All That Matters Is What We Do
A Look At Why I Changed My Mind About CAIN
Written by Cerian Quilor
As has been raised here in the forums, on Discord and in the Gameplay Forums, I’m not a huge fan of CAIN. That's probably never going to change, though who knows? But right now, I’m not here to just talk about why I don’t like it so much as why I dislike it less, and the process for my own evolving change of view on the organization. As I said, I still don’t like it, but… well, it’s proponents have a point.
To start, we need to wind the clock back to May of 2012. The roots of what I like to call the ‘Great Nazi Crusade of 2013’ go back to well before this (including things like the incident with the region Anarchy and Lone Wolves United). That said, the real the starting point for the crusade was the invasion, by Greater German Reich (GGR), then the most active and troublesome of the Nazi regions, of The United Kingdom of Britain(TUKB), a region affiliated with and under the protection of the Land of Kings and Emperors (LKE). From there, regions across NationStates (though not Europeia, as the Republic has never officially declared war on anyone) quickly began to join in a great Anti-GGR effort. For some the complaint was GGR’s habit of RMB Ad-spam, for others it was their action against the LKE (as several regions involved were allied with the LKE or friendly to them) and for still others it was the fact that… well, everyone hates Nazis. We can all agree that Nazis are despicable and that Nazism is a horrible ideology. Declaring war on GGR became, popular. Empire of Earth hosted an anti-Nazi summit, and things went on swimmingly from there.
Eventually, TUKB was liberated, GGR agreed to stop ad-spamming the Pacific and, if I recall correctly, several other GCRs and things toned down somewhat, though not entirely. But the idea of everyone in Gameplay uniting against Nazis in NationStates was raised. It was a politically attractive option… and even more, a morally attractive one. I was 100% for this early war against GGR, and still think it made sense at the time, as a specifically targeted political war within the realm of Gameplay. It wasn’t really out of some attempt to completely drive Nazism out of NS.
The word Nazi attracts powerful emotional reactions, and for good reason. I’ve said that the word tends to make people shut off their critical thinking skills, which is a somewhat… aggressive way to put it, but it does make people want to do something about it. Groups like Antifa continued their war against Nazi, Fascist, and Right Wing regions, running a strange mix of real life and gameplay politics.
I’m not really sure that fighting RL political battles is something that belongs in Gameplay. I don’t think anything we do to Nazi or Fascist regions is going to affect those ideologies in the real world, and I come to this game to play a game, not fight RL politics - and if fighting RL politics in NS is your thing, there are options. Like Antifa or other such regions. That's always been my view.
In early 2013, things started up again. The founder of GGR was temporarily deleted (the mods later reversed the decision) and a coalition of regions, led by Cormac and Asgard, took advantage and invaded. Soon after, war was declared on GGR by The Pacific again. Then SovCon (The Sovereignty Confederation, an attempt at an interregional organization) was formed with the promise of Anti-Nazism as a major focus, and what started as a war against GGR turned quickly into a general Anti-Nazi crusade all across NS, with especially previously militarily neutral (or militarily inactive) GCRs like The East Pacific and the North Pacific and the South Pacific getting in on the action.
Attempts were made on Nazi Europe (NE), which was liberated, and after a while things started to (again) die down. By mid-2013, even as Nazi Regions and Nazi-allied regions were growing in population, and even as Nazi Europe, liberated or not, was slowly starting to engage in raiding again and work with GGR, a region it had previously not gotten along with, things really did fall off a cliff. Infighting within SovCon brought it down, relations between Europeia and The NPO broke down (leading to the infamous ‘NPOs retort’ which has since been retracted by The Pacific) for unrelated reasons and attempts to invade Nazi Europe proved fruitless.
During this whole affair, I was far less a fan of this war effort because it wasn't going to get rid of Nazis in NS. Even if NE was refounded (which happened, in 2014), it wouldn't stop them, and the publicity seemed to be helping them more than the war hurt them. Had we more or less ignored them after Elias Greyjoy's attempted repeal of Liberate Nazi Europe (I was a rare Europeian proponent), or maybe even before, I maintain they would be a much smaller concern. But no one has, and Antifa never will. To make matters worse, the password to NE was eventually figured out, and the Nazis were kicked out of NE, allowing them the benefit of recruiting directly without security concerns. The hornets' nest had been kicked.
So that brings us to now. I don’t know all the specific idiosyncracies about what led to CAIN, the context and whatnot. And I do think that, broadly speaking, working together to liberate Nazi occupations of regions is a fine idea (the efficacy of going on the offensive against them, as I’ve said many times, is far more suspect, in my view). I’m not on the inside of CAIN, what with its hidden forums and not a lot of open communication as to what it is doing with member regions, from what I can tell.
There’s something to be said, as well, for the goal of diplomatically and politically isolating Nazi Regions. I’m not sure that CAIN is the best way to do it…. But I’m not sure if there’s a better way to do it cohesively.
CAIN will never substantively hurt the Nazis themselves, and probably do more net gain for them than harm - at the very least, it will be a wash. Some of my data for this is more nuanced than I used to view it, but I think the war has helped NE and similar regions. The attention given to Elite Region of Global Command during the recent condemnation attempt has, at last count, quadrupled their size, for example. But… there’s a case to be made that some of that ‘help’ to NE is not really as a result of global anti-Nazi efforts - I suppose we’ll need more data to determine causation.
But what actually made me rethink CAIN is two things - all the above information is percolating in the back of my mind when Cormac makes a post in the CAIN thread in Gameplay and says this:
Initially I didn’t agree with him, and I still kind of don’t, but then I found inspiration on Tumblr.
I have spent most of the last two years on Tumblr doing fandom things - fanfiction, meta-analysis, shipwars, the whole kit and kaboodle. One of these fandoms is Joss Whedon’s old show, Angel the Series. where I was engaging in something of a common(ish) dispute in the fandom.
A dispute about whether or not the finale of the show fits the themes of the show or. In that running debate the major points of contention between the two sides are these line from several seasons before the finale, when the titular character Angel, considers a recent failure to kill some Arch-Demons.
What this exchange means, in the context of the show, (or so is my contention) is that if you can't save the whole world in one fell swoop, you can do little things to make the world a better place, piece by piece, bit by bit. That the little goods are worthy and build up. That you can still be a good person even if you don't go big or try to fix all the problems. Angel tried to kill some of the most evil demons in existence by invading their home turf - but failed miserably, and that's where he had the revelation mentioned above. That there will be no great, glorious final showdown.
Angel learned, as we have with the Nazis, that you can't 'win' against evil. You can't 'beat' evil. So you just have to take it one day at a time, help people, make their lives better, and, as the motto of Angel's detective agency says 'help the hopeless'.
So with Cormac’s words floating around in the back of my mind, I talk about all this with some friends on Tumblr and something clicked. Because, really they’re making the same case - that even if you can’t ‘win’, there is something worthy about the fight itself. To borrow another phrase from Angel the Series, it’s about fighting the good fight.
And I can, to a great extent, respect that purpose, that ideal. I can’t deny that part of me still finds the idea of fighting RL political battles in Gameplay silly, and that I have issues with what I have seen of CAIN's tactics and methodologies, but…
I can respect the intent of CAIN, and its proponents. I can respect their zeal, their desire to fight, and, to a point, the value of the fight itself. I’m personally never going to lead an effort to find Nazi dragons to slay, but certainly, as a sailor and officer of the ERN, and if I ever become GA again, or what have you, I’ll engage in the policies of Europeia on that front, as one should. Because I’m hardly a fan of Nazis and I’m all for trashing them on the field, I've just never been a fan of making this large focused aggression and trumpet-sounding effort.
In the end, I can’t honestly be as dissmissive and negative towards CAIN anymore, and retain a consistent worldview (something I place an incredibly high value on)... because… well, I can’t deny that Cormac has a point. That even if the Nazis can’t be ‘beaten’ by CAIN, there is cause there worthy of Europeia’s attention, and that of the wider NS world.
If ignoring Nazis definitely won’t get rid of them anymore, and if fighting them isn’t going to ‘get rid’ of them, then nothing we do matters. And, since nothing we do matters…
Well, as Angel said, then all that matters is what we do.
1: https://forum.nationstates.net/viewtopic.php?p=31012946#p31012946
