Rank is a Word for Stinks

Often, to force us to rate things in terms of their highest value, we're offered a supposition that really doesn't make sense: "If you were stranded on a desert island, what book would you take with you." That's framed to force you to commit to "a" book, say the Odyssey or the Brothers Karamazov, or anything known for its depth and complexity, suggesting that we won't get bored re-reading it.

Obviously, the better book would be some kind of survival guide, preferably one tailor-made for the island you're getting stranded on. I'll choose the one written by the author who spent 10 years on this self-same island, giving an account very useful to my situation. But foregoing that...

An education, a grasp of "depth and complexity," is not managed through one book, in any case. If the reader on the island does not have a long and lengthy understanding of literature, or history for that matter, or any knowledge of the 19th century, then the Brothers Karamazov is going to be uselessly inscruitable for them. And if the individual IS educated enough to understand Dostoevski, then they should already have enough books in their head to manage just fine without any such books — since one such book really isn't going to be of much value after the first read anyhow. What are we to do in the weeks and months before we're ready to read the same book again for the ninth time?

The "best" of anything is a representation of shortcut thinking. It presumes that one's favourite food somehow precludes the need to actually have a diet of hundreds of foods, or that the best vacation spot means that no other vacation spot anywhere on earth is necessary, or that so long as I see the best movie, I'm done with movies now, I've seen them all. Saying something is the "best" is really shorthand for, "I have no comprehension of nuance, so I prefer to speak with my gut." It's tiresome, it's bland, it doesn't say anything real about the thing described and... it's an inescapable form of list-making content on the internet. The pervasiveness of it really is remarkable. It allows so many people to say so little about so little, while still sounding clever.

List-making is structural rewarded online; rankings are faction-driven, they are easy to argue about and infinitely repeatable. This does not conflict that they are the lowest form of discourse, one in which individuals really do not need to explain themselves, or their choices, especially when those choices are framed as visceral, personal or in some way political. It takes no study to name the best of something, since anything not seen or experienced can be discounted with no fault upon the writer or speaker. If someone claims that the "best sports team" is one of the twenty-four in a given league, there's a very good chance that 1 in 24 people who care at all about sports will agree with them. Everyone else is, obviously, "biased," being unable to see the truth about the best sports team as I personally care to name it.

Moreso, people don't hold one another accountable for these opinions. It's really just a game, just a way to pass the time, just a choice some people want to hold dear because they must hold something dear... and so, randomly or merely because of the way their minds are framed, they've chosen their hill to die on, however ludicrous that hill is. The best way to have an "identity" nowadays is to pick something so unpopular that no one really knows it, then claim it's the "best" of its category, proving somehow that the speaker is that much more educated and knowledgeable, because they alone understand the best to be something that vast majority does not know.

As a result, ranking becomes a stand-in for thinking. After so many years of it, I'm quite done with it. I do not care what the best version of D&D is. Or what wins Best Picture this year, or what should have won it. Or anything to do with ranking one thing over another. I am perfectly capable of liking a thing, supporting it, voting for it, wanting it to become standard and giving my time and energy to that thing, without having to compare it to some other thing. This last, which is so de rigeuer in this culture, holds zero interest for me.

This allows me to enjoy many things at the same time in a culture that craves comparison. I do not live, for example, in the "best country" in the world; I do not live in the best city of that country; I do not think anything like this actually exists. I happen to live in Canada; there are things I like about the country and things I don't. On the whole, I think I'm happy with it as a country. I would not like to see it change for the worse. But it is not a better country because it happens to sit alongside a country I would rather not live in. The one has very little to do with the other, except that they are different and that I like how they are different. Ranking one over the other tells me nothing about either. Stating those specific things I like, on the other hand, makes a point, just like discussing those things I don't like. None of this has anything do to with liking this thing more than that, or less than that, or anything to do with comparisons. It is simply that I have this, I like this, I'd like to go on having this... and I'd rather not have that. The person who lives in the address across the street may feel differently. That is just fine. They may think what they wish. I am fine with them going their own way, so long as it does not interfere with me going mine.

As such, I have spent much time on this blog disparaging 5e or the White Box or attitudes about D&D in general. I do not commonly (I cannot think of an example, but I may have spoken loosely at some point) rate things. I based my game setting and rules system on AD&D because that was the only system available at the time when I started making changes. I made changes to those things about AD&D that I didn't like. I still don't like those things. I do not think AD&D is a good system. But it is irrelevant to say that AD&D is a "better" system than what follows. It may be, but it is irrelevant to say so. It is better to describe, in detail, taking one's time, what things are and how they function, and what they attempt to resolve, then discuss how others options attempt to resolve those same problems, discussing and pointing out why this fails or that succeeds. It is not valuable to make blanket statements. Nor it is valuable to give blanket statements any credence, just because we think we should "tolerate" other people's preferences. 

"Preference" is a form of prejudice. It is not an opinion, it is a preconceived opinion that sets out to change other people's minds upon the basis of favoritism or partisanship. It is not intelligent, it is visceral and worse, it is performative. We must stop, as a culture, assigning "preference" a value it does not possess. It is not worthy of tolerance, because it refuses to give itself value through thought or investigation.

Some might hear "preference" as when we say, "I prefer tea to coffee." This is not the sort of preference that is stated, however. What is said, however, is that "tea is better than coffee," as though we should obviously drink one and forego the other.

That coercion, the one that says, "Star Wars" is the best picture ever made, and anyone who doesn't think so is... blah blah blah," underlies every statement of this kind. We are not being asked to just rank things. We are being asked to revere those things that are ranked, because some organisation, or even some solitary person, has taken the time to rank things, as though the ranking itself is an achievement. It is not.

Obviously, for whatever reason, we're not going to stop ranking things. Most likely, the habit reaches into a distant past, perhaps a million years ago, before consciousness, when human-like beings comprehended that "this plateau" was better than "that one," because on the whole there tended to be more food there. Since, we've allowed our minds to be guided by a similar principle, the idea that "best" is equivalent to "most resource-giving"... only it's become conflated with a sort of masturbatory impulse to conflate everything. I don't expect it to stop.

But for some individuals, I ask, please... hear it when it happens. Hear it and understand what you're hearing. The groundlings are always going to indulge. That does not mean we all must.