Manichean

The Adjectif Manichean returns to the ancient religion of the Manichéisme. The contemporary meaning, to the Direction illustrated and Literary, corresponds to a simplification of the reports/ratios of the world, brought back to the opposition of the well and Mal.

The opposition founder of Western morals brings back to the adverse conflict Satan to God. To be “malicious” from the point of view of God can be regarded as whoever is opposed to him without serving it or by rejecting its universal authority (legitimates - established authority), for example during the promulgation of the first ten commands.

It is thus about a Stéréotype of definition of the World related to a religious Pensée, not rationalist.

The character Manichean

In Candide of Voltaire the Martin character offers to us an example of this design of the world, that the exercise of the philosophical Conte makes it possible to model.

Anglo-Saxon world

Recurring criticism concerning the Anglo-Saxon Monde, related to his/her founding fathers enthusiast of ideals Messianique S, is that their way of thinking is Manichean. What induces the justification of their acts and perceptions by this prism.

An example with the Republican party: to evoke the Empire of the Evil to indicate another country of the world with which exists a very strong competition; rhetoric reintroduced thirty years after employment with the Axis of the Evil, to indicate a target very other.

Alignment in the roleplays, a behavioral prototype

See also: Alignment (roleplay)

Some roleplays - very little number in fact, but gathering a great number of players - use a concept of “Alignement”, i.e. of adhesion to a certain number of values. Each character then has an alignment, which determines some of its acts, some of his reactions. During the creation of sound character, the player must choose an alignment.

A rule of life of the played character

In Keeps & Dragons , one distinguishes two axes:

  • the good (altruism, direction of the sacrifice) and the evil (cruelty, The end justifies the means);
  • the law (respect of the authority and the tradition, ordered being, opposition to progress) and chaos (aspirations with individual freedoms, creative, driving boiling of the change, adaptability, anarchy);
a character can thus be honest-good, neutral-good, chaotic-good, honest-bad… Law and chaos, well and badly are not only philosophical orientations, but of the cosmic and divine forces which clash. The absolute neutral is the balance, which maintains balance between creative expansion (absence of stability) and order (opposition to progress and dead), between good (self-sacrifice with the group) and badly (sacrifice of the group for oneself).

See the imaginary article World > duality well/badly and order/chaos.

The plays of the Megaverse have recourse to seven alignment gathered in three tendencies: “good” (good) , “egoistic” (selfish) and “bad” (evil) . There one finds the two axes of Donjons & Dragons : there

  • well/badly between good” and “bad” tendencies the “, and in the “egoistic” tendency, between alignments “opportunist” ( unprincipled , the good) and “anarchist” ( anarchistic , the bad one) - one sees clearly showing through the political opinions of the author (Kevin Siembieda);
  • law/chaos, chaos being incarnated by the “egoistic” tendency, and by “scrupulous” alignment good (scrupulous) and alignments bad “diabolic” (diabolic) and “miserable” (miscreant) ; the law being incarnated by alignments good “man of principles” (principled) and bad “aberrant” (aberrant) .

Critical for over-simplification

This simplistic perception is anchored in certain roleplays, such as Donjons & Dragons .

The phenomenon of these plays known as Manicheans was décrié by the media during the Années 1980, which analyzed it with the ulterior motive to give the direction of a threat on the Adolescent S, associating the universe conveyed with their disorders or potential drifts.

The wild imaginings on the behaviors of the characters related to alignments, often nine, like honest good … honest bad , neutral pure , neutral bad … until chaotic bad have what to occupy the schoolkids spirits and make it possible to evacuate any understanding of the most elementary Psychologie, even of the social Psychologie with the profit of a magic square 3x3.

See too

Random links:Spark chamber | Bad times (film) | The Woman of sands | Horton Holcombe Hobbs | Constant Michel | Charriot