Speaking only as an American I personally feel, that as gamers, a great many of us are quite a bit more open minded to different international cultures and mindsets than the average Joe or Jane on Main Street USA. Maybe it’s because, regardless what we might believe, our pastime truly is still a niche hobby here in the States. Because of that fact we may find ourselves going outside our usual comfort zone in order to find people to game with and expose ourselves to a variety of personal viewpoints that are contrary to our own. It’s not too hard to find folks very similar to ourselves who are will to get together to cheer on the local sports franchise; looking to find seven people who are willing to spend an afternoon playing Diplomacy is a completely different beast altogether.
I suppose even the games we invest our time in help expand our horizons as well. You could easily spend your day as a pilgrim on the way to Mecca (Nomads of Arabia), a cathedral builder (Pillars of the Earth), a WWI ace (Wings of War – among many), a farmer raising his family and expanding his farm (Agricola), and finishing up by plundering merchants in the age of piracy (Blackbeard). I’m just mentioning only a handful of thousands upon thousands of possibilities. There are so many themes and genres out there that if you spent a moment to think about them your head may begin to spin.
I’m certainly not saying that fellow gamers can’t be the most opinionated, bigoted, politically narrow minded individuals you’ll ever encounter – they’re out there, believe me they are out there – but I think our hobby lends itself to more acceptance of others than just about anything else that comes to mind. Nor am I saying that if someone enjoys getting around the table to play the latest release they don’t follow the news because they’re overly focused on getting in another game of Dominion. I’m pointing out that we’re a bit less likely to walk through the world around us with blinders on. I guess you could say it’s because we know what to bring to the table and everything else is to be simply left behind. Most of us just don’t have the time or the energy to devote to intolerance of any kind because we’re too busy involving ourselves in much more constructive pursuits.Or enjoyable pursuits at least.
In the end, I think regardless of where you may call home, the game and playing it right is the thing; be it on a table top, a board or in a hand of cards.
Or in life…
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I hope you are right in your optimistic assessment of boardgamers being more open-minded and tolerant (though indeed there are plenty of counter-examples, sadly).
Another factor that might help this is that many popular games are published in other countries, so boardgamers are likely to play and own games published in other languages, pick up on other cultural themes and influences, etc. This also encourages a bit of interest and learning about foreign languages (if nothing else, to understand text on player aids).
This exposure to other cultures also comes from hanging out at sites like boardgamegeek which have very international user communities. Communicating every day with people from lots of different countries is something I take for granted, but a majority of people in the US don't have that experience.
There's also some crossover between boardgaming and science fiction fandom; science fiction fans are often considered to be more open-minded to alternate ideas.
As for 9/11 specifically: I'm a US citizen currently living abroad, and it was quite nice to spend 9/11 this year at a weekend boardgame con with nobody thinking or talking about 9/11 etc, just enjoying the day with games and friends, without worrying about the recent flames of anger and hatred being fanned in the US by certain demagogues. Living too constantly immersed in toxic political rhetoric can be unhealthy…
I really believe that all Americans should spend a bit of time abroad to be able to put the world in perspective. It's too easy to dismiss or fear people and cultures that we're ignorant of.
I agree with many points of your text. I do not know if board gamers are more open-minded than non gamers but I can surely state that gaming is developing a more critical style of thinking. A good thinker is more likely to avoid coming to silly conclusions when he is dealing with a certain question and to judge the info provided to him by the media. Games are also great because they put you in the shoes of a character, a character that you would otherwise never get to know- him and the problems he is dealing with. As an example, I remember the first time played a wargame. I got shocked by the fact that I was planning a certain attack knowing that only half of my men would survive in the best case and by the realization that such decisions have been made in life countless times only the casualties were not plastic soldiers or wooden blocks but real people, with wifes and children. It may sound absurd but wargaming for me is a nice door to pacifism!
I believe that the misconception of wargamers is that we're a bunch of warmongers. That couldn't be further from the truth for most of the grognards out there. Because we spend time reading and learning about conflicts throughout history we understand that war isn't a first person shooter but a devastating quite and horrifying event.
Wargaming leading to pacifism isn't absurd at all Shinobu!
Great post! I share Russ's hope, and I like Shinobu's gloss on your points. Good comments!
Some great comments. I have noticed that gamers tend to range across the political spectrum, though in my experience the board gamers and wargamers tend to be more conservative. I agree that they are a tolorant bunch at heart.
I love the site. My only suggestion is add an RSS feed so I can see new posts when I check in on my "my yahoo" page and add a FB and twitter account. I like the "gaming classics" tab as well, but I wonder if its going to be worthy of its own tab as you add new content.
Thanks for stopping by Todd! I have to be honest that social media is pretty over rated so Facebook and Twitter might end up being a bit of overkill. For the foreseeable future I think we'll do our best to keep people in the loop through BGG.
Fear not though, the Gaming Classics is sort of my baby and, as we bring a few more people onboard as contributors, I'll be able to focus more on my own particular genres of expertise. Elliott, James, and myself are all pretty busy working sorts and we're doing our best to provide something new every day. I think once we have a couple more people bringing a post or two to the table every week I'll be able to give quite a few classics their due.
We actually do have an RSS feed, but it is tucked away at the bottom of the page on the right. I'll suggest to Jeff that maybe we can make it stand out more.
Thanks Ellliot. I'm now a subscriber to the RSS feed.