Disagree. Living people have been victims of or had relatives killed by Ted Bundy. But it’s still legitimate to discuss how handsome and charming he could be, as a way of understanding that aspect of the whole serial killer phenomenon.
Analogously, I think our ability to understand the appeal of hate groups, and the degree to which their iconography fits into that, outweighs the triggering effects of those discussions on those groups’ victims.
Honestly Regal Cyclops, Imperial Kobold, and Dashing Hobgoblin are way cooler than Grand Wizard, which is rather pedestrian and lame by comparison.
Who? Bundy had great hair, though I preferred his last cut with the electrode burns, but he wasn’t in the Wisconsin penal system. Dahmer was, but only had okay hair.
Yes, the Bf109 looked cool, but the Spit was prettier and more likely to help you pick up chicks. Though they did fix the awkward nose on the Gustav. Did Hugo Boss have input there, too?
As much as I love the Hurricane, it did look like it was cobbled together. Its daddy, the Fury probably thought that the milkman had slept with his wife.
That’s all fine – it’s certainly a good idea to try and understand the appeal of hate groups. But dumbass crap like the “look at these cool names – like DnD!!” referred to in the OP is just stupid and obnoxious. The KKK names have nothing to do with why people join them.
I’ll ask again. WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH THIS SITUATION?
The guy attacked everyone for calling the KKK titles stupid, blaming us for people going into the KKK.
No one started any sort of discussion about how iconography works. Furthermore, there has been no evidence that people are attracted to KKK titles, so bringing that up couldn’t even be twisted into being about that.
The idea is absurd. No one joins a racist organization for the title. You have to believe what they are selling. No one joined the Nazi Party solely because of their fashion, either. They agreed that non-Aryans were causing problems, or they were essentially doing it out of fear for their lives.
And while people may have thought a murderer was attractive, that means they didn’t actually think he committed murder when they joined. No one in the KKK or Nazis ever tried to hide what they are to get recruits.
So can we stop this stupid conversation about how the guy might be right, when it’s very, very clear that he’s not? And that he just said it to be provocative and attack liberals?
Lighten up, Francis. We long ago agreed that Google Guy is an idiot. Then the thread went in other directions. This happens here, as you should know by now.
Just focusing on that last sentence at first, I actually disagree. I think a lot of the KKK - the weird titles, the coded language, the costumes, all that - is definitely meant to create a sense of mystique and inaccessibility that is meant to be appealing. If you belong, you belong to something exclusive, and “cool.” Is it going to get a 21st century west coast urbanite software engineer like me into the KKK? Of course not, regardless of how much I like D&D (I actually don’t care for D&D at all, FWIW.) But a young former confederate soldier in 1869? Sure. It’s definitely not going to hurt.
But here’s the thing. That’s not even what Damore’s saying, as best as I’ve been able to figure out. He’s saying that mainstream society’s unwillingness to acknowledge this is itself pushing folks into the 21st century KKK. That strikes me as an unlikely claim, for a lot of the reasons that have already been brought up in this thread.
So whether or not Damore’s right (I think he’s wrong) isn’t relevant to my point. My point is that I think we can discuss Damore’s claims on their own merits (and it’s valid to think those merits are nil, and not even worthy of discussion) without falling back on the claim that even bringing it up is so hurtful to the KKK’s victims that the topic is verboten.
If you look at Damore’s actual, articulated claims, I think they’re pretty dumb and very, very on-brand for him. But if you look at what he said with the Principle of Charity in mind (something I think I’ve seen BigT advocate for in the past), you might read it as, “Hate groups like the KKK, the Nazis, and ISIS have some pretty cool iconography, and perhaps that’s part of the appeal of those groups to disaffected young males in particular. But when I’ve brought this up to some folks, they react like I’m defending the ideology of those groups, which I am not. That eagerness to shut down discussion about anything positive about hate groups - even about their iconography - is harmful to having productive discussion around the potential appeal of said iconography.” If you think maybe that’s close to what he was trying to say, you might think he had a point buried under layers of poorly expressed and somewhat off-topic rants. But he’s not here, so I’m not sure if we’re ever going to know if that’s what he was trying to get at or not.
Gygax only claimed to be from Wisconsin.
First of all: hey, look at us! We’re discussing the issue! Neither one of us is valorizing the KKK by doing it!
Secondly: I absolutely agree that “you’re pushing people into the KKK,” is an absolutely unsupportable argument.
Third: I think it’s possible to debate whether the names are cool, and even take the position that the names ARE cool, without otherwise supporting the KKK.
The quantum leap between a 12-word tweet and this statement is precisely why all political arguments on Twitter serve as nothing more than self-gratification. This may have been Damore’s sentiment but how the hell could we ever know given the facile nature of the medium?
/disgruntled millenial rant
You are often an asshole, but you have improved. The SDMB does that, regressing posters to a centrist mean. 
Yeah, I agree. Twitter has its uses, but intelligent discussion isn’t one of them.
In any case, the coolness of their names can’t hold a candle to the motherfucking Black Panthers.
“Nighthawks” are described as “couriers.” Does the KKK ship a lot of packages? My guess would be that this is actually a dog-whistle term for the night riders so famous for burning crosses and lynching people.
Knighthawks.
There. Fixed it.
But now it’s pronounced k-niggethawk.
Grand Wizard and Regal Cyclops are cool titles, the Nazis has cool uniforms, and the Swastika, even though the Nazis didn’t create it, is a really badass looking symbol, still used in other parts of the world. I agree with the poster who said the cryptic nature of these titles and symbolism and such probably did if not now, did at the time act as if not a catalyst, at least probably piqued the interest of those who joined like Confederate soldiers. Didn’t the KKK pretty much start out as a social group?
UPS will never be the same for me from now on…
