On Vitriol Part 3

I have spilled a lot of virtual ink in my last two posts trying to point out the limitations of reason and logic and arriving at some kind of appreciation for and understanding of the nous — that part of the human mind that experiences beauty. The reason for this is that it is my answer to all of the vitriol we see flying through the interwebs.

The nous is not only where we experience beauty, it is also where we experience relationships. There is nothing particularly rational about why I have the friends that I do, or why I love my wife or why my children are some of the most important people in my life. They just are in the same way that beauty just is.

The irrationality of relationships is what makes them so critically important. If they were rational, most of us wouldn’t have many friends, nor would the human race have much of a chance at having enough kids for the species to survive more than a few generations.

Relationships have a way of existing despite the fact that we disagree on so many things. Just as an example: I am an Orthodox Christian. The vast majority of those who read this blog are not. Indeed, I would venture to guess that the average reader isn’t even Christian. Yet, here we are. We all have a relationship playing the games we love to play.

Ultimately, this reality forces us all to engage that rational and logical part of our mind to understand why we have these relationships and how it is possible that someone else who can be be called a colleague or even friend can so radically disagree with us on a variety of subjects. It is within this space, where the nous and the rational mind work together that understanding those who disagree with us happens. It is in this space where minds are changed and transformed.

Again, for example: I don’t like Thieves or Paladins. Thieves tend to lead to skill systems which I don’t care for. Clerics are paladins, why do they need a separate class that doesn’t do as good a job of being a paladin as the cleric does? Yet, my Lost Colonies campaign had both paladins and thieves because the friends that I made while playing the game do like thieves and paladins. I found myself asking the question: what is more important? The mechanics of the game we play or the relationships I have around the table? In answering that question, I found a way to include those paladins and thieves.

One of the reasons why I have been blogging as long as I have is because this corner of the internet has been focused so much on relationships. We play games we love to play. We love tinkering with those games. We love sharing ideas about those games. All of these things rise above all of our differences. The OSR exists despite the fact that we disagree more than we agree. Whether we know it or not we have been occupying that space in the human experience where the rational mind and nous cooperate. As a result this hobby has been transformed.

Vitriol exists when we forget the nous and abandon the possibility of relationship. I will grant that there are times when it is warranted, but the vast majority is wholly avoidable and we’ve proved it for years.

On Vitriol Part 2

One of the reasons that human secularism has become normative is the belief that such a system is rational and logical. Indeed, I argued many times in my life that both atheism and human secularism are more rational and logical than any form of theism. I am confident that today many atheists and human secularists would agree.

This shouldn’t be very surprising given that we are so dependent upon science and technology; however, I would point out the fact that reason and logic only make up part of the human mind. Although the Greek word nous is translated into English as mind, it does not refer to rational thought, reason or logic. The best way that the concept of the nous can be exemplified is with the idea of beauty.

No one can deny that human beings find beauty in the world. Indeed, we manage to find it in the most remarkable places. Beauty, however, is not rational. There is no hypothesis of beauty that can be tested in a repeatable fashion. There is no rational reason why I prefer German opera and my wife prefers Italian opera. There is no logical explanation why we, as human beings, experience beauty when we encounter it. Yet we do.

The part of the human mind wherein beauty happens is the nous. To dismiss or minimize this aspect of the human mind is to dismiss art, culture and and a huge chunk of human experience. Yet, that is exactly what we do when we insist that every aspect of our lives be ruled by reason and logic.

As the saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. No amount of evidence or rational thought or argument or logic is going to change the fact that I like this cover of T1: The Village of Hommlet:

better than this one:

Sure, I could rationalize it by pointing out my first exposure to the module was the later printing with Jeff Dee’s illustration, or that I really want to play the halfling fighter as a PC one day. At the end of the day, however, I just find it beautiful. It just is.

This reality can be expanded to the entire hobby. Some gamers prefer the style of play offered by 3.5 and Pathfinder. That game is beautiful to them. I prefer the simplicity of B/X and Labyrinth Lord. They are beautiful to me. Sure, a lot of virtual ink has been spilled justifying and rationalizing that beauty; however, there is no rational or logical explanation as to why we find the games we play to be so beautiful, so fun, and so endlessly entertaining.

While I could expend a tremendous amount of time and energy explaining why all of those people who find beauty in 3.5 and Pathfinder are wrong, pointing out all of the rationalizations and justifications that prove how much I am right to find beauty in B/X and LL (and you can probably find posts on this blog that do exactly that), the reality is that I can no more prove that someone who enjoys Pathfinder doesn’t enjoy it than I can prove that red is really green.

That’s because the reasons we play these games really has little to do with rational mind, but everything to do with the nous.