Former BioWare Executive Producer Mark Darrah Claims That Celebrating Layoffs "Crosses A Line Into Being Cruel"
Former BioWare Executive Producer Mark Darrah claimed that if you celebrate layoffs you cross “a line into being cruel” while making a larger point that purchasing a game does not allow you to be cruel.
In a recent video upload, Darrah began by making the just point that just because you’ve purchased a game, it does not give you the right to be cruel.
He stated, “The fact that you bought a game that you didn’t like doesn’t give you the right to be cruel or unkind to the people that developed that game.”
“I’m not saying that you have to like the thing you bought,” he clarified. “I’m not saying even that you aren’t allowed to complain about the thing you bought. You can have whatever opinion that you feel like towards a game even if that opinion is stupid and wrong. You are entitled to that opinion. And to some degree you’re entitled to express that opinion to the corporation to the video game studio that created this game that you bought. … But you cross a line when you start being cruel about it.”
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He then elaborated, “You shouldn’t be cruel at all. It’s a video game. You don’t need to go out of your way to cause harm to other people because of a video game you don’t like.”
He then provided examples of what he believes warrants cruelty, “When you climb into someone’s personal social media and start actively attacking that person, when you celebrate layoffs at a studio because the game that you don’t like didn’t do that well, you’re crossing a line into being cruel. And fundamentally you should have more grace for other human beings.”
While Darrah’s comments about not being cruel are true, his example of celebrating layoffs being cruelty is simply not true albeit there is significant nuance. St. Thomas Aquinas addresses this in the Summa Theologiae Supplement to the Third Part in Question 94, which specifically asks, “Whether the blessed rejoice in the punishment of the wicked?”
St. Thomas Aquinas argues, “A thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First directly, when one rejoices in a thing as such: and thus the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. Secondly, indirectly, by reason namely of something annexed to it: and in this way the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of Divine justice and their own deliverance, which will fill them with joy. And thus the Divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed: while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly.”
He elaborates, “It is not praiseworthy in a wayfarer to rejoice in another's afflictions as such: yet it is praiseworthy if he rejoice in them as having something annexed. However it is not the same with a wayfarer as with a comprehensor, because in a wayfarer the passions often forestall the judgment of reason, and yet sometimes such passions are praiseworthy, as indicating the good disposition of the mind, as in the case of shame pity and repentance for evil: whereas in a comprehensor there can be no passion but such as follows the judgment of reason.”
In layman’s terms one does not rejoice at the pain afflicted by those being laid off, but the fact the layoffs are happening given the ones being laid off were promoting disordered and in many cases objective evils such as transgender ideology with Dragon Age: The Veilguard.
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While Darrah is incorrect about celebrating layoffs being cruel, his call to not be cruel should be heeded. St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.”
“So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma,” he stated.
What do you make of Darrah’s comments?
He's right. It is cruel, but this is how you have to operate when facing an enemy. There is no place for courtesy when dealing with people who want you dead.
Sure, but it is not up to Darrah to define what is cruel and then proceed to lambast others for it. If you stretch a definition ad infinitum, then it will cover infinity of scenarios and people and will be a complete absurdity. One created entirely on your opinions and preferences, I might add - absurdity squared. That's not how any of this works.
Celebrating someone else's failure can be a completely valid position. It may not be too classy, but it's not cruel either. In sport, in business, in politics, examples are many.
And then there are cases like those rightfully pointed out by John: when there is a group that knowingly, deliberately spreads evil and corruption with the aim of undermining society and pushing it towards evil, celebrating their failure or downfall is the logical and right thing to do. Unless Darrah wants to go full Godwin and start arguing against cruelty towards all the Wehrmacht and SS soldiers who suddenly found themselves out of jobs in 1945?