), and which will always now keep me out of NS politics. It takes a lot of pain to change a person's attitude that way, and I want to be clear that that pain is what has driven me to speak.Because silence would be complicity.
Because I've let what I consider evil go unanswered for too long.
Because I don't want what happened to me to happen to others.
NationStates is a game of ideologies. In some ways, I think, this is the most universal summary of its appeal. From the nations who answer issues, to the debaters over in General, to the raiders and defenders who argue about natives' rights, to the WA legislators who consider the effects of their resolutions, to roleplayers who give their ideas substance and form in their characters and governments, to the regional politicians who try on different forms of government, we all love to pit one ideology against another. It's a thrill to take an idea and follow it to its logical conclusion in the safety of the laboratory environment of an online game.
But the game is not just a laboratory. Our decisions have consequences in the reality we share with our fellow players.
Whether we believe something is true or whether we're just testing out an ideology, there comes a point when we are called to make a sacrifice for it - whether that sacrifice is one of energy, or time, or a friendship. And sacrifice has a way of strengthening our conviction. It raises the stakes. Because afterwards, if you accept that you have been wrong, then you must admit that everything you've given up for the sake of the idea has been for nothing. We call people fanatics not just because they're willing to sacrifice everything, but because they've given up so much already.
There are things that are worth the sacrifice. Truth, beauty, goodness - God, if you believe in one - freedom, the equality of all persons, food for the hungry and justice for the poor. When we disagree about what is worth our sacrifice, we are disagreeing about issues of value: whether freedom, for instance, is worth the risk that someone will abuse it to end a human life. Great philosophers, great writers, great politicians, and great artists all disagree, as NationStates players do, about the answers to these questions. But at their best, philosophy, literature, politics, art - and, yes, NationStates - all allow us to see the issues at stake.
The question is what we are prepared to sacrifice for what.
I come from a tradition that places a high value on persons, and that belief has governed (consciously or unconsciously) everything I've done in the game. It's led me to place friendships ahead of competing ideologies. It's led me to place promises made to another person - rightly or wrongly - ahead of political goals or regional security. And it's the only thing that's ever kept me civil in the face of opposition and occasionally bitter disagreement - the belief that the person I can't see on the other side of the screen is still of absolute value simply by virtue of being human.
If you don't place such a high value on people as people, then what I have to say next will not concern you.
Our choice to sacrifice one thing for another reflects our ultimate values. So be wary of any group or person who asks you to sacrifice another person for them or their cause. Be wary of anyone who sees the rightness of their ideology as a reason to belittle or demean another person. Be wary of anyone who turns on friends who have dared to disagree with them, who takes liberties with the truth because the truth would disturb the easy distinctions between Them and Us, who cares more about scoring points with the crowd than doing justice to their enemies.
Because if truth and justice and the human heart mean so little to them, your heart will be no different.
We could all point fingers and name names. I won't deny that I've been tempted to; that I started writing this with the intention to wrap it off with a dramatic, political J'accuse! But that would defeat the point. The point is this: we are all guilty of harming others in pursuit of our goals or in our conviction that we're right. But we don't have to excuse that in ourselves, our friends, our organizations, or the regions we call home.
I'm writing this now because as I considered whether and how much to get involved again, I ran across threads that still make my eyes sting and my heart ache. And I'm asking, not for me, but for everyone still caught in the trap of an ideology that has demanded more from them than it has a right to, that we see those sacrifices and those choices for what they are.
You can play the game, you can be loyal to a cause, you can believe in an ideology, without sacrificing friendships or basic human decency to it. If you find yourself slipping over that line, be sure you want to make that sacrifice. Be sure you want to become that kind of person. Be sure the game is worth it.
