ("zee barbecue", as a French Catholic friend calls it) but having read Boyden's The Orenda, that war seems too horrible and real for me to think much about. And yet this morning before my prayer time I was finishing some Wehrmacht figures. I often can't explain myself.
    Thanks for your comments.

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  13. I believe that I have heard most of the wargames moralistic arguments except for maybe one and so comments are welcome:

    At what point does time wipe away moral aspects? Roman soldiers and their foes all had mothers, siblings, wives etc. However, I’ve yet to hear anyone comment on the moral aspects of sacking a town! It’s history. It’s almost possible to make jokes about it! Why are the SS generally considered worse than centuries older troops who had the same behaviours? Is it anything to do with family connections? We probably all had a relative in WW2 and so the SS are “real”. Historic soldiers are less so. It’s a rare individual who can claim a Napoleonic relative, let alone earlier. Reality has become no-more than a history text? Colonial battles can be seen as different. They have a connection to today in black v white and so, again, are “real”.

    I know some people who refuse to play modern Afghanistan actions. “Real” again? I don’t know.

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  14. All pretty interesting comments guys. I really don't think this deeply about the games I play or periods etc. I agree with a lot of what I interpret Bankinista to be saying....I think a lot of people DO worry too much about history .... When I was growing up in the UK in the seventies and eighties, we had "the troubles" in N Ireland anfpd that's basically all related to things that appended three hundred years ago. The Nazis I think people view as "worse" because their atrocities were committed generally on fellow Europeans and at a point in time when Europeans generally felt they had advanced to a more advanced stage if civilisation....and the SS are obviously the epitome of Nazism....but the question holds true, what about the Vikings...should all the liberal, socially aware, social democrats in Scandanavia feel guilt because some if their ancestors raped and pillaged large parts of north Western Europe? In my opinion, no they should not, just like I, being British, don't feel guilty about the empire or bad things that happened in India or Africa or the fact we took over other people's countries etc etc....it's just history and it happened, whether it's the holocaust or the slave trade....or eight year old children being employed in factories and coal mines during the industrial revolution....

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  15. Time heals many wounds. Discussing the impact of the Vikings on NW Europe is something completely different from discussing the impact of 20th century events. The former happened long enough ago such that it got washed over by other historical events (I don't think anyone can seriously claim still suffering from what happened in the Dark Ages - which is different from those event not having an influence anymore); but 20th century events still have real consequences today, both in the politics of countries and societies, as well in personal life stories. Simply equating them is not the correct approach.

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  16. If one says: "it's just history and it happened, whether it's the holocaust or the slave trade....", that's ok to say about the Vikings or the Romans, but very insensitive to say when there are still real consequences affecting people alive today.

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  17. Phil's comments are valid but still leave the underlying question open. When does reality become history? All can agree that whatever you say or think about Vikings (for example) does not need to have a moral aspect – it’s history. I agree with the “consequences” line of thought but it can lead to some interesting anomalies. The slave trade still has present repercussions but the Crimean War is history. Dates become secondary.

    As a point of interest then, I’d say that the Crimean War is history but that WW1 is “real”. When will WW1 become history or are Remembrance Day ceremonies ensuring that that will never happen? I don’t know. How much time must pass before our approach to an event becomes “different”?

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  18. Hi, I am from the UK. I do not normally comment on posts. I prefer to read quietly in the background. I personally believe, that whatever the viewpoint of the reader, the main point is that people are allowed to voice their view and opinion, and can do so without fear of reproach for doing so. There should be more talking and sharing of opinion, not less. Shouting people down for having a different view is the road to totalitarianism whether that be on the right, or on the left. I personally believe that history is our teacher, our reference book. That we should not judge people from history, but learn from it, so that we can move forward. Wargaming to me is a way of exploring history, learning from it, understanding it. It is not an endorsement of what happened. It is also a hobby, I enjoy it for the artistic, the intellectual, the learning, and the social aspect. It could be argued that all Wargaming is morally wrong. I would argue that to not embrace, learn and accept our past - with all its imperfections is worse. ‘Ostraching’ isn’t the solution. Dealing with it and debating is, and without needless judgement of those who hold different perspectives. I served in the military, and hold no malice to people who wargame eras during which I served, nor should I. It is a matter for them. I also believe that ‘play’ is an important social tool for understanding and developing empathy. Wargaming is play. Best wishes all, and stay safe.

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