Fantasy Roleplaying is Not Hurting America, but a Loss of Hope Is

How escapism combined with capitalism is leading America down a dark path.

I read an interesting article on Christianity Today that talked about fantasy roleplaying as the downfall of America. As a person who plays fantasy roleplaying games and is a major agnostic, I clicked the article because I thought it would be good for a laugh. I was expecting some sort of breathy “satanic panic” retread or something like that, but the article actually was much more nuanced and thought-provoking than I thought.

In a nutshell, it suggested that the problem with fantasy roleplaying is not that it leads people to satan and away from the church in the way I expected way, but rather that it leads people to think of themselves as the hero of their own story in a very visceral way. To illustrate this, he quoted Steve Bannon, who drew parallels between Dave in Accounting and his roleplaying character Ajax.

To summarize, Dave in Accounting dies, and some guy stands up, gives a ten-minute sermon on his life and the afterlife, and that’s Dave. On the other hand, Ajax had a major presence on his World of Warcraft server, and thousands of people came out to his service to pay tribute. Who is more real, Dave or Ajax?

Bannon goes on to describe how that can be weaponized, which is how we wound up with things like January 6 and the “cornfield commandos” who dress up in the tacti-cool gear and shoot big guns. These people are disillusioned with the world, which has crapped all over them, and have decided that cosplaying the True American Patriot who will save America from the socialists is much better than being Dave in Accounting every day.

This is why the Q-Shaman was as big a figure as he was — he was cosplaying a patriot saving America from some leftist conspiracy, which grabs a bunch of attention when you wear furs and carry a spear in the Capitol building. In a world where it sucks to be a regular, everyday person, he chose to play the character of an avatar of American Freedom™.

This happens on all sides of the political spectrum — there are quite a few left-wing nutjobs who are just as weird and “play” characters who are trying to accomplish some random thing or another. It’s just that right now, the right-wing nutjobs who are cosplaying as patriots under the Trump flag are getting much more attention.

The article I linked goes on to describe this as the upshot of a disaffected populace who are more interested in an imagined fantasy world than reality, and he (sort of) blames fantasy roleplay for this. His ultimate recommendation is more god and more Christianity — to his credit, though, he wants the loving, peaceful, accepting type of Christianity and not the divisive, evangelical kind. It’s a Christian publication, after all.

As a secular leftist heathen, I advocate for a different explanation: American capitalism has destroyed all hope most of us have for a good life. We live in a country with two classes: a rich ruling elite class, and everyone else. Any ideas that we may have had about our representatives serving “we the people” have been destroyed in the past few decades, especially since corporate donations are considered “political speech” these days.

Yes, in a country that rails against Russian oligarchs, we’ve got our own bunch of them floating around — the Musks and Bezoses of the world, leeching off Americans and making their billions on our labor. And, by and large, the political class has enabled them to do so thanks to corporate donations — I mean political speech. The right continues to push for an evangelical theocracy, a fascist state, or some combination thereof, and most of the left is too chicken to do what it takes to stop them.

So, we have wound up with a country that disenfranchises most of its population by design, but especially women and minorities. There is a general sense of lost hope for America these days, and escapism is the way that many of us cope. Whether that’s through crafts, video games, movies, or D&D, most of us have something we do to break up the monotony of the daily grind toward our inevitable, impoverished deaths.

The problem comes with the fact that the combination of a loss of hope and escapism has bred a whole bunch of conspiracies, and thanks to the internet and Fox News (among others), millions buy into them. The Q conspiracy is wide-ranging and accepted to some degree by a solid chunk of the right, which was incredibly evident on January 6, 2021. All of this was spawned by a conman who got elected president and then did everything he could to disable the democratic processes that kicked him out of office four years later.

So many people feel disenfranchised and hopeless that, rather than weed out the root of the problem (unchecked capitalism), they fell for the con job that a billionaire crime lord sold them. He said they could Make America Great Again, harkening back to a time when men were men, women were subservient, and minorities weren’t people.

They imagine this country going back to some idealistic 50s scenario where everyone was happy and prosperous while ignoring the things that made it happen: a world ravaged by war and high taxes on the wealthy. America built a massive interstate system and made huge investments in science and infrastructure, and they paid for it by taxing the rich at upwards of 90%. And, because our country was largely untouched by World War II, we were able to attract the best talent from overseas and build on existing foundations instead of rebuilding from scratch as much of Europe and Asia had to.

(It’s much, much more complicated than that, but this is a starting point.)

Now, Europe and parts of Asia have surpassed us on the global stage thanks to higher taxes and more investment in education and infrastructure, and American exceptionalism is dying. Our “state of the art” interstates are crumbling while high-speed rail dominates much of Europe, and our healthcare is a garbage fire compared to just about every other European country. In a nutshell, most other industrialized nations are happier, healthier, and wealthier than we are and it shows.

So, in this country that insists that it is the best when it is objectively not, a lot of people look to escapism to cope. For some, though, that escapism means hoarding guns, dressing in military surplus gear, and attacking democratic institutions under the guise of patriotism. They are LARPing some sort of imagined “Defenders of Democracy” while actually attempting to empower a narcissistic conman and his band of criminals to subvert everything America once stood for.

Others, fed up with a society that doesn’t seem to care about them, simply shoot up schools, theaters, churches, office buildings, or whatever public place they can. Whether they have a vendetta against someone in particular, a group of people in general, or just the world at large, they are taking back control of their lives with violence and bloodshed.

Look, I get it. We all want to feel important, like we’re the main character in the story as opposed to just another cog in the machine. So, when offered a scenario where the government is actually an evil cabal run by leftist baby-eaters and Only You Can Save Us All, many people accept it without a second thought.

Most of these nonsense scenarios do a good job of giving greater meaning to things that cause our suffering. They suggest that it’s not your fault that you’re suffering, it’s all a grand conspiracy to keep you and your family down, and anyone who questions it is either a sheep or in on the whole thing. Nothing is your fault, but rather than look critically at the complicated history that brought us to this point as a nation, it’s much simpler to just say “a wizard did it,” so to speak.

And, thanks to a combination of human factors — confirmation bias, the sunk cost fallacy, and the echo chambers we place ourselves in — these ideas are constantly being reinforced in our minds. Many of us want to believe that there’s a big conspiracy keeping us down, so we do because it’s easier than the alternative.

We seek meaning in a sometimes meaningless world, and if we see ourselves as important players rather than one of millions of pawns, it’s easier to cope. And, while some of us enjoy that escapism within the bounds of our imaginations, it can become dangerous when taken to the streets (or on social media).

I don’t have a lot of good solutions here. Protesting in the streets, fighting the powers that be, and defending the weak and defenseless are all good suggestions, but they can also be twisted by bad actors. Protest in the streets (against socialism), fight the powers that be (the Democratic baby-eaters), and defend the weak and defenseless (with your guns against the evil, violent minorities and immigrants).

Even suggestions like educating yourself on American history and institutions can be twisted by those who have rewritten history in their favor. Look at the prevalence of Confederate apologists, people who argue that America was founded as a Christian nation, and those who want to erase slavery from our history textbooks because it “makes white kids uncomfortable.”

Still, it doesn’t hurt to look into actual American history through reputable sources. Find books and articles that cite primary sources rather than hearsay and guesswork, and find comprehensive sources rather than those that cherry-pick their material. Search out as comprehensive of a truth that you can find, and be aware of what the prevalent conspiracies are so you can look out for signs of their influence.

Also, research rhetorical logic and the logical fallacies that lead to conspiratorial thinking — confirmation bias, sunk cost, slippery slope, Dunning-Kruger, and other fallacies and mindsets. Being aware of them doesn’t necessarily make you immune to them, but it will help you defend against them when they are presented.

And, when in doubt about a particular theory, ask a few simple questions: How many people are involved in keeping this a secret? How much would it cost to keep this a secret? When was the last time you were part of a group of more than four people who were able to keep a secret? Finally, how completely bonkers is this secret, and would a normal person believe you if you told them? I would posit that lizard people eating babies is, by most standards, pretty unbelievable. Honestly, most conspiracies that I am aware of fall apart under that particular line of questions.

We live in a country where many of us lost hope a long time ago. And, while some of us seek escapism in roleplaying games and other fantasy worlds, others take it to the next level by making themselves the hero of their own little imagined story and doing things like mounting an insurrection.

As far as I’m concerned, the problem here isn’t roleplaying or escapism, it’s the loss of hope. Roleplaying and escapism have likely been around for as long as humans have been social creatures, which has led us to create both secret clubs with secret handshakes just so we can pretend we have some sort of importance. It also, as far as I’m concerned, led us to create things like art, music, theater, and religion — religious myths and doctrine come from people telling stories that evolve over time like anything else.

However, when combined with a loss of hope, many people seek that escapism — a perfectly normal thing — in delusions and conspiracies. It’s how conmen operate, it’s how fascism takes hold, and it’s how nations fall. We lose hope and become disillusioned with the status quo, so we make ourselves into the main character of the story and create a narrative that the world is keeping us in particular down.

It is something that I don’t necessarily fully understand. The rugged, individualistic loner as the central hero of the story is such a terrible trope when you consider that humans are social creatures that create impact together as a group. There isn’t a lot of hope to go around in America anymore, but working together to fix the actual problems — unchecked capitalism, American oligarchy, and a ruling political class that doesn’t care about the citizenry — is a much better way to go about it than playing hero.

None of us individually is as strong as all of us together, and none of us are free until all of us are free. Only by working together toward a common goal — the betterment of humanity — can we reach a better place in this world.

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